The Harp of Summer

In the meadow the orchard grass

stands tall as July, tickling the belly

of a glad old rescue horse.

 

I lift my face to the light, eyes closed,

but I can still see.  The red color of life

illuminates my eyelids, my own circulation

sharing what it feels like to speak

with the noonday sun.

I will drink this good glowing light.  I will

inhale it to survive the unspoken hardships.

 

The great harp of summer, the insects and birds,

resounds with silver glissandi.  The velvet grass

bends to the wind like I lean to your speech,

faint and a little garbled.  You had a

stroke; you still haven’t accepted that

six years later.

 

But the whispering leaves still unwrinkle their glory.

The green apples are hopeful syllables clustering

on the old Gravenstein.  Some have already fallen.

But we are still here together. The sun plays upon us

evenly.  Pushing your chair, we come out into

that grand orchestra of life.

I can hear gratitude somewhere inside me.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

 

  

Amphibian

I want to love like an

amphibian      drinking you   

through my pores like gleaning oxygen

from water

precious and divine

 

I want to love with my

entire being      my mind tasting

the rare wit of your life story

my gut recognizing your bright

wise everything-goodness

 

I want to love like the making

of spring      receiving the miracle

of your truest self right into the grace

of my secret salamander skin

 

Look, it is raining love

right now

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

Garden of Beltane

 

Early morning, the fertile daylight blooms

       as song sparrows praise the sun, these hours

       teeming with the Making-Magic of Earth.

 

Again cottonwood buds fill the air

with wild perfume. Their scent is a breath

of honey-sweet potential and no matter my age,

my heart skips and sings.

 

Amid Spring’s swelling promise, the substance

of my soul fills with unspeakable longing.

       Beloved Mother Earth, so many Springs

have smiled on my face, asking, angling, softening.

 

Beltane’s garden sprouts in the shimmering soil,

opening me again into possibility’s womb, a young Medusa

singing among her awakened serpents, Aphrodite

lifting her gown of flowers with a smile, Artemis

stroking the newborn fawn she will later hunt.

 

J. Pratt-Walter © 2023

I Have Never Been a Sailor

I have never been a Sailor

but I feel the sea roiling below me

on a broken-cloud morning.

We have so much to teach

each other, the tides and I—

 

an ocean knows how to never be still,

how to be furiously strong and wild

yet dance so delicately with the moon.

How to hold something up when

it is flotsam. How to claim what sinks.

 

Sea, can you hear me?  I am

singing all the harmonies to the

drum of your pulse.  I can show you

how to wear bones and how to move

through air wearing gravity out loud.

 

I can light fires while you can only extinguish.

See?  I am igniting my curiosity right here

on your sandy shoulder.  Watch me bend down

and silently kneel before your mysteries,

folding my legs like sorrow feels.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

crucible

listen      the desecrated earth cries out

she heaves in catastrophic tongues

of storms

drought

floods

fires

disease

listen    these are the last moments to act

this is the alarm clock and crucible of endings

this is when the children must teach the adults

there is no option of both survival and failure to act

so pick one, people

choose wisely     not just for yourself

but for all the look-ahead lives to come

 

J. Pratt-Walter NaPoMo 4/1/2023

 

Save These Things Forever

Save the smallest wild things, the overlooked

ordinary things—earthworms, baby birds, moss, deep soil.

Hold safe the green-brown smell of the woods

in spring and fall.  Save all the sequoias.

Keep safe the salamanders in the tiny stream that leaks from

the hillside by my childhood home, save their eggs,

silent as pebbles.

Enfold with safety the magic lanterns of fireflies

and the Aurora Borealis and how my feet sound

sweeping through dry leaves in autumn.

Keep forever the voices of those beloved to me—

save all the unspoken love that overflows the

bucket of my heart.

Save always the sharp awe that envelops me when

in the presence of the still and untamed beings that have been

my true saviors for all my days.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

tomorrow

tomorrow

i will read the newspaper

thousands dead, the earth shivering

there is no way to save them

 

but for a few.  tomorrow and

the next few days tens of thousands

perish beneath the failure of humans

to care enough to build properly

and the ones still living

 

will need a target for blame

all the dead people lips periwinkle blue

hands gone cold as frozen meat

all the grieving ones the suffering

animals the weary survivors

 

and then, a newborn

pulled from rubble and bent rebar

still wearing her umbilical cord

and we know one tiny miracle

is salvation for the watchers

 

who hear her dusty voice on the news,

the cry heard everywhere we can listen.

 

j. pratt-walter  © 2/22/23