Pigeon Heart Ponderings

The thing about poetry is that it can live anywhere.

Like reindeer moss deprived of rain or light still flourishing after years of neglect.

It can hide in plain sight.

It can be on the tip of your toe as you kick a stone off the sidewalk.

It can be tucked up some country road with countless potholes leading up to a seemingly  forgotten, stumpy clear-cut that  just about wrenches your gut, as it should; and ends you up snapping photos of yourself there, envisioning saplings strengthening.

It could be in the way that you catch your own eyes reflecting off your own red blouse, this poetry- and how it echoes your anger, your passions, or your effortlessly coursing, very alive and platelet rich blood.

It can surprise you, while you peek back upon someone else’s story in your mind, & find the tale ready to be regurgitated in reflective fashion, touched with artistic licensure.

It can be in the seagull that approaches you & makes you feel shame for having the sense of being slighted with its head cocked all judgy like. *What dude?*

There’s this rampant ambivalence that’s sure to be the leading cause of fruitless pages & stilled pens.

You must show up for yourself.

Give yourself time in this land.

You are the gardener. And it is not an easy harvest.

Some poem trails lay fallow or demand of you to over step those washed-out, cliche illuminations like a biblical plague of frogs raining sideways, causing hairline fractures in the south-facing, sun-emitting windows of your concept collecting place.

We must use refrain from once more addressing the grandiose of the moon or sky or rose blooms or lovers eyes that tug for  yet another cameo as it’s so damn easy to include, but would demand space like kudzu or catnip, choking out the roots of other gentle flower thoughts yet to be planted. New growth.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

So throw your ass in your car. Drive out to the coast in the rain. Sit in your mobile monsoon box, eat your leftovers on a perch overlooking the great sea, & write something new. Listen to the whispers beyond the waves.

Our words await us. And the time is wow.