Should Auld Acquaintance

 I wear my Auld Lang Syne everywhere.

 It lives beneath the boat frame

of my ribs, a secret starfish,

mining the sea of my blood

for boundless light and love.

 

I still hear you, Beloved, across all

the breakneck years, all the miles…

 

Will we ever come through this?

Will we hang on by bloody fingernails of poetry

and a fence of our fierce songs?

We must.

 

We will temper the world’s sadness and fear

with this, our auld acquaintance,

not forgot.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 12/27/2020

In the Arms of the Deep

     We are the secret radical hopers

gathering dreams in our nets and letting them go

in the same liminal moment.

 

Our ship has rudder and sails

but they are useless when the sea is stacked

so tall against us.  Still, we must move on.

 

Love comes in with the tide

but we, the explorers, cannot predict when

or from where it flows, not by moon-clock,

not by the hidden language of our bodies or stars,

 

but by its own curious compulsions.

Sometimes we are lifted light as foam on

the crest of life.  Sometimes we are night’s own anchor.

Sometimes we are lost at sea, praying like a jellyfish on the strand,

crying out for saltwater solace in the arms of the deep.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2020

Harp of Night

    Over the fields, shielded by deep firs

the Harp of Night awakens.

Autumn darkness fingers the cold strings

and quickens the winds that marvel and moan,

 

to delight and dance and pursue,

to shimmer a heart into ecstasy,

to ladle me into a fathomless well of Mystery.

At twilight I would savor her velvet beauty   

and, placing my hands over her highest strings,

stroke down and down, playing the glissando of

my life as I move through the years

until the deepest strains tally my time.

 

Sometime my Conductor 

will cue from beyond the veiled firs,

me to unbind my final encore 

from the womb of the night’s own harp

until rallentando, decrescendo, finé.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020

How It Shakes

                  I feel

 a small injured bird fluttering

                in the heart of

                     my heart

The great ship of Earth

               plows on

unmindful of bird, flutter

               or pulse

 

She herself is hurting

an unseen broken winged

          creature, sick

             and so

alone

 

Humans are the weapons

            that infect, ignite and

wring the life out of our planet

 

My eyes burn with rivers

              and oh, my heart

Mother Earth, my heart

                         how it shakes

 

J. Pratt-Walter  © 2020

Entering My Seventh Decade

Tonight I hear the quiet years

as they tiptoe past the clock.

Still, summer light lingers here between

fall’s melody and rhythm.

My hands gather mornings and friends

tuned to my life’s unfathomable keys.

 

The rosined bow of time draws slow over

my thoughts in a sigh, and you are here.

Our songs are entwined as swans

nesting on the weight of our days.

Vast is the music nearly below hearing—

loss has engraved its hammers here and there;

still, your sky tunes my mind

and hope plays upon my harp like water,

welcome and sweet.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, ☺2020

Her Traditional Birthday Poem

Oh the years,

the years that stream by,

if I could but pause you in your course,

if I could rename your momentum

I would hold you to my breast

like a small hurt kitten or a soft candle,

 

I would read you slowly like a love note

to my entire life painted here in

Autumn’s unfinished watercolors.

 

J. Pratt-Walter  (c) 2020

In Silence

It is ok to love quietly

like air loves a secret scent,

like a bud breaks out in stillness,

like a starfish sings to god.

In silence is healing--

cells rebuild in tenderness,

soundless as the moon,

as silent as the pen

trailing these words behind,

quietly loving.

J. Pratt-Walter

copyright 2020

The Call

When Love rings will you pick up the phone?

Will you heed the call, rattled and raw?

We are dying all night for lack

of Love.  I might be

too weak to lift the receiver

alone.

Are you strong enough to listen

for Love’s lost voice as reason and shield?

Will you gather up the plea

in your wise worker's arms and

spread Love like sun all over the fields?

J. Pratt-Walter  (c) 2020

Of Sharp Edges

Blades sing to me in a language of angles.  Anvil pruners, simple edge

90 degrees to a flat plate, ratchet-cut tends to crush.  Today they taste roses.

