4 a.m. and I am one a part of all

Are those fireflies
come to join my meditation
or all the stars

a constellation 
above the grass
as waves crash
in a quiet ebb and flow
of breeze
that catches in trees

     and that?

a soft bowl chime
Rinpoche
reminds

or the bell buoy
just offshore
marking time
and breeze,
the tease
of stars

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. Image: Nicholas Roerich, Star of the Hero.

Future Perfect

Hush Hush
the red cardinal whispers
to the wind and to time

the needs of the many outweigh
the needs of the few or the one

As he and his mate lean into each other
brace against the man-made cold
its air that breaks hope and bones

Hush Hush

In the spring, love, the babes arrive,
and we’ll sing and dance unending

But he knows the storms to come
the wicked winds, the end of time

and we’ll see in them, those babes,
a thousand more…we’ll fly
in crystal skies anew

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Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. For more poems like this, read Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind.

 

Sunday Morning

This morning, I stopped along a narrow trail, enveloped by the sweet scents of honeysuckle and spicebush. Memories of last night’s rain skipped from leaf to leaf, while damselflies danced  and a lone catbird sang. From branches sixty feet above, pollen drifted down like snow, illuminated in the first light of day. Oh the bees, their sunrise fête in blooming vines, and mine — oh mine — below.

Everything is connected…

The new white tuft in my hair
reminds me of the rabbit
who lived in my yard last spring.

I called her Idiom,
soft brown fur, also white tufted,
she taking time to smell roses
when I could not.

Now there is all the time in the world
to smell roses,
to smell daffodils, tulips, lilacs, iris, peonies
each in succession, not waiting for us
or virus or waves or protests or
the great collective consciousness to
wake the fuck up and see how it’s all connected
the microscopic virus,
the pandemics of greed and hate,
the white tuft in my hair,
the small new rabbit,
the small new baby, even
who mews like all new creatures
white, black, furred, feathered
who may or may not outrun the fox
to meet the multiflora rose next June
introduce themselves to the clover
its bumble and honey companions
I step softly over so as not to disturb
their humble prayers or mine
to a god who needs no standard,
requires no bloodletting,
asks no more than sweet, simple reverence

for everything.

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©2020, Jen Payne.

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