A moment of breathing, in the woods

Stop – note the uncurling green branch buds;

this small grove of elm trees awakens

for #OpenWrite https://www.ethicalela.com/when-spring-speaks-in-tricubes/

I am wander a page spelunker wrapping fingers around verse immersed inside some other poet's writing finding something forgotten or missed a glance a sound a thought a kiss

for #OpenWrite https://www.ethicalela.com/the-verse-collector/

You see the whole of things, Charles Wallace, while we capture only the softest of edges

It's almost as if you're invisibly threaded in connection to your sister, her thoughts in the night like starlight,

and yet, you fall silent near strangers, observant as always, always noticing the slightest twitches in the fabric of time

You might do well to learn to wear humility as a blanket, for the universe depends upon you

a poem inspired by A Wrinkle In Time

for #OpenWrite

Beneath snow, ice — an invisible layer of danger

Tread carefully where nature is known to harden in form

We wander this world always on the edge of collapse

for #OpenWrite

Worse than silence, the tenor sax sounds wounded, like an old cat in the corner of a room - out of tune and out of sorts – my breath, of course, out of sync with its notes: it's broke but can be fixed; it's this I think about in the days it lays open on the workshop table, the technician like surgeon taking my Martin apart – reduced to pads and keys and levers and springs – things just scattered about - piece by piece by piece, until that moment of re-connection, when repairs have been complete

for #OpenWrite about healing and hurt (Martin is a brand of tenor saxophone)

Inks of rain; Life, described, then realigned - fits between lines in unanimous silence; Choose a word, then a moment, to edit, design, distribute, as nothing burns outside our bodies: poetry as broken intimacy

An etheree mirror poem for #OpenWrite using Vintage Vanity by Terrance Hayes as foundational text https://poets.org/poem/vintage-vanity

Secret: make a song, gold-woven with shadows

My fingers play you, gently,

a blanket, blue like silver

I sing and in my heart

I shelter you, secretly

a blackout/found poem for #openwrite Original Source: Secret by Gwendolyn B. Bennett https://flic.kr/p/2qLRDgD

All day it continues, each kindness reaching toward another—a stranger singing to no one ...

— from For The Sake Of Strangers by Dorianne Laux

You spent your day in hesitation, waiting for the moment when kindness might come

But what if in that waiting, you missed the opportunity to receive the grace of another's reaching out

And so, too, today brings the possibility of each of us making one small act to alter the life of another

Sing the song another might hear

for #openwrite

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152177/for-the-sake-of-strangers

I thought you should know the first one wasn't the last one — two others arrived afterwards, all born healthy and now settling into adulthood;

the oldest, the one you knew and loved and held and hugged, a maker of documentary films and creative arts;

the middle, the one you knew was coming but could not hold on long enough to see, a weekend club DJ in New York City;

the youngest, the one you never knew but might have loved the most, a hip-hop music producer living in a college room in Boston

I thought you should know we're doing OK

for my Mom, who died at an age younger than I am right now

for #openwrite

My old classroom was drenched in cold, isolated silence;

Now I'm bathed in songs of joy rising from the playground

a Naani poem for #openwrite