flow

your smile is a living candle

and I the moth rejoicing


your heart

bears a trusting gravity

and I the apple unresisting

fall


your soul opens into

an intelligent sea and I am

the boat in thrall sailing to our days

as they must flow
on


J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019

In The News

Have you seen how poison gas peels

the flesh off a baby?    

Everything melts away except

for skin under the diaper.

Have you noticed how

a bullet pulls destruction through

all the layers of a child?

These children, our world’s hope,

were too small to know

how full of God they were, 

the pure crystal shimmer,

precious and holy.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

Just Now

If I could just hold this moment,

swallow it, nothing less, nothing more,

I will have lived well.


Opening the door,

rain has teased the grass back to life.

The dog lies quiet on the porch.

The horse is cropping the lawn.


The last gold crowns of calendula

flame up at me.  There is fresh

strong coffee in my cup.

The night granted me good sleep.


The air is so soft it embraces.

I see my life just now as a

precious glass butterfly in my open palm.

I pick her up with love.



J. Pratt-Walter

©  2019

Circle of Caring

We have drawn a warm circle

of caring in close

and placed you in the center.

We have all worn those troubles.

They are so heavy.

Here, hand me some before they

eclipse your soul.

Troubles loom wild and far.

But Dear Heart, you are not alone.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

In The Crosshairs

Everywhere they instruct you on who to hate. 

Believe it!  It’s our government!  It’s for your own good!


Fingers point as hate battles your thoughts.

Brown people, Moslems, Jews are taking your rights away!


Queer people, Mexicans, Liberals are stealing your jobs!

Sick people, immigrants, the poor are eating your food!

Journalists who tell real news, women who expect

autonomy over their body parts – hate hate hate!


They can’t stop vomiting up their hatred all over you.

Fear and loathing grin from every corner.


Then they plant assault rifles in your town, crowing

“You Second Amendment people can take care of this”

and “I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still…”


Suddenly people are wearing bold red targets

on their heads as ravenous hate bathes roads, ditches,

schools and churches in easy greasy red.


There are crosshairs looking for you next.


J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

Being Found

 You can’t play hide and seek

with yourself forever.

Eventually the thunder reaches into

your secret hollows and slumbering roots.

   

       Eventually

       the years jump out to meet us,

       whether we accept them or not.

The rest of the task is learning which side

a gate opens out on while unlearning

what it meant to be lost.

J. Pratt-Walter, ©  2019

Notice

If you are grinding through this world

seeking all those magical truths,

your eyes are stopped unless

you pause to notice


the clasp and tallying eyes of a

praying mantis


or how a bean seed shoulders up

its horseshoe curve and tastes the air and rain

before committing its leaves


or how huckleberries talk

like fairies to the coming Autumn

then drop.


J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

When Words Collapse

 When poet Mr. William Stafford incorporeally

came to visit, he noticed that when words

collapse, the dense low trees became

my harbor.



Then he reminded me how miraculous

were the daily workings of plants

as their photosynthesis built ladders

to the sun



and how, in my animal mind,

all lost syllables can again come home

to their true meanings found waiting

among those trees if I would just

look.



J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

Healing River

this journey is a

mystery but still, I will

bravely take it

I don’t know the

destination     but someday

I will cross that

blessed river of Love

and drink, deep as the sea

my garments are worn out

by my      imperfections

sometimes my cup is     broken

but still I will gather 

talking handfuls

of healing waters

and carry them like a

newborn sparrow

right to you

j. pratt-walter

(c) 2019, Latourelle Falls

Becoming the Crone

 Finally!  I ascend to my Cronehood.

I proudly wear a silver crown in the lights

of my hair.

I claim the armrest on the airplane.

I allow my belly to flow without shapers

or cinch.

I let my hardworking breasts roll without bras

or shame.

I am retired from heels, mascara, hair dye,

wrinkle cream and diets.

I can wear white pants all month.

I don’t have to fuck anyone.

I call bullshit on political deviance, cruelty and

shameless self-promotion.

I will speak out against patriarchy’s tyranny,

even when you don’t want to hear it.

I will point out your gaslighting, greed

and arrogance.

Hecate is my sister.

I notice the small overlooked things.

I am in love with the lines mapping my face.

I bless Nature and Mother Earth, for we are family

and peers.

My dreams can run faster than your excuses,

your hate, your oppression.

I am an army of one.  I hold superpowers

you can only guess at.

This Crone is a volcano, a sacred well, the braying wind

and a kind harbor for all manner of love.

