Poems
And Know There is More
This poem was written in the early days of Covid when there was so much uncertainty in the world.
And know there is more you cannot see.
The wind caressing the ripe willow branches.
The snail journeying through a meadow, towards what, I don’t know.
The red wing blackbird swallowing midges.
The squirrel skipping along the ash tree branches.
Dead bits of those branches tumbling to the ground, scattered like clippings on the salon floor.
Pebbles shifting with each ripple in the lake.
Sunlight shimmering on the water of that lake.
Clouds of midges swirling in the lee of the dogwood bushes.
The widow wailing silently in her too-quiet home.
Lovers reaching for each other in the dawning light.
The golden retriever nosing through the grass looking for leftovers.
The red and blue kite stuck in the poplar tree, its tail waving in vain.
A turtle moving with dedication along a path towards a pond.
A child waking from a nightmare, crying for her sister.
The buds on the quince tree pushing from within.
Friends walking together, awkwardly distanced. “She said what?”
The nurse on a bus, asleep, face pressed against the window.
The grocery clerk stacking boxes of cereal.
The farmer planting seeds in the crisp dawn, dew shining on the grass bordering the field.
And know there is more you cannot see. And more.
The card placed in the mailbox of the son whose mother died last week.
A slice of chocolate cake delivered to the back door and left on the stoop.
Hugs delivered by video screen.
Awkward expressions of love and gratitude.
Heartfelt expressions of love and gratitude.
The store owner opening her shop to one customer at a time, cleaning between each one, her arms raw from disinfectant mist.
People in pain, stuck inside with other people in pain.
Kids who want to learn, without people to help them learn.
This list that is gently breaking my tender heart.
Beauty in a rusty mooring on the eastern gap.
Graffiti on the seawall.
And know there is more you cannot see, and feel, and smell, and taste, and hear. We orbit, we dance through, we pivot, spinning through this thing called life.
-- Allyson Woodrooffe, inspired by a prompt [And know there is more, That you can’t see...] from Joy Harjo's "Eagle Poem"
Thank you Firefly Creative Writing for your Morning Coffee Sessions
Photo taken on Great Mercury Island, NZ, Feb 2020. The sea is hiding just over that hill.
Strayed bits
Parts of me
silently drift
to the floor,
and lay there.
A pubic hair by the bathmat,
a toenail clipped
and missed the trashcan,
unseen flakes of skin that might
eventually get noticed
as dust.
Miraculous stray bits,
once integral,
now like leaves on the forest floor,
now unattached,
now part of the whole.
Unwinding
Lured,
She wound the delicate silver chain
round and round and round her belly.
Unbreakable, fluid armour
pretending to be embellishment.
Its cool touch numbs
like a cast spell, unnoticed.
Worn so long, the links have fused.
No knife can cut it.
No hands can tear it.
No heat can melt it.
Only breath,
breath can begin
the unwinding.