Daily Archives: December 3, 2022

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Lit

That moment after the tree is taken down
not from greed but because the trunk has split
dangerous operation; all survive
Even the tree. A split 20 foot trunk may survive.
We won’t know until spring.
You are hunting in the sections that are down.
“Yes!” you say and hold them up.
“Invaders. They’re not native.
I shoot them when they steal the birdseed.
They crawl into the trunk to die.”
You hold a shriveled carcass up with each leather glove.
They too look like leather or shrunken heads.
Your smile lit up
at this evidence of your successful aim:
killing squirrels.

I think this is my first ekphrastic poem. Inspiring photograph, right? So that makes me laugh, it’s so gruesome. I was looking for a photograph for the Flower of the Day and came across this. Taken in January 2022.

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sonnet 3

I have neither roots nor wings nor love.
I lie: friends gather round to talk each day.
The early dark slides over from above.
No one to warm my bed, for no one stays.
The dark creeps up a sickening horrid thief.
I have no heart to stay awake at night.
It’s barely five; why this flood of grief?
It’s only in the morning I’m alight
before the morning is even close to dawn.
Wide awake I clamber from my bed.
I stretch, the teapot sings and I just yawn
and wonder why the night brings on such dread.
I tell my friends that now I’ll date a tree.
He never leaves and he will stay with me.

__________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: roots.

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Roots

Roots of the earth running through the rock. The more I learn about rocks, the more amazed I am. Rocks are formed by volcanic action, melting and hardening, or by sediment, layers over years, or by pressure on one of the other two.

And there are these roots on the beach as well:

An enormous tree will be there one day and gone the next. Or it will stay in position for years and then disappear.

Here are roots from the sea:

I thought it looks like a mermaid or merman, tossed ashore.

More gifts from the sea.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: roots.