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

Linked Haiku, Spring

Pink fleece, wool-soft air:

cherry blossoms spread open,

sighing at blue sky.

 

Sometimes transcendence

grows downward beneath your feet

into precious Earth.

 

After blossom-drop

I welcome the glyph of night

as a dark flower.

 

Sighing at blue sky,

I welcome the glyph of night

transcending wool-soft air.

 

J. Pratt-Walter © 2022

CLOAK

My gratitude

is a thick warm cloak

but first I must remember

out of the tangled night

to pull it on.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

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