Encountering Dangerous Beauty

Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands,
parched places of apathy, or are you
agitated in desert wastelands ~

awake in the dark light where mystics stand,
or do you slump in your usual Sunday pew?
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Do you fill your life with privileges of every brand
or do you empty your cup of all you once knew ~
agitated in desert wastelands.

What do you require to acquire? How do you fill your hands?
Can you reduce possessions to just a few
or are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Commercialize, privatize, merchandise: your life in a can.
What do you get from all this? What do you construe ~
agitated in desert wastelands?

To bloom in the desert, don’t you understand,
you must let go of the last hope of morning dew.
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands
or vitally agitated in desert wastelands?







Wendy Thompson 2/2007

January 2007

White Light of a January Morning

Snow today and I am not eager
to drive to work down Sandy Boulevard
because cars park in the middle of the road here,
even with a mere two inches of powder,

so I delay and watch from my upstairs window
while fat flakes rain down on the bright light
of 52 year old Donna and five year old Jackson
sledding on the white sidewalk

this pallid day, another northwest winter,
sky, as always, a pewter gray, but today
children unfurl through red front doors,
full of oatmeal and enthusiasm

with more than a hint of ecstasy
stuffing their Michelin-man snowsuits
while parents gather on the corner,
a veiled vigil to snowball levity.

Nobody is going anywhere today,
except to ski in the cemetery,
wave hello to the dead,
and etch angels in grass-speckled snow.

Outside my window, between SUVs
and a few enduring maple trees,
three days past Epiphany,
tiny white Christmas lights still blink hope;

overflowing, feet-stomping, snow-shaking, door-slamming
hope; Donna shouting ‘woohoo’ with neighbor boys -
a tribe of the uncensored; hope
leaves white footprints in their abandoned wake.

It's a Sign

One aqua plastic Easter egg
landed in my spruce tree.
Thrown, dropped, placed, unearthed?
How it got there I can only imagine.
The landlord, a neighbor, a past lover, a crow?
I want to attach a person
or storyline to this message of hope.
She's back, love you best, free rent, you win?

Robin egg-blue, nestled in evergreen branches
just out of reach ~ simply, spring always follows winter.