Dress Like a Queen

 

Kindness can be worn like a robe—soft, rich and royal.

Ask me how I know and I’ll

Tell you this—

Humility is

Less don’t see me, but more I see you.

Even on my worst day,

Even when

No one else seems to.

 

Just because I smile, don’t mistake—I

Ache, too.  But warm and soft, it costs

Nothing to be kind,

Especially when it’s your worst day, too.

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

 

Lesson learned from my grandma (Kathleen Jane).  March 20, the first day of spring, would have been her birthday.  So fitting for who she was as a person.  Also, I kept her robe.  It still smells like her.

 

dVerse:acrostic names

 

image above created by me using copilot

 

Surface Roots, Falling Leaves

Photo © 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

The arms and hands

of my grandfathers, grandmothers—

 

the gnarled roots—

my history

 

a map on the earth

I step over

 

so as not to disturb them, leave them

as they are, unmarred by my boots.

                                                              

I’ve tried to clear them

so widely,

 

intending to be unencumbered

by what held them, too.

 

In my youth

I believed it could be so.

 

But now

I have walked a mile or two,

 

or how ever many thousands,

and my feet ache

 

with the heaviness

of trying.

 

The tripping, the falling,

the climbing back up.

 

But these I’ve been given

have led me to see,

 

and to sit basking

in the whispering of paper-thin leaves

 

teaching me how

to speak gently to myself

 

of forgiveness,

even more now my own necessity.

 

Because I am what I am

made of,

 

and my own stories

will fall, I hope,

 

like a gentle covering

for those who walk after me.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

 

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