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

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

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