DRAB

       That gray and brown junco

crouching plain as sand in the

winter-nude branch of the quince

never gets the compliments.

I mean, really, who ever says

“Your being drab is so lovely”?

Bindweed, the morning glory:

you dig and toil to rid your garden of it.

Do you ever see how glorious it is

all on its own, it’s pale and artful face

revolving to the sunrise?

Those small tan slugs sliding

through the strawberry leaves:

I bet you never thanked them 
for their thoughtful
recycling of organic matter.  Earth does.

See the junco in her shaded perfection.

Marvel at the bindweed in its unfolding.

Thank the slugs, for they remake the world.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2019

Dark Sermon

Tonight I am tall

with wildness

and the shadows tell me

what the light cannot preach.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2018

Winter’s Eye

        I look Winter 

right into his frosty eye

but I don’t see emptiness;

there is not one bleak hour.

No, he is filled toe to crown

with all the potential of a year

and a teeming willingness

to let it go, to give it all up to the

tumpeting needs of everythingness

just waiting to happen.

J. Pratt-Walter

(c) 1/5/2019