Thursday (gettin my poem on)

The theme this week on Read Write Poem's "get your poem on" is "beginnings and endings." To me, they are always the same thing. This poem speaks to that idea.

(still working on accompanying video poem)

avoiding the woolly worms

I drive 10 miles an hour slower to avoid them crossing the road

it is the season for so many things

don't know what they will become if left to become

some moth or butterfly fluttering to light

but for now they simply creep across every path

subtle as skin, twice as vulnerable

and I know I must be insane, crying for black and orange

fuzz-piles on blacktop as commuters back up I

swerve into the opposing lane

my life an unconcern

as worms are enlightened

be free be free

in the next lifetime, perhaps they will live

in a great ocean

* * *

if you listen to sea turtles laying eggs

it sounds like a moan of human pleasure

exhale so familiar it makes one shiver

afterwards they leave their young

to predators and elements

return to ocean with straight necks

sun and salt stinging tears mistaken

for regret

At recess, village school children shield emerging

baby sea turtles from vultures

They would tear their heads off

if we let them…

they say in Spanish

So few, so few after egg gathering season

ever make it to the water.

* * *

Upstairs, I stand at the window

wondering if you are asleep in the hammock

one leg thrown over the side

It is as if I am looking down on the memory

of something

or a distant happy dream

It is green and dry through the trees

I'm at the window upstairs as the hammock swings

back and forth and back and forth

filling the space between us

You wave slowly and I wave back

far too calm and quiet

from Every Day Angels and Other Near Death Experiences