Breathe elegance
of gray green
lessons in simplicity
blue heron waits
I watch your
minor shifts in moving
I’ve already squiggled
a dozen times
while you peer tall
on your barnacled stage
I’d never seen
stillness so refined
estuary ballerina
extending time.
[Excerpted from the book with the same title by Sean Wiebe & Celeste Snowber]
School bus driver
Releases the squish of her air brakes
With a lurch from knees and chest
Clunks the bus into Park
Lowers her red head into the matchsticks of her dry hands
Rolls the meatballs of her eyes between her thumbs
And quietly says Help me God reaching for her cigarettes.
Out of habit she takes one last glance
Into her rearview mirror
Seeing the blond hair of a kid
Sitting in what should be the empty back.
The driver tears down the aisle to her own childhood
Kindergartner sitting with her precious hands
Balanced like tea cups on her knees
Her pretty dress that her mother picked
Is the color of bees teasing flowers
Her blue eyes dazzling
She has a worried smile drawn across her face
Squiggled there by dad in the morning.
She doesn’t speak a word
The driver takes her by the hand
And walks her to the garage to make The Call.
There’s been a terrible mistake
The driver’s boss says over the phone
To mom then dad both at work.
T-he haven of beauty with its brightest tree- flowers strewn in bloom,
H-ailing as masterpiece in one’s heart overwhelmed in deep admiration;
A-pril and May are chanting in triumphs claiming their grandest season,
I-n kaleidoscopic colors arching a warmest welcome to every nation.
L-et your tarried gaze saunters for a while,
A-nd inhale the most scrumptious fragrance in squiggled file;
N-uzzle on their petals as you close your eyes,
D-ream a dream that is never elusive in your life.
©2014by Leonora Galinta
April 27, 2014/12.20pm
Second Place
Contest: A poem you have not entered in contest #2
Judged: 6/12/2014
Sponsor: Dearest Poet Linda/PD
There were some rude people from Slytrap
who only new how to write mean crap,
so on they all squiggled,
and manically giggled,
while Shakespearian fops took cat naps.