This Old Dog ~~~ Day 14 of NaPoWriMo

Life lies lightly in the body
of this old dog--
The hard work of being old
burdens step and sleep.

She is shrinking, giving herself back
bit by bit, distilled to sharper bones,
loyalty and a bark her ears no longer hear.

I eye the ground, home.
Someday I will have to bury her,
loyalty and all:
Give her back.

J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

vortex ~~~ NaPoWriMo

In the center of the center,

in a vortex of light

and purple scent,

where magic is born

and passionately sent,

sighs the heart of the Iris,

longing, longing for the night.

Sorcery of love: it shall be spent.

J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

Music ~~~Day 8 of NaPoWriMo

Music teaches me
   to listen,
but silence teaches me
   to hear.



J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

Silence ~~~~ Day 8 of NaPoWriMo

I couldn't think of a good name for this short piece:

Music teaches me

   to hear,

but silence teaches me

   to listen.

J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

Day 7, NaPoWriMo

The pen of God writes
me fresh each day with words and
a sure sense of humor.

J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

Tunnel Vision ~~~ Day 7 of NaPoWriMo 2012

YOU are the light
waiting at the end
of your own tunnel.

J. Pratt-Walter, 2012

Heart Gate ~~~ Day six of NaPoWriMo

Locked in cobweb and rust

lies that faraway gate,

door to an unstill heart.

Why does it hurt so to open?

Split the lock,

unhinge the hardware,

push it gloriously ajar--

Face the things that closed

preciously hopeful You:

Not being The Beloved

can still hurt beyond reckon.

Do doors, like velvet buds,

long to unspiral open?

J. Pratt-Walter

Any War, In the Kitchen or Abroad ~~~ Day five of NaPoWriMo

I watch anger incarnate, hard

as machine,

my words with gills for lungs

left gasping on sand.

They fight with tools

of our mortality while 

I breathe rain to extinguish

smoldering homefire hate.

My sadness windows out

needles of glass  first--

why can't species-us,

brilliant us

stop the fighting?

Bend low, take cover,

gather glass.

J. Pratt-Walter

That Poet:: to William Stafford. ~~~Day five of NaPoWriMo

William Stafford

is my drug of choice,

though I may need to double 

my dose.  His is a medicine

to combat war, wipe it right out,

him an entire army,

a regiment of one,

honest as the moon,

unstinting...

Stafford, you are

one hell of a doctor

of conscience.


J. Pratt-Walter

It Might Be Easter ~~~Day four of NaPoWriMo.

Sunrise whisks darkness

from the beckoning sky--

We sip bliss from

fresh daffodil cups,

reach out, pick up all the notes

of morning birdsong

gleaming like beads in the lilacs,

strewn in the dewy grass.

String them into

a chain of musical welcomes

to an Anything-Is Possible morning.

J. Pratt-Walter

Tides of Flight ~~~ Day three of NaPoWriMo

She is the kind of sky

birds love to climb,

the kind that pushes

lovers together

without margins,

skins transformed to

feathery promise--

tides of flight.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2012

Spring Waltz ~~~ April 2nd, NaPoWriMo

Love can be too

thick, too deep to carry--

let it waltz us along instead

in a dance so powerful

that

a child could be conceived

right through

the air.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2012

Rift, New Mexico. Day 1 of NaPoWriMo 2012

She’s trying to stand upright

as wind pushes her down

and back and back--

She is the rock El Morro,

she is the mesa Walpi,

falling upward to a sky too blue to believe.

Wind takes her over an impossible edge

into the box canyon of the Ancestors,

face cutting the wind

at first…

She is bird tracks filling with sand,

the wind’s toy,

She is the empty clam shell

deaf to all the people-voices

stolen by arrogant winds from

a rift in sky.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2012