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

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

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