Noon calls for hedge pruners with the graceful scalloped blades.

I press the sharpening stone like a small gravity,

circling my arm, wrist locked.  My hand is a moon in orbit

in a low angle to squeeze weaponry onto twin lips of steel.

Later I take up a small honest sickle to battle blackberries.

I have honed it well – I test the razor with a finger

and am cut so easily I hardly feel it.  My blood sanctifies my efforts.

My pocketknife that I found grumps with resentment.  I have left it dull

too long.  It reminds me that I can’t change circumstances,

but I can alter the angle of my life to them,

sharpen my blades, prune out the unnecessary.

My favorite sharpness:  A massive antique scythe.

It is made to move through, to level.

It sings a primal music, Sheshh!  Sheshh!

with each swing. On the backstroke I bow to its power and purpose,

making way, never sorry for doing so.  It has mown miles,

the ripe barley, the gold sheen on the wheat.

What needs to be edited or excised in your life?

Pick up some smooth-voiced shears or artful Japanese saw.

Note the angle of how it speaks.  Polish the edge well and begin.

J. Pratt-Walter 5/26/2020

Horse

A lake of clove-brown,

an eye that might have been a star

that might have been an eye

holds on to me as I dish up the grain,

cloaked with dark molasses.  Lady is all honest

mindfulness in this moment. Lying

is not possible in the psyche of a horse.

Her liquid sienna gaze sweeps my steps,

strokes my arm into the bucket.

The black fleece of her nose affirms

I am hers, that the smells are right,

because trust is built on predictable scents.

Tonight I bathe in her clarity,

seeing myself in the center of the center

of a horse-eye, feeling the slow sift

of her mind touching mine, knowing wordlessly

how small connections like this time-shard

can temper the world’s stress and sorrow.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020

Then I Woke Up

       Then I woke up, my memory remade,

still slender as the dream of the chickadee

outside the bedroom window.

Then I woke more and wandered

through the garden, the coral azalea

releasing its lurid scent indiscriminately

over the just and the unjust,

the young and me, the unsure elder.

I thrice awoke, reeling to the perfect homily

of Nature and her unbound truths

masquerading as a slow walk around the yard,

her small prophets the mourning doves

and tree frogs, her flowers calling bees

to their mumbling tasks, life aiding life

unceasing.

They preached this to all who would understand

in this time of separation and dread:

even apart, we are all still a dazzling bouquet

just waiting to happen.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 5/10/2020

Mother’s Day

Her small prophet

Fallen Prayer

In the morning my prayer was a small earthworm stranded

in night’s dew on an unforgiving path.

Knees bent, I tenderly placed him in wet soil, my Amen.


At midday my prayer was the tumbled willow by the stream, still

unfurling her wands and catkins in long graceful whips.

I marveled at how the weather wove her patterns into my Amen.


Near dark my prayer was an injured thrush rolling in fright

in the brush.  She scolded me as I turned her over,

seeking the injury.  Maybe both a wing

and a leg were broken.  She could not stay upright, she could not

rest.  I contemplated taking her home, putting her in a box

with water and soft grasses, feeding her the worms. 


She watched me sideways then

partly closed her pale eyelids from the bottom up.

Her pulse was a thin vibration, her breathing a tangle.

I set her gently at the base of the fallen willow, covered her

with the kind grasses and walked away.  I have not yet found

an Amen. 


J. Pratt-Walter (c) 2020

In This Isolation

       Today as the sun lifts there are

not enough Alleluia words.

Outside the door, lilacs wrap me

in a shawl of sweetness.

The horse meets me with a nicker

of gladness.  I open the gate and

she trots through clover alight with dew

that flies from her hoofs in tiny beacons.

The pink azalea shakes her sex-scented skirts.

Solomon’s Seal offers its inverted wine flutes

 beneath an atlas of new leaves.

A late owl croons goodbye to night

and the blue heron croaks back,

waving her wing-wands through the sky.

