dogtrax

And take the hope of dreams in trust — William Stanley Braithwaite

If we must, try, then, for if not, then what, and when?

Day 16 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'It's A Long Way' by William Stanley Braithwaite https://poets.org/poem/its-long-way

She quickens her pace - a race to make it back home; cold paws and chilled face

for Algot

with watermelon seeds we swallowed as children ... — Nomi Stone

Wonder what has rooted inside of us - despite warnings of elders, we swallowed it all; maybe there's an entire forest growing inside silent places, the spaces no one else sees, the seeds of abundance and stories

Day 15 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'Waiting For Happiness' by Nomi Stone https://poets.org/poem/waiting-happiness

teach me to never bend again — Danez Smith

for what we've become: creases, uncomfortable patterns folded in, then tucked inside pants pockets, then forgotten until after the drier, pulled apart like a paper snowball, all compact of ink and pulp and us

Day 14 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'Less Hope' by Danez Smith https://poets.org/poem/less-hope

Informational information; Monitorial foliation - flatiron tinfoil: afloat afoot afar - Art or?

for DS106 Daily Create

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And might you have a bit of magic in that feather pen of yours, a little bit of ink of forgiveness to sketch across my page, so that in the side margins, in that edge of art and ideas, I might settle in, in seclusion?

Day 13 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'Work Without Hope' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge https://poets.org/poem/work-without-hope

You could make this place beautiful — Maggie Smith

Use paint, though it might splinter and chip

Use voice, though it might wobble and crack

Use love, though it might falter and fade

This place will be beautiful, at some distant day

Day 12 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'Good Bones' By Maggie Smith https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/good-bones

Then comes a sudden flash of light ... — Alice Dunbar-Nelson

How long had we sat inside, waiting for fireflies, for their phosphorous spirit to spark the night's dark?

Too long to not become logy, sluggish in a tiny tent filled between with snacks and teens

who still believed in a bit of magic, even if not one of us breathed it out loud

Day 11 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by “Hope” Alice Dunbar-Nelson https://poets.org/poem/hope-1

We ponder what patterns matter other than moons and tides — Patricia Spears Jones

I am listening, ear against skin, to the way her heartbeat sings, a rhythmic trance from one who's leaning such a weary body against mine, and mine, against hers, in order to find sync

Day 10 for #AdventPoems24 inspired by 'May Perpetual Light Shine' by Patricia Spears Jones https://poets.org/poem/may-perpetual-light-shine

and orchards rooted in constellations — Muriel Rukeyser

Sometimes, our stories bud and bloom like flowers, like stars, like something golden and delicious on orchard trees, and just before nightfall, we lay back and look up, connecting them together to make sense of the world

Day 9 for #AdventPoems24 From “Elegy in Joy” by Muriel Rukeyser https://poets.org/poem/elegy-joy