No one asked me.
He just rode up
from a crack in the Earth.
Black lightning
in a gold-wheeled chariot.
The horses, bridled
in silver,
diamonds studding the wheels.
Trust me.
You’d swoon too.
Wake up breathless,
married
in a hot bed
licked by cool flames.
You’d eat the seed too.
You’d want that kind
of power rooted
inside you.
Yes, don’t lie.
Mother, we could not
have continued like that forever,
Earth, our secret garden.
Flowers get plucked.
They fade.
They die.
Without roots,
they are dead forever.
Without seed. . . .
Mother, you don’t understand.
You can’t remember
how a god can lord
over you,
bring you to the point
of death,
turn you into an explosion
of flowers.
-Radiance Writer
Photo by Fanny Gustafsson on Unsplash
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A Free Verse Poem for Connecting to Nature
As long as we bend toward nature,
we will make wreathes—
sticks and twigs and berries and flowers
bound together
escaping in unwieldy whisps;
taking the forms of the universe
nests of galaxies
swirling
the open center—a welcome home.
Laureled athlete, warrior
marriageable maiden,
evergreen
oak
cherry blossom
lavender
rosemary
whatever your season;
you get to choose to break
what will regenerate.
Whatever impulse impels you,
be sure to bend your own ornery limbs
around the sacred space.
Create it!
Bless it.
Make it holy—
the cycles, the changes,
the impermanence that is permanent.
Accept your place on the wheel.
Dance.
Celebrate!
Crown your own head
with the rhythm
we must all surrender to.
Maybe you’ll set yours on fire,
put a candle in it,
set it adrift on a lake
until the water douses it.
Death will come. Even winter.
But so will life. So will life.
But you must let go.
Evergreen gives way to cherry blossom,
cherry blossom to herbs and oak and
around and around
forever turning
with us
and without….
-Radiance Writer
-Photo by Szobota Zsuzsi on Unsplash
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I've heard some strange reports.
Iguanas fell from trees.
South Florida became
too cold for reptile blood.
Iguanas fell from heights
like bombs dropped from the sky.
They've been slow to explode.
It's really just the stench
of never waking up
in land that isn't yours.
Who defines invaders?
The ones who invaded first.
-Radiance Writer
Photo by Nitty Ditty on Unsplash -
Reddening light from the window drew me
just as I was about to start dinner.
On the warm round of the driveway,
I sit for the evening show.
Black trees across the street—
backlit, a golden sky glow.
It happens every day
final glory before the lights go out for the night.
Today, I’m different.
I showed up.
Mosquitos nip at my ankles.
Potatoes need shredding.
The oven needs heating.
I continue on my way to the mailbox
(the practical reason for going outside).
Hands full of ads, my attention goes east.
Is that the surf ripping along the shore?
I’m sure of it, but I can’t see.
Something else surprises—
a giant pearl resting in an opalescent shell
light-tinged clouds—
moonrise.
On the sidewalk next to the mailbox,
I am poised
observer of three worlds
rolling in harmonious circles
endlessly about each other
through black space.
On the shoulders of a giant,
privy to heavenly beings,
I barely comprehend—
I am kin!
Frailty falls away.
As I am witness,
I become the fourth world.
-November 16, 2024
Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash