100.

[photo and inspiration by: r. brown]

i'm not convinced that a post of this sort deserves the number 100 spot, but the feelings that accompany the process certainly do. i also like that the photo is taken haphazardly on a phone, it's of a house - not one that is particularly beautiful - and that the "poem" itself was written this morning at my kitchen table. there is something about all of this that i think serves as a good 100 for this blog. it is very much a patchwork place of memory, future projection, professional reflection, and attempts at living a slower, more deliberate sort of life.

thanks to r. brown, my creativity demanded i put other things aside for a few minutes and write a little something.
what is the equivalent of ditty in the land of poetry? this is like a ditty. one that just happened, was unrehearsed, and went well with my coffee.

***

the light by your house.

it isn’t wrong to notice
our shoes on the sidewalk.
the cracks beneath them,
the weeds – i imagine tiny trees:
oak, maple, cherry –
beneath them still.

no. my mother would argue
it serves us best to know where
our feet are at.

my first lover
(the one who left me at the Chevron station)
would say, look up girlchild
your feet will follow.
look up! god damn it, look up!

when finally one morning
after my solitary espresso
i silenced commands of
both mother and lover,
noticed the nuthatches skipping
from great oak to wise pine,
and abandoned them
for the soaring type.

it was there
shining simply
with or without me.