The answers lie in setting everything free,
allow anxiety to fall and trust the process.
Baby, it’s okay to let the grass grow wild.
Nature has a way of keeping blades level.
Allow anxiety to fall and trust the process,
complete control is really just an illusion.
Nature has a way of keeping blades level,
embrace the animal clawing at your guts.
Complete control is really just an illusion,
let the raw razors uncurl and blossom.
Embrace the animal clawing at your guts,
demanding to be released from its cage.
Let the raw razors uncurl and blossom,
you’ll peak precisely when you need to.
Demanding to be released from its cage,
urges can only be contained for so long.
You’ll peak precisely when you need to,
baby it’s okay to let the grass grow wild.
Urges can only be contained for so long,
the answers lie in setting everything free.
Rain, old friend, I hear you gathering in the dark.
Come—my leaves are thirsty for your silver touch.
I have waited through the long hush of heat,
roots dreaming of your cool, wandering footsteps.
Let your voice fall through my branches,
let your fingers drum softly on my moss-green skin.
Every drop you bring wakes something sleeping in me—
the ferns uncurl, the soil breathes, the shadows brighten.
Stay awhile, Rain.
The world feels more like itself when you return.
soup is what happens
when separate things consent
to becoming shared
not losing what they once were
only wanting to join in
In a bowl of soup
hard broken bones grow tender
old sinews uncurl—
nothing refuses the slow
coercion of a simmer
chopped ingredients
dropped into the iron pot
speak the same language—
a quiet conglomerate
poetry, more than its parts
held between two palms,
a cup of soup warms the soul
its steam curls unfolds—
inspiring insightful sips
in simple possible ways
around one wide pot
neighbors gather with stories
shared among good friends—
gathering glints and jangles
from the hoo-hah, bubbling, stew
When yellow crocus wake to welcome day
Beneath the trees a splash of glowing gold
And purple primrose cast a rich display
While honeysuckle vines uncurl, unfold
For me, I know no more a wondrous thing
Than a cottage garden in early spring
On a damp Sunday, where the grass and earth
Call my name, out from the tangle of covers
On the humid wind, the forest beckons
With her arms of fallen leaves, twigs
Ferns uncurl
My heart is pounding in my black sweatshirt,
I unzip it and touch my collar bone, and then
The rough arm of a sycamore
Just when I thought I was King
She sways in the wind and wrestles me down
Just when I thought I was good at letting
Soft earth mend my brow, just like the worry doll
The white lilies and morels fade away
I know the moment when my heart pounds
And refuses to drive to work, to go back
And I scream silently, but I’m reflected in the lake
Lines and red rimmed eyes, but, something else
I spread my arms and look up, in time to see a Red Tail
Following along, parallel in the grey sky
Let’s let that be enough, crown of feathers
Enough, gentle lake wind
To dream another day to a close
true love is what we fall into
it's music always thrums
nightly I sleep entwined with you
then when the morning comes
wake up sleepy dream girl,
softly stretch and uncurl
I taste your lips of pearl
always irresistible you
true love is what we fall into
Tiny new, soft green leaves,
Yet full of baby wrinkles
And winter sleep,
Uncurl and stretch,
Clinging to mother branches,
Basking in the unaccustomed
Long-awaited,
Sun-filled warmth.
Bird conversations
Fill the soft-stirred air.
Returning wanderers
Greet one another.
”Hello again! How was
Venezuela this year?
Who has the nest
In the arbor vitae now?”
I breathe the sweet April
Smell of hyacinths
And white and purple lilacs.
The stone steps are warm.
I lean into a corner,
Sun seeping into my body
Like heated syrup
Soaking into pancakes.
A space of time my own -
For just this moment
I belong to sun and earth
And birds and sky.
Eyes closed, I feel
And hear and smell
God’s world around me –
And know that it’s enough.
Yoga positions
pretzel launching pad, painful
crowd wilts from fitness
senior endurance
festiness charges living
folks uncurl, relieved
Senryu composed August 7/21
Motion's mementoes --
babe's tiny fingers uncurl
centenarian's eyebrow raised
the sun darting behind clouds
an earthworm's tortuous wiggling
performers all, a broad panorama --
seeking approval
glimpses of meaning
This year’s been so long. So long to Winter!