Jennifer Pratt-Walter

(c) 2019

The Wild Woman In You

The Wild Woman in you

learned to dance on glow-eyed coals

when needed and felt all the burning

but never complained.

The Wild Woman in me

tries on your dancing shoes and understands

fiercely all manner of your pain.

Someday we might ease each other

through the brimstone, singing our songs,

our Wild Woman hymns of burnt offerings

surging through our chests and

moving us along, 

honing our aim 

and thanking the flames.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

TreeSong poetry workshop

Overdose

       In this land

we are starving

for peace

In this land

we eat fear

hate

violence

oppression

Please

America

let this banquet

end

Clear the table

of gluttony

and hate

      Let this overdose

of injustice

die

        J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019
      

Last Waltz

How my body 

wants to waltz!

Now, when the wild lupin lifts

its blue triumph over the tipsy

orchard grass,

now as the tiger lilies flex their

orange arms.

Now, as cherry blossoms

feather their way to the ground,

hinting of the lips of fruit

almost too rich to bear,

let us waltz this one warm river away from any clock,

hands so alive, feet

haunting the floor with yearning

for more –

one last sunset time before the metallic

broken bell of parting.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c)2019

All the Modest Miracles

This is the fire

when truth spills out

of a poem.  You were one thing,

but deep with writing, you

become a being aflame.

This is the air

I am exchanging with you.

It has touched everything

on Earth in its own time. It lives in

all the right fires.

We are two pages in a book, stitched

side by side.  Our words are different

but we feed each other

meaning, forking our eyes

at each other’s print,

recognizing the modest miracles

that ask for nothing.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019

Heartbeat of the World

Sometimes the heartbeat of the world

is measured out so sweet

in lamb bleats and liquid birdsong.

Sometimes you hear it,

an echo at the end of a sunset

and the truth of it dances in your core.

Sometimes the pulse of Earth

swells and swings as slow as a mountain grows

then rolls itself down as sand to the sea.

Sometimes it vibrates like honeybees

or makes the hollow sound of loss

or keeps the cool silence of fossils.

Someday I’ll hand my pulse back to the world.

I’ll go willingly.

Listen for me at sunset, or where redwing blackbird

clasps the cattails and sings

and sings.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019

That is You

I looked upon the white-coated mountain

and All that is Holy, She said “That is you.”

I lay in the shade of a towering maple

and All that is Holy, He said “That is you.”

I played tag with the ocean’s waves

and All that is Holy, They said “That is you.”

I danced with the fire by night

and All that is Holy, We said “That is You.”

I held an old, old kitty as he breathed his last breath

and All that is Holy, One said “That is you.”

I wept with a lost refugee

and All that is Holy, All said “That is you.”

I saw my reflection in a deep still pool

and All that is Holy, I said “I am You.”

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019

Some Days

Some days all I can do

is open my mouth

and drink

the wild fitful

beauty

of all the world

seething through

the tides of my every

breath.     

J. Pratt-Walter

4/19/2019

Voice in the Seed

When we most need to create peace

is when we least want to.

Anger, hate and shame break us,

denial and despair kindle

their own dark flames,

burning down peace

and its home within our soul.

We are all wearing our motley scars,

our deep festering

emotional puncture wounds,

whether by the hands of others

or by self-infliction,

so cold and solid, an anvil in a glacier.

Someday we will write that last ending.

May it be from that private place of peace

that looks for the good

yet accepts the difficult times too.

Yes, that’s what I hope: Peace asks

that I let myself out on a silk string,

gentle as the voice in the seed

into my own end.

J. Pratt-Walter

NaPoWriMo © 4/14/2019

Alder

You are a tree

disguised as a poem.

Can you smell

the first rains of August

licking the dust off

your tired leaves?

Can you feel birds

sharing your branches

with a radical sky?

You are a poem

disguised as a tree.

There you were rooted,

a magnificent alder,

until you gave up your life

to chainsaw and mill

that these words can ramble across

your papery dead body.

J. Pratt-Walter

© 4/12/2019

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 Tally of the Days

What does 60 years get you

but the thrumming tides of a heart

almost too full of thanks

to keep beating?

Sometimes these todays,

sometimes the click of years gone by

seem like a cryptic wound where

pain lives, hidden deep in your roots  –

you feel at once the burdens,

the joys and levity of life like flowers before

the rational mind ever notices.

Looking back, I welcome them

equally.

Be careful where you walk –

Love has spilled over when and where-

ever our shadows met and touched,

even almost 60 years later.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 4/8/2019

NaPoWriMo day #8