I get it. It was a simpler time
A sweeter time for rivers and old trucks
and tongue flicks
Or it was the music
Or maybe we are magnets
and memory aligns us back
to the crystal structure we were before
I’m not sure. It doesn’t make sense to me
I’m aware of my ignorance. I don’t need
everything to fit into hard little rows
It doesn’t have to be simple or straight for me
to swallow it whole and let it keep my stomach warm and new
I love winter. There I said it. I love the cold, the snow
The bundling up with sweaters and blankets
I love hot beverages and rums and scotches
I love cedar in the swamp toppled with clean white snow
And hot steam from my mouth when I breathe out
In steam visions, touching your cheek
As my feet make a trail along a doe’s path
Over the creek into the meadow under the apple tree
Pausing to breathe and breathe, happy and sad
I like feeling the relief when I step into a warm home, when I stomp my feet and take off my boots and scarf and hat and coat, the hot fluster on my cheeks. And then smelling the wood burning fire, the chimney puffing up
like my heart for you and our world
I love you. I can’t help it. It’s the music. The step. The waves. The past or the future
It doesn’t matter. But its here. It hangs on.
It doesn’t leave. It isn’t sick or destructive
not disparate or selfish. It doesn’t hurt.
Its not a spring flower, nor a brown crumpled leaf.
It’s a rustic road that runs up north along lake Michigan and never seems to end
That leads to lake superior and cools all the fear out.
You can’t own or fight it. There is no need. It’s here, in my poetry
These silent odes, from an old fat human woman
who is learning to walk soft and dream expansive peace
I don’t want to go to war. But the war is here too.
So now I dream we are holding hands, like little laughing children
Who have not learned to hate or mistrust.
I am transforming myself.
I am focusing my intentions on life. I am forever restarting with me.
I am learning to live free of ego and hate.
I am eating the fear and panic one breath at a time.
It will take times. There is times for you to learn too.
Put your ear on my heart, I am alive with you. What more could we ask for?
Annieepoetry 