Envelope Poems

Striped cat

There’s gotta be a word for this.

For that thing that happens
when I need new tennis shoes

Alchemy

Make a Blooming Paper Flower

What toy or party favor do you remember fondly from childhood?

How Does it Feel?

Hiking

My body after the hike felt so…so what? It was vibrating from the exercise and from the green of the day. This is what I tried to put down in a poem.

Mask Poem

Eli on the last day of Poetry Month 2015

CAT AT MIDNIGHT by April Halprin Wayland Night. She pads out to the porch, I hide. “Come sleep with me,” she says, while turning off the light. I wait. She goes to bed. Then mastering my fright, I slink inside. I’m careful where I tread I tiptoe past his plate and cross a rope he’s […]

Villanelle

flowers bush white fragrant

Did I pretend? Perhaps a dream…or was it true?
Thirteen. I was thirteen. It was July.
I swear I didn’t make it up…that night I flew.

How Do You Describe a Smell?

Eli and Elsie meet

X PUPPY PERFUME by April Halprin Wayland It’s powdery— cotton candy and dust from a carnival midway It’s musky— leaf litter of an old oak grove It’s all mixed up— crackers and couch pillows: your own furry fragrance your downy dogness as I burrow into you each morning. (c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights […]

Generosity

rope_bridge

For this Friday’s post, I needed a poem about generosity.

Two Turtles

Eli checks out one of the new turtles

 “Oh joy!” one new turtle seemed to say, swimming off. The other tucked his head into his shell and sat on a rock.

Long Walk

Star Thistle

Wearing sturdy shoes and wide-brimmed straw hats,
my big sister and I trudge across our farm’s sandy soil,
through Johnson grass, to the river.