Quenched

Stepping with bare toes across

meadows of balsamroot

I glide swiftly on grasses

soft from last night’s rain.

Quietly slipping between rocks

I meet the gush of spray;

with full pupils down,

tiny rivulets cascade my bare shoulders.

Droplets form and cling precariously

to my hair, responding as I shiver;

a flirty audience of aquilegia formosa

quivers with the steady rush.

The voice of the waterfall

is a mighty quenching of everything;

a gushing spray of explosion and tranquility, reverberating

like the sound of a mother’s heart in a growing womb.

I didn’t come here to grieve, only to soak

in the majesty of a paradisiacal place;

but my heart remembers and wishes I could have buried you here,

instead of where you ended up, in pieces, on porcelain.

I feel embryonic in the moment, wholly enveloped, naked, treasured.

Coming alive in the lusty boom, I scream, and moan,

and grieve, leaving everything here on these ancient stones—

laboring with the violent echo of women’s loss before mine.

I hold hands with the knowing barren wombs

and weep the deficit that will never feel your sigh at my breast,

your pink mouth to my skin, see the shine of accomplishment in your eyes.

They know how I feel—you were brief, but you were mine.

I let you go, but still carry you with me as I push through;

emerging back into the sun of life, weaker and stronger,

spent, and refreshed, sprinkled with pure minerals,

with lilac and wild lavender, and just a hint of baby’s breath.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

found in The Beautiful Sadness, dVerse and Poets United: Poetry Pantry

Tide Pools

basalt,

discordant and black,

scattered the hillside of late warmth,

a cadaver benumbed of cherishment.

defeated, we wondered

what happened to us—

and how we had viciously squandered

our landscape in chimerical hue.

laying down our weapons,

prisoners of our own war;

in the tide pools of aftermath,

we beheld it together.

in harmony

we choked back the sobs of rue,

gathering the tiniest,

brightest, glimmer of tomorrows unwritten.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

linked to Vice Versa and dVerse

Chelan Haiku

sunrise

on the vineyard

the bees smell sweet

blue dragonflies

tango above

the lake in sea green

white birch night

the heady scent of you

in bent ryegrass

  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner  

Linked to Poets United #109 Poetry Pantry 

Paper Dolls, 1950’s Single Mother

butter she

mixed with sugar

and fed to us

on saltine crackers

we washed it down

with powdered milk

we were poor

we were rich

we didn’t know either

until we

went to school

and our dolls of paper,

worthless

to friends whose had

vinyl and mohair

and real clothes,

became priceless

because

she’d made

them all

by hand

for Mom and for Grandma (Elaine Rogers, 1926 – 2010)

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

added to The Poetry Pantry

Noonday Jackals

Her thoughts took a dark turn

like jackals in the threadbare sun

ripping, ripping until she couldn’t see

herself, now a carcass of once-sought dreams;

a bone-hollow skeleton

stripped of all marrow by which future is made,

where the ink dried within.

Blood, first red then black, gathered in pools

around her head

until the ears spilled no more.

She’d done it to drown out the howling—

for who can bear the noise

of a broken heart?

The muting of syndicate

mocking and whimpering replete,

she worked the metallic taste of hate off her tongue.

It lingered though and became bitter

so she used her teeth to bite into its flesh

for nothing other than to taste a mellowing of salt.

A waft of perfume lingered in the cloying rot,

the remnant of her identity laying in the dust

while the air spilled with the scent of her decay;

a lone paper, yellowed and curled at the corners,

rattled in a wisp of wind.

A cloud began to form on the horizon,

a growing mist of dry, kicked-up earth,

swirling and choking the throat of tortuous barbs.

The cyclonic reclamation filled the desert of scars and loneliness,

returned sinew and marrow, blood and ink

to the supine form of the battered giant

of a dream so big the rabid enemy of her soul

was lost for strategy to bring down.

  

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

added to dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight , Poets United Poetry Pantry
and imaginary garden with real toads