ALL FOR LOVE

They say to never give your

whole heart, but I’ve

 

a heart for every age

I’ve been and I’ve given

 

every single one of them

to love, all for love,

 

and I would give

them all again.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

Understory

 In an old forest, the tree canopy and trunks

get all the glory, the mainmast and sails in a

great ship of brown and green. 

The forest floor is mycorrhizal connections,

a fungal nervous system veining soil and water.

The understory 

is an unsung margin where one ecology touches

another as an in-between, not claiming much sky

or soil but joining both.

Come pause there with me in a hymn-green

circle of moss embracing the friable ground

where smooth white quartz pebbles wait like punctuation.

Wild roses and salal leaves like ears become low sanctuary walls,

and a ring of attentive fir trees holds us in from the beyond.

If I take your hand and lead you in, know that you

are quietly treasured.  My eyes were lit to tell you this.

 

There a stump waits as a seat where we balance

the goodness of this afternoon against the

mixed choir of feelings we carry like so much wood.

Here we are greenly blessed.  Here the rest of the world

is silenced.  Here time has flowed off to change

into something more comforting,

and so will I, even if it is just soft eyes and a kind word

as we sit back-to-back on this margin of connection:

Yes, there is this understory reaching between us.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

Clothing Giveaway

I pulled on a sweater of an amazing woman

who died.  Hot pink, comfortably broken in.

I liked this color better on Mom, it said.  It’s not

your shade.  Aw, come on.

And her bustline?  So much more forward than yours,

like her great heart.  More.

I’ll wear it anyway, careful to be respectful.

I’m a neutral in training for hot pink.

 

As I placed the pointy elf hat on my head,

a pink chuckle. Yes, wear the hat.  The world needs

more hilarity.

I agree.  And it goes with my hilarious new glasses.

Hmmph.

 

Child, I guarantee you’ll have more gumption with us, the sweater said

begrudgingly. I guess you’ll do.

But Christ, don’t even THINK about wearing

the wild shamrock socks!

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

With You

 If we rebirth, do we also

redeath? Let’s consider that

and what meaning it could bring--

 

and what is either but a mirror and passage

to the other, a sly animated

palindrome on acts of life and time?

 

No matter what, I want

to be born anew with you.

I want to die again and again

with always always you.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

Summer Night on the Porch

We sit on the porch and watch the sun harvest the last

of the light, you here because I pulled you outside to quietly

ponder the feel of time stroking our arms.

 

I would gladly trade a year of my life just to sit

on this porch with you, breathing in the mimosa flowers,

the old white dog shedding her hair all over our feet.

 

I would lean back in grandpa’s wooden chair not minding

the hardness because you are near, and hear the first cricket of summer

begin his luminous song.

 

We could sit here remembering the weight of all our years,

then, a meteor!  And our hands would reach out to each other,

fingers linking as if they had minds of their own.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2023

Toward Goodness: A Poem for Solstice

How can I feel fear,

how can sadness dim the day

when I step into the beauty of this

gleaming new dawn?

The fulcrum of the Earth tilts

toward goodness and I will

ride along, I will open, worshipping as if

this is our last day.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

The Harp of Summer

In the meadow the orchard grass

stands tall as July, tickling the belly

of a glad old rescue horse.

 

I lift my face to the light, eyes closed,

but I can still see.  The red color of life

illuminates my eyelids, my own circulation

sharing what it feels like to speak

with the noonday sun.

I will drink this good glowing light.  I will

inhale it to survive the unspoken hardships.

 

The great harp of summer, the insects and birds,

resounds with silver glissandi.  The velvet grass

bends to the wind like I lean to your speech,

faint and a little garbled.  You had a

stroke; you still haven’t accepted that

six years later.

 

But the whispering leaves still unwrinkle their glory.

The green apples are hopeful syllables clustering

on the old Gravenstein.  Some have already fallen.

But we are still here together. The sun plays upon us

evenly.  Pushing your chair, we come out into

that grand orchestra of life.

I can hear gratitude somewhere inside me.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023