How the fern heads unroll is a symmetry

almost too perfect to bear.

All is precious in this moment. 

You are precious. We are precious.

We need not regret separation.

Isolation in this Alleluia-morning is a gift.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020

To Mother Earth, Alleluia

Dear Mother Earth

Someday our souls will slip from life

like water off a swan

and I say Alleluia.

They say this is your day,

Earth Day

but I know each moment,

they all belong to you

and I say Alleluia.

Oh Earth, I feel the sharp song

of our connection. I feel

the spear of your heartache

and hurt, I feel green everything,

green-blue, green-gold, green-black.

Everything is alive all in

a tumble of miracles

and I say Alleluia.

And now, Holy Earth,

I see it:  our ways must cease.

We must surrender, closing eyes

and giving breath over to you,

always only you

and I say Alleluia.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 4/22/2020

50^th Anniversary of Earth Day

Holding Water with Open Fingers NaPoWriMo #15

To the Maker:

Send us your mercy.

We desperately seek that place

where awareness lives.  We

need each other beneath your blanket of sky.


We need you, Plant and Animal People,

we need you, living Air and Water,

 we need you, Soil that cups our feet.

we need you, Fire of justice.

Roll healing down like sun after thunder,

like rain in the dry-blind desert.


We try to hold love to ourselves like a

possession.  But it’s grasping moonlight,

it’s trying to hold water with open fingers.

Let us feel the rainwater as it dances upon us.

Let us drink, share and savor the taste,

knowing we taste the tip of heaven.

J. Pratt-Walter 4/14/2020

Water Has No Secrets NaPoWriMo #13

Water has no secrets.

Fish, stones, the wide winds –

it shares with them equally.


I have this feeling near water

like I can say anything

and it won’t judge.


As I touched ripples across water’s skin,

it tasted me and found me

still a little green

like a banana picked too early.


Water has a way of knowing too much.

Not only can it keep no secrets –


it told all mine to the fish and stones

and the licking winds


so now the creek, the river

and the entire Pacific Ocean

know how impossibly long and durably

I have loved you.


JPW , NaPoWriMo  4/13/2020

An Unordinary Easter NaPoWriMo #12

I walk alone beside the stream heavy with dread that

I can’t shut down: angry at, afraid of

the toxic political maelstrom infecting our nation


but what use is my worry to the creek?

Down there in the shallows

sea-run cutthroat trout are spawning,

spangling in sun spikes through shade,

careless of the state of the world.


Along the way, alders dangle their catkins

and whisper pink into their first leaf-buds.

Maples hang their chartreuse bloom to the winds,

unconcerned of the shocking events:

Corporations before people.  Death to the uncounted poor

and the brown.  Children caged.

The business of money above the needs of life.


Where the stream opens into a small glen resting

between two hills, the water slows as it snakes along.

Eagles line its curves, picking off the spawn-weary fish

who give themselves up in the old way


but what use is my despair in the habits of

eagles and fish?  I want to tell them that what I seek

cannot be found among the roads of humans.

That I find solace in how my senses note

 such ordinary things as bud-break, of fish scales

silvering under the sun, of maple pollen

erasing the clarity of my windshield, of how it feels

to grasp dinner in your talons.

How it is to easily give up your life when

laying or fertilizing eggs defines your purpose.


From the bank I release a tiny boat,

a half of a walnut shell.  If I could place my fears

in its hold, I would, but what are fears to a seed remembering

its wooden nature?  Let it run on

past the fish and trees, let it bob untouched

by eagles.  It is Easter


but what use is a day of resurrection

when the planet and its beings are the sacrifice?


J. Pratt-Walter
4/12/2020

Hope 2 NaPoWriMo #11

See how the winds

have shaped her hands to

hold hope?

So tenuous, it trembles

like a hummingbird’s heart.


She gently carries hope

to a nest in the midst

of the maelstrom and tilts it

into the bowl of tiny feathers and mosses.


Hope is so hard to cup.

