Culture of Me/3

May 30, 2017 by leximagines

Eggshells pile
in a bowl on a counter
next to a tin.
The day broke open.
Sun wrinkles through the cracks,
glows like yolks
no longer in residence.
Just a reminder –
we have more
to do,
always.

Crows complain
like an old married couple,
or
do they warn us on
yesterday’s storm washing
away
that which is no longer
needed.
Just a brief –
a constant one,
we are not
in control.

James Taylor aches in
the background, a
harmonica in harmony
with him of days past.
Remember –
the wheel turns and
returns,
and once again
we recycle and protest
and call to action.

Wind skims down the slanted roof
whirring through long chime pipes,
carrying with it
leaf bits
beaten off tree limbs in
last night’s hail.
They flutter, scatter in cadence.
This, too –
squall brings change,
transformation into something
new.

Who said faeries and elves don’t exist?
I wonder –
on my moss rock,
mushrooms abloom in leaf mold,
and fiddleheads tickling
my toes.

Author’s Note:

About once a month our writing group converges. We eat and laugh. We catch up. And then we write. Today, we were at Niki’s house. There were treasures to be found by my iPhone camera. Thank you, Niki, for leaving the eggshells.

As tradition demands, there are prompts to be pulled from an envelope. We can ignore it if we choose. Or choose another one. We’re loose like that. And we each throw in a word to be included. Which can be. Or not. We write for a little over a half an hour. When the bell rings, we leave some time to “finish up.”

We’ve been at it for over seven years now. And today we were seven ranging from nineteen to sixty-three. Grandmother, dancer, Naval Reserve, ELA teacher, retired and soon-to-be, and black belt. Among some of these things that we are, we revel in one another as writers and women of the world.

This is our culture.

My prompt:
Who said faeries and elves don’t exist?

Our words:
ordinary, magnanimous, teenager, mushroom, doubt, candid, slime

The Culture of Me/2

May 29, 2017 by leximagines

I unfurl, allow
you to enter. Rooms
of wonder, my residence,
your brilliance attended.

The Culture of Me/1

May 28, 2017 by leximagines

In the culture of me, I
slip on faces,
masks
to define who I am.

When all falls
away
in your light from
within,
only then
do I dance in freedom.

Summer Break

May 27, 2017 by leximagines

Day one of summer break, as
rain descends on artist fair
and head cold wrapped around me,
together we are paired.
We rest, enchanted in distraction.

Leaving Treasure

May 21, 2017 by leximagines

I seat an egg cockleshell
miles from it’s home,
where waves of grass abound
instead of water.

I deposit it lightly
where branch once protracted
from trunk rooted deeply underground.

“It’s a treasure,”
I whisper to my darling sister tree.
“Hold it safe for seeker to find.”

And I’ll return someday,
in hope to behold idle womb
as I confer a new wonder to tarry.

Commission/2

May 17, 2017 by leximagines

Crickets troll in harmony
with birds I cannot see
gathered within nests and
cloistered under leaves.
A symphony of feathered things
and crawly sorts
as besom winds transverse.

Commission/1

May 16, 2017 by leximagines

I.

I saw you this day.
Damselfly or dragon, I could not tell.
You lifted sprightly from ebon thick mud,
I thought, much too early.
Do you not know there still may be snow
to emblazon your cellophane wings?

Commission/3

May 14, 2017 by leximagines

Elfin bursts of lavender,
impish saffron flare,
ruby-studded milky stars,
we almost slight you under foot
and paw. Winsome faces raise
to sun’s genteel sigh,
and give us pause to linger
in your shy commission.

Now and Me

May 8, 2017 by leximagines

I am that dancer
whose hips were too large
with legs much too short, but now,
with age much too long, I dance anyway,
in rain, no umbrella needed.

I am that actor
who wasn’t a star but lived
to step in shoes and speak new words
from another’s view, and I do, now,
in my own shoes to read my words aloud
for no one else to hear,
no applause, thank you.

I am that writer
without a degree, without training
to make my words matter, but now
they do, if just to me.

I am that artist
of bleary shapes,
where nothing looked as it should
in all the wrong colors, except now,
with my honest companion,
iPhone with camera protected in lilac,
we transcribe through lens and eye,
a pleasure just for me.

He said let them play
and in their play they will find
their good, their passion, their asset,
nothing that shakes the world,
but a design of compassion
and empathy, beauty
and laughter, presence,
the only way to be,
the only one now me.

Author’s Note:

I’m learning to play.

Lifted

May 6, 2017 by leximagines

I love the wind

It fills me up and
gives me strength

This night is different

There is no rain
Yet trees thrash
knocking windows
scraping the side of the house
A pathetic call
as if I am to rescue it
Bring it inside for a cup of tea
to settle its nerves

Or maybe a warning
Don’t wander too far
lest I be carried away
A rag doll knocked around
loosely cradled in wind’s
wide arm, a howling way
to go, lifted unmercifully
to unkown place
Left in a heap, crumpled
from the journey
Scarred and bruised
Only a faint whistle
to remember my place

I love the wind
but not tonight