Message to the World NaPoWriMo #4

In the swing of my arms I know

I belong here.  My spirit is alive right here.

My childhood home, the old downtown:

Camas, Washington; Fern Prairie,

Ireland District, our woods –

we can never leave

each other.

Music and art bloom in us like

so many tulips, constellations of fireflies,

a dazzle of autumn leaves.  We construct home

with our arts.

I feel my lungs threshing oxygen

from the precious air.

My heart rocks the cage of my chest –

I look homeward and see forever.

Let us dare to keep on like this.

Friends, this is my real life! It is sacred.

No matter what,

I send my message to the world.

J. Pratt-Walter, 4/4/2020

Traveling Apart NaPoWriMo #3

 Even if we must pace our way apart

we are still neighbors and friends.

You nourish my being

and I, yours

with our small ways of knowing.

Let our stories make us friends

when caring hands cannot touch.

Carry my words, seekers and loners

and may the light of home

wherever that is

always find you safe.

J. Pratt-Walter

Some Days

Some days

I have forgotten the password

to my life, or Lost the connection

or 404, Page not found. 

If I were a starfish

I could grow a briny new limb.

If I were grass, decapitation

uplifts the wand of growth,

but this meager pilgrim has misplaced

her map.

Today

I am untethered

and can’t see myself

in the sharp curvature of Earth.

If you find me wandering,

remind me of the deep sky in my eyes

and the pure and holy home in my heart.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 4/10/2019.

The Old House

Houses wear their history like a shawl,

draped loosely, with a

pin of years to hold it together.

Those voices?  Your mother, your father?

All gone like a late snow,

and now your own words, dispersing like wood-smoke

clocking all your years.

Feel the night

walk softly as a fawn through doors

and peer at itself

through midnight-blind windows.

Hear it husking though the old wood furnace,

counting all your steps and your time

until the patient end.

J. Pratt-Walter © 2018