dogtrax

Moose became the moniker Murph taunted me with - me, always the bigger one - but eventually I got even on our hard-scrabble sand lot football field, tackling him a bit harder than I should have - I could have used more restraint - and yet there we are, stuck in the photograph, the two of us kids, laughing with our bodies crooked, years of friendship and music still ahead of us

for #OpenWrite

Day 20

My dust will find a voice — Sara Teasedale, The Answer https://poets.org/poem/answer

With whispers, my words will tumble and shift: an hourglass turned upside down, adrift

for Advent of Joy

Day 19

There's a lilt in the music that vibrates and thrills — Georgia Douglas Johnson, Joy https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/georgia-douglas-johnson/joy/

I'm listening for the bends, the turns, the way the song wends its way through familiar melody, and still, we're singing with bells, ringing, we're singing so loud, our voices are lost in the echo of the night

for Advent Of Joy

my father believed in gardens delighting at burying each thing in its potential for growth — Kaveh Akbar, What Seems Like Joy https://poets.org/poem/what-seems-joy

All we ever planted were tomatoes and maybe some peppers along the edge of the cement in our apartment block right there where the sun touched every day and my father would wonder where the tomatoes had gone and I would shrug in silent bafflement while wiping the seeds and remains off my lips

Day 18 my father believed in gardens delighting at burying each thing in its potential for growth — Kaveh Akbar, What Seems Like Joy https://poets.org/poem/what-seems-joy

All we ever planted were tomatoes and maybe some peppers along the edge of the cement in our apartment block right there where the sun touched every day and my father would wonder where the tomatoes had gone and I would shrug in silent bafflement while wiping the seeds and remains off my lips

for Advent Of Joy

Day 17 There is no loneliness like theirs — Jeffrey Wright, A Blessing https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46481/a-blessing

An old scarf worn loose on the shoulder, nearly falling until her fingers reach up to set me straight, and I only realize in that tender moment of hers the cold air that's been consuming me all this time, my mind so lost, so deep in thought

for Advent Of Joy

Day 16

I will wander to the woodland Where the laden trees await — Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nutting Song https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/paul-laurence-dunbar/nutting-song/

Pausing, in my walking, to ponder the sound of the wood and all that we should appreciate in these days of constant rambles – this quiet reduces the daily chaos to shambles - and I am now following the fox into who knows where

for Advent Of Joy

Day 15 And he sings all the day — Lucy Larcom, The Brown Thrush https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/lucy-larcom/the-brown-thrush/

Every stick, a stage

the tree, as theater

us, as audience

for Advent Of Joy

Merely a dusting, with only the skittering tracks of night creatures

for Algot

Day 14 And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? – Kahlil Gibran, On Joy and Sorrow https://poets.org/poem/joy-and-sorrow

Its lonesome song – merely breath - made hollow by the work of hands on wood

And if I could, I'd catch that note - I'd let it float into the air of a constellation sky

for Advent Of Joy