With blinding shaft and bright bleeding of sun,
the limbs of trees, like flames, trust their tinter.
Unfurl the soulful buds, ye Holy One!
The soak of pomp at ground level unfurls.
Angelic, sonorous romance of Spring.
See tea cups and saucers — bouquets uncurl.
Astir your eyes to the rebirth God brings.
True garden grows within — reds, purples, blues.
The rose, tulips, and wildflowers — His gifts.
Forsake not light of brightest scent and hue.
Lean in, darlings, and pluck the sweetest lift.
To live is Christ! Adoration of life!
So friends, spur away Winter and its strife.
3/6/2021
Breath of Spring
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
The lichen clings to his trunk
Like she has for ages
Holding fast, curling tight
In pale green companionship
The oak tree smiles down at her
Craggy smile, chafed and gnarled with time
To admire her diligence, to coexist
At the meeting place where two form one
When the rain taps in multitudes on his leaves
When the night sweeps over like a funeral veil
When the day lifts it as a morning bride
Still she holds him, squeezing herself to his chest
He begins to wonder, as trees sometimes do
If it is time for her to uncurl, unlatch
For all the gifts that she provides, and he returns
Perhaps it’s time to diverge, to greet separate horizons
But a stubborn, steadfast thing she is
And for all his hoping and itching for progress
She holds on, past the eleventh hour
Past his need for her embrace
And now when the wind whistles through,
It sounds more like a wistful sigh,
For the lichen promises and whispers
And the fond old oak tree complies
“Loving someone enough to let them go
doesn’t always work.”
Saturday, January 30, 2021
For Joseph May’s contest “Fabled Musings”
The Jagged Side
We’re not just polar opposites.
We exist in neighboring galaxies.
Still, I’d rather have my dancing soul
crash on your rocky surface
than to rain down my light
on a starless moon.
Compatibility is the oatmeal
of edible relationships.
It’s palatable, yes,
but so is cardboard.
Keep you Kodak moment,
I need my own photographic negative.
So screw the placid whispers,
growl threats in my ear.
Kiss me so hard, I have a lisp
the next day. Wrap your hand
on my throat, leaving
unexplainable outlines.
Weave love and death,
hate, and wonder in the same
poetic hiss, then stare me down
until my helix begins to uncurl.
I have just three minutes to be
unforgettable so
I’m coming in for a crashing -
no smooth landing, hell no
landing at all.
I’m aiming for the jagged side
of your darkest mountain.
Survival is irrelevant.
I won’t notice, either way.
Grows the night as moonlit waves swivel
to unravel submerged mysteries,
dark fears uncurl into sapphire hopes,
lustrous divine chandelier on pier.
Grows the night to unveil moist layer
of echoed enchanting fog of faith,
flaming muse scintillates pearls of love,
with musk-soaked lullabies grows the night
June 9, 2020
REPEAT THE PHRASE Poetry Contest
Sponsor: nette onclaud
Title Chosen: GROWS THE NIGHT
9 syllables per line, checked on howmanysyllables.com
~Winner: Third Place
BRIAN'S SELECT H,any form,any theme Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~Winner: Honorable Mention
oh, bring me gentle wildflowers that blow
and the green hues of a forest in solitude
bring all those sweet violets, purple hued
melt the thick ice so winding streams can flow
fill the trees with bird songs that echo
oh, change winter shadows with spring renewed
with leaves that unfurl and uncurl in quietude
let your rich embroidery spread and grow _
___________________________
April 14, 2020
Poetry/Rhyme/Spring
Copyright Protected, ID 20-1243-03
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
Submitted to Strand Pick 12
sponsor, Brian Strand
First Place
ducks cluck
bulls buck
gnus munch
bugs buzz
surf
lulls
as shrubs bud;
dusk
suns
cummulus
unfurl
curls
uncurl
tumult
upturns
as
crush
sucumbs
a FP source inspired list
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