She might need your help

when it seeps through the cracks

of her fingers.  Place your hands

like this around hers.  Together

it can be done.


When it hatches, when the nest

is no more, watch the wind pick up hope

and lay it softly into the welcome

of upraised palms.

J. Pratt-Walter © 2020

Letting Go

        My fingers are roping on

to all they can grasp

but the Universe says “Let go.”

My eyes are tying themselves

to things not to be seen

but the Universe says “Let go.”

My heart is fainting with

a planet’s desperation and disease

but the Universe says “Let go.” 

The Universe is squeezing itself

deep into my spirit

and tells me with love

“I am holding you.  We are all in this

together.  You are never

alone, even when letting go.”

J. Pratt-Walter (c) 2020

NaPoWriMo #10

A Wet Unity NaPoWriMo #9

This everyday miracle

unites us all.  The river skips onward

but trades its wet song

with every cell in every life.

The whole sea is found

in a single drop:  Hydrogen, oxygen,

sodium chloride,

niched in every corner

we name “life.”  My tides,

your waves fall and rise

in this unity of forever

simmering here in the sea

of our blood.

J. Pratt-Walter  © 2020

East Wind NaPoWriMo #7

        When I go, I want it to be

while the east wind is lowing

through the crack in the bedroom window.

At first, you think that sounds mournful.

 But really, such raw beauty

is quite companionable.

We’ll get along fine,

the east wind and me.  I love the expanse

of his unfathomable music.  He loves

the way I hear.

Listen for me among the fiddling branches

when the east wind roves free,

playing storms on wild November nights.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020

Breath

I have called forth

breath from my breath,



but what can we do

when lungs resist, turn silent,



when the air itself

declines my invitation?


J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2020

Hope NaPoWriMo #5

See how the winds

have shaped her hands to

hold hope?

So tenuous, it trembles

like a hummingbird’s heart.



She gently carries hope

to a nest in the midst

of the maelstrom and tilts it

into the bowl of tiny feathers and mosses.



Hope is so hard to cup.

She might need your help

when it seeps through the cracks

of her fingers.  Place your hands

like this around hers.  Together

it can be done.



When it hatches, when the nest

is no more, watch the wind pick up hope

and lay it softly into the welcome

of upraised palms.

J. Pratt-Walter, 4/5/2020

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

From This Day Forward NaPoWriMo #2

The air is heavy as war. While I make coffee,

the whole Earth holds its breath.


My eye that sees the future

is shaking.  We are in a prolonged

earthquake, but what topples is our lives.


The water is hot, the coffee beans

are perfectly ground.

We are balanced on the deadly cusp

of a pandemic. Today is the fulcrum

of our futures. My eye knows.


From this day forward

everything has changed, everything

will be different.  The air

is darkly gravid.  The French press

is ready.  The kitten is playing with her

string toy on the kitchen floor.


The Earth cannot breathe.


From this day forward

everything changes…



J. Pratt-Walter, 4/2/2020

Soliloquy NaPoWriMo #1

They say our air mustn’t cross paths

on the way to our lungs.


But I have companions in this isolation –

Sometimes when I look down

I see my mother’s legs

complete with knee-knobs, and my hands

wear her fingers shaped by arthritis.


My dad is visiting

when I glance into a mirror.

There his face shadows

my own:  his nose, the shape

of his smile walking over my mouth.



And how your eyes mapped every inch

of my skin -- all over me, tiny miracles

from you are here, so alive!

That’s when I realize we need not touch

to be touched.


J. Pratt-Walter, 4/1/2020

Morning Story

Wings paint an invisible language on sky

that only birds know. 

Redtail Hawk speaks, stroking the updraft,

reading the moments until dive and fall and fall

upon the garter snake below who believes

she is hidden. 

Her snake body wrings along into a gopher hole

placed in perfect opposition to hawk-arrow

and bird-meal.

The snake knows how lucky she is this time;

the feather shadows tell her so,

the whispering air sweeps luck across her ribs

as she glides into freedom,

air just released in hawk’s metallic cry

of defeat.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2020