Bloom & Float

Art by CatrinWelz-Stein

Let’s put our thinking caps on;

we can come up with something—

I’ve always longed for a way to fly.

Somehow I knew

if we picked enough weeds,

cleared enough fallow ground,

we’d bloom and float.

It’s true,

dreams can happen

when another thing dies—

like saying goodbye

is hello to something new

in another tongue.

We just have to remember

to hold on

in the dark

where we’ll finally find—ourselves

above the clouds, among the stars.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

A couple of months ago Claudia at dVerse offered us the opportunity to write to the fascinating and inspiring artwork of Catrin Welz-Stein.  I wrote this piece but had never posted it (it was my son’s birthday and a busy time).  So I’ll be submitting it for OpenLinkNight!

 

Proven

International District, Seattle WA

Photo © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

Afterward

she felt just like

the used condom,

            discarded

amidst the cigarette butts

and partially eaten food.

The refuse

stacked up,

lining the side streets

and back streets

of the insides of her,

piling up

on her chalk outline.

Wasn’t she

what had been done to her?

But the point of no return

to what               

she thought of herself

was the road less traveled,

            a cross in the path—

and the journey upward,

a process

littered

with the things

she has chosen to leave behind;

and that has made all the difference.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

A little bit of a spin off Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken.

dVerse OLN

bliss

a love note/poem from my hubby

via refrigerator magnets

photo © 2013 jennifer wagner

a soft tangerine moon

glows there

where i put my hand over your heart,

feel your breath slow and even

chest rising, falling

            rising, falling

and i can’t catch myself, either—

from drifting off

into the green poem

of us

where you

lift me up to the branches

to catch my footing,

where the

light shines through

its trembling leaves.

i hold them tight,

let the sun play in angled drops

on my face, close my eyes to

feel the favor

of your smile,

and then open them again

to focus

on eden appearing,

in the closing

of the blue distance.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse OpenLinkNight 

Simply Jesus

your blood blooms still 

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

When there’s not enough hyssop

to cleanse me of all these flaws—

I think I must live with them,

make slow improvements

with the

tick tick tick

of time’s cruel elements.

I know too well this unruly thing

inside me is me,

but there, too,

is the me that hungers for her first love

somewhere buried beneath

bruising, hardening, scarring

it throbs,

however disjointedly.

I am not a girl of

ritual, rules or religion.

I only know that at fifteen

I just wanted

to hold Your hand.

And now,

beyond church

and the things they add to it all,

and bitter politics

and the things they take away from it all,

and morality,

and all these rules I break—

I stand here today

wondering

when did I ever get the idea

You were not enough?

In dark,

in cloud,

in lightless days,

Your blood blooms still.

And I remember

I never needed

anything else anyway.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

1 Corinthians 2:2-5.  And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony^[a] of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ³ I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human^[b] wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

it's about more than winning

photo © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

baseball is about more than just the money

baseball is

a metaphor for life

           

baseball is

to return home

good for what ails us

romantic

an art

           

baseball is

poetry

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

For Form for All:  List Poems and the Poetic Heart of Google.  Sam Peralta has us using Googlism to create poetry.  Our instructions were to visit the Googlism site and type in a word of our choosing and craft a list poem from the results.  Fun! 

And for Clint, my 13 year old crazy-for-baseball, grand-slam-hitting kid.  You amaze me and make me so proud!  (Photo:  Desert Fall Classic Tournament 2013— opposing teams taking a knee together).