How It Shakes

                  I feel

 a small injured bird fluttering

                in the heart of

                     my heart

The great ship of Earth

               plows on

unmindful of bird, flutter

               or pulse

 

She herself is hurting

an unseen broken winged

          creature, sick

             and so

alone

 

Humans are the weapons

            that infect, ignite and

wring the life out of our planet

 

My eyes burn with rivers

              and oh, my heart

Mother Earth, my heart

                         how it shakes

 

J. Pratt-Walter  © 2020

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

Her Traditional Birthday Poem

Oh the years,

the years that stream by,

if I could but pause you in your course,

if I could rename your momentum

I would hold you to my breast

like a small hurt kitten or a soft candle,

 

I would read you slowly like a love note

to my entire life painted here in

Autumn’s unfinished watercolors.

 

J. Pratt-Walter  (c) 2020

In Silence

It is ok to love quietly

like air loves a secret scent,

like a bud breaks out in stillness,

like a starfish sings to god.

In silence is healing--

cells rebuild in tenderness,

soundless as the moon,

as silent as the pen

trailing these words behind,

quietly loving.

J. Pratt-Walter

copyright 2020

The Call

When Love rings will you pick up the phone?

Will you heed the call, rattled and raw?

We are dying all night for lack

of Love.  I might be

too weak to lift the receiver

alone.

Are you strong enough to listen

for Love’s lost voice as reason and shield?

Will you gather up the plea

in your wise worker's arms and

spread Love like sun all over the fields?

J. Pratt-Walter  (c) 2020

Of Sharp Edges

Blades sing to me in a language of angles.  Anvil pruners, simple edge

90 degrees to a flat plate, ratchet-cut tends to crush.  Today they taste roses.

Noon calls for hedge pruners with the graceful scalloped blades.

I press the sharpening stone like a small gravity,

circling my arm, wrist locked.  My hand is a moon in orbit

in a low angle to squeeze weaponry onto twin lips of steel.

Later I take up a small honest sickle to battle blackberries.

I have honed it well – I test the razor with a finger

and am cut so easily I hardly feel it.  My blood sanctifies my efforts.

My pocketknife that I found grumps with resentment.  I have left it dull

too long.  It reminds me that I can’t change circumstances,

but I can alter the angle of my life to them,

sharpen my blades, prune out the unnecessary.

My favorite sharpness:  A massive antique scythe.

It is made to move through, to level.

It sings a primal music, Sheshh!  Sheshh!

with each swing. On the backstroke I bow to its power and purpose,

making way, never sorry for doing so.  It has mown miles,

the ripe barley, the gold sheen on the wheat.

What needs to be edited or excised in your life?

Pick up some smooth-voiced shears or artful Japanese saw.

Note the angle of how it speaks.  Polish the edge well and begin.

J. Pratt-Walter 5/26/2020

Horse

A lake of clove-brown,

an eye that might have been a star

that might have been an eye

holds on to me as I dish up the grain,

cloaked with dark molasses.  Lady is all honest

mindfulness in this moment. Lying

is not possible in the psyche of a horse.

Her liquid sienna gaze sweeps my steps,

strokes my arm into the bucket.

The black fleece of her nose affirms

I am hers, that the smells are right,

because trust is built on predictable scents.

Tonight I bathe in her clarity,

seeing myself in the center of the center

of a horse-eye, feeling the slow sift

of her mind touching mine, knowing wordlessly

how small connections like this time-shard

can temper the world’s stress and sorrow.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2020