his steady light

Dreaming of the Sun
whose warm rays surround her
and caress her
daily

she orbits him
and he pours his love on her
steady
constant
joyous

occasionally he flares up
and that might hurt
some of the small cells
on her surface

but she sheds
dead cells
they are reabsorbed
and she basks

in his warmth
with joy
ecstatic
orbit

she is alive
turning
whirling
so her small children
are not overcooked

like mercury

are not frozen

like uranus

mars is a rival
but the seas are dead
at least

her small children
think so

and venus
swelters
and is clouded
all the time
toxic

she turns
dancing
full of joy

in his steady light

___________________

written January 8, 2022

gristle for my mill

I think
you are my muse

another muse
in a series

like the men
who have young girls
in series
muses

I think
you are gristle
for my mill

I will grind your bones
to poetry

you don’t like my poems
I don’t care

hopefully you won’t read them
your bones
ground

Valentine

I am thinking of you
my love my valentine
on valentine’s day
at two in the morning

two to too
much to bear
I want to be a tiger
not an ox

disabled
but still strong
I settle into the traces
again

the load is placed
I look at my path
gather my strength
turn on my oxygen
and pull

no one expects
an ox on oxygen
to be able to pull

you don’t either

why do you think
so little of me
why do you scorn
what I do

when you return
you find
traces of the wagon wheels
on the ground

but once I am on the road
you can’t follow
you can’t find me
any more

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt slender, as in slender hope.

The photograph is neither an ox nor a tiger, but a sea lion, off of Marrowstone Island, Washington.

wear and tear

B and I have been walking the beaches a lot since we returned from our trips in January.

We are noticing how much the beach changes daily. The high winter tides wash sand out and back in. Some days the beach is covered with pebbles and some days it is smooth sand. The boulders move and the cliffs do too.

With the heavy rains this year, sections of cliff collapse. We have both edged closer to the water when we see sections of sand and clay that have fallen: some are as large as a car or larger. We would not survive if that fell on us.

Trees hang on for as long as they can, but they fall too.

We also see root systems exposed when a section of the cliff falls and know that those trees are struggling to survive.

We are debilitated by the length of the pandemic, but going out walking every day, watching birds and trees and the beach change, the eagles flirting, the seals peering out of the water, this renews me. I hope you have a place to walk.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: debilitating.