no one ever said
how lonely my heart would be
when it beat alone

Something about lamplight in the twilight:
I don't know what, just something.
Maybe I really am a hobbit.
Country roads and green leaves and sleepy birds.
And lamplight.

Just something.

Yours Truly

I am grateful most
Not that you are handsome,
Even though you know all too well that you are,
Not that you are the lover of my dreams,
Though you know you are that too,
Not that you are the father of my children,
Born and unborn,
Not that you are the hard-working husband
That comes home to me every night,
Not that you can take me to heights and depths of my soul
That I never knew existed,
Not that you call me your whiskey girl
And your sweetheart,
Not that you love to wear a flower on your lapel
And suspenders that button on,
Not for every little smile and scowl and temper and tease
And touch and movement that makes you mine, all and always mine,

But most that when we were younger
And before you were mine,
You respected me,
And that before I was your girl
I was your lady:
For that I am always
Most gratefully
Yours.

Still Naive

But why would they?
All of them.
Toppled like ninepins.
How am I different, or how was I missed?
We started together,
All clean white and shining,
Courageous sweet sixteen, and never been kissed.
And now I glance backwards
To look for my comrades
And stop in my tracks and the tears freely flow.
Why didn't they tell me?
They knew I was there.
I'd have carried them through in my arms had I known.

Diaphane

For a moment, when she turned her head,
The bursting leaves on the elm tree

Were cherry blossoms instead.

And I wonder now, she later said,
If maybe they were as happy
As I, that I'd been misled.

I thought they broke the mold

John Berberich over at SLAP passed along to me their latest challenge: a poem a day for all of April. As I lay in bed late last night fighting the stomach flu for the second day in a row, I found three random lines, and congratulated myself drearily on being ahead for one day. Well--um--yesterday was the first of April, as I realized this morning, so I was not at all ahead. Oh well. At least I wrote one for yesterday then, right?

The same devilment's
In the unborn brother's kicks
And that four-toothed grin.

it's just today

There are some days in life when poetry escapes us--the words are there inside, seething and confused, and we can't put them in order at all.
I don't like the poetry that comes out on those days--troubled, ugly, unhappy. Today has been one of those days; but I don't want to share that.
Instead, I will follow William's lead and post a visual poem, snapshots of things that have been beautiful today, little moments that save me. They are taken on a tiny camera; they are not a photographer's work by any means; and they may mean nothing to anyone else: but at least I know that I tried, on a pretty much no-good day, to contribute a little beauty to the world around me.