Tiny Winter Poems 2021

These are poems I wrote in response to another one word prompt poem challenge from @bethkempton, #tinywinterpoem on Instagram. The challenge was one poem a day for 7 days, each inspired by the one word prompt @bethkempton provided the morning of each day of the challenge. There were two rules this time: 1) no editing, and 2) no more than 10 minutes’ writing. It was fun, and the poems were again quite meaningful. All the poems, plus the challenge words, can be found on Instagram at #tinywinterpoem.

Day 1: ORDINARY

ordinary moments
hand to tree
face toward sun and sky
windswept
heart and soul below the surface
on walk about in the liminal world
(January 8, 2021)

Day 2: SONG

The wind sings to
her voice comes to me
through the branches of the cedars
around me.
Rushing past me
she pauses to caress my face
kidding my eyelids …
(January 9, 2021)

Day 3: BURN

my heart burns
my soul burns
for the wounds inflicted on my sisters
my mother, her mother
myself
in pain, in anger, in rage
it burns!
a warrior I was, a warrior I must be again …
but the men are our brothers
our partners
and they have been wounded too.
see how they walk, crooked and bent,
trailing blod and sand and the detritus of their own wars
I do not know how to heal
I only know how to hurt
grieve
deny pain
move on.
we must learn to heal
I must learn to heal
Come!
There is another way to burn!
Teach me
we will teach the rest
they will teach others!
Come!
you take the left, I will take the right
we will move forward together.
(January 10, 2021)

Day 4: WINTER

snow and wind and stars, and moon
-light shining down on landscaped
snow
become a trillion encrusted diamonds
deep
-ly buried field mice sleep
soundless.
I walk.
so clear the night
my breath before me lingers
thin air kisses my face and chases
warmth from under my hair.
stilled a moment, I listen and
swear I hear an owl fly.
Ah, it is the tarp on the firewood
come loose. No
self-respecting owl would be heard
no matter how acute ones’s
senses. Even in the dead
of night of winter
(January 11, 2021)

Day 5: CYCLE

cycling through emotions today
quickly and diving
deeply into
time whorls long as
a tree is old, circling
diving
surfacing
diving again against the
whirling whorls of years
past and future
mixing as oil and vinegar
with salt and pepper and rosemar
…
we are who we are who
we where who we
will be …
all at once and not at all
it is a strange place to
occupy, to see and feel and observe
and remark

the earth is spinning
faster, they say
(January 12 2021)

Day 6: WALK

my cat precedes me
most mornings
walking outside to share the new
day together. He trots
off to do his business, while I
change his water and settle
in the copse of cedars
tea in hand.
Ultimately he returns for pets, and
a lingering in the sun until
restless, he
decamps for a walkabout, his
frequent and steady look backs remonstrating me
to lay aside my foolishness
and come!
(January 13, 2021)

Day 7: WILD

My world is wild, I say
wild with events, turbulence, emotion
dismay, distortion, denial
disgust
distrust
disturbance, disturbances
dysfunction …
a dystopia that is not, was not necessary!
But, the wild in my answers
you are a part of true wildness
linked into tree roots and branches
leaves
flowers
the wind and rain and snow …
the Sand and clay at your feet
the air you breathe
the light and darkness You see and feel
the moon and stars, the sun …

you feel such.
But yours is not to worry
to run about
with pain unhinging.

you are meant to feel it and you do
it is no deceit.

It is a gift.

Take all You know and feel wild one and
Sing it to the earth so She never forgets
write our stories and yours
like seeds they fall to the ground and grow
they will offer solace to those after.
You know not what solutions
are hid in the words of storytellers for the future.
and should you come across One such
be it recipe or weapon
in your writing and searching
be not afraid,
to use it
wild one
earth mother
war earth mother