ALL FOR LOVE

They say to never give your

whole heart, but I’ve

 

a heart for every age

I’ve been and I’ve given

 

every single one of them

to love, all for love,

 

and I would give

them all again.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

Summer Night on the Porch

We sit on the porch and watch the sun harvest the last

of the light, you here because I pulled you outside to quietly

ponder the feel of time stroking our arms.

 

I would gladly trade a year of my life just to sit

on this porch with you, breathing in the mimosa flowers,

the old white dog shedding her hair all over our feet.

 

I would lean back in grandpa’s wooden chair not minding

the hardness because you are near, and hear the first cricket of summer

begin his luminous song.

 

We could sit here remembering the weight of all our years,

then, a meteor!  And our hands would reach out to each other,

fingers linking as if they had minds of their own.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, ⓒ 2023

At the Closing

I pick up the worn shovel, handle frosty

and slick.  I feed it to the ground by the mimosa tree

and press hard with my weight on one foot.

The soil yields beautifully.

 

I know very soon, this sacred ground

will receive her of the dark gold hair, the bleached

muzzle, the eyes once alive as obsidian light,

that dog-breath smile.

 

The old girl is shaking this morning

and cannot rise.  I help lift her back end.

Her feet splay out on the floor.  Her eyes are worried,

even afraid.  I caress her bent head

leaning into my leg.  “I know, girl, I know.

Soon.  Will it be today?”  I don’t want to

answer that question yet,

 

but here I am, excavating the ground

between the vegetable garden and my favorite tree,

envisioning motherly soil holding her wasting

frame close, the swirls of her hair trimmed by fallen

 pine needles, her bones and blood that loved us so much

that she will forgive me and forgive me

for bringing that love to a peaceful

close. 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2022 

My Hands

Look at my hands,

all the wide years penned into an atlas of wrinkles,

blue snakes of veining, scars where blood

spilled its iron for a cause.

 

Look at my palm, then

turn it over to see rough-knuckle memories 

going back and back to the time

of all the grandmothers and great grandmothers

for as long as there have been hands.

 

Through me the ancestors still feel the living soil,

they hum to a newborn with a poem of holding,

they cradle a beloved face at the last breath.

Their lives are printed upon all my cells,

they speak from inside with every gesture,

behind every grasp, scrape, caress.

 

Look at my hands, how they have been reborn

in my children, still holding the pencil

that writes the next story. 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

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

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