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Janus racingI
stretch unbending my mind
limbering muscles
feeling them
wake
leaning into
anticipation
I fight resistance
jogging into memory
of motion
and sleeping metaphor
Warming to the task
I begin
Pushing myself
beyond lassitude
and fear
my bones eager
limbs pumping
I comb the air for
clues
to rediscover
my quickened blood
throwing myself
beyond yesterday's
limits
leaping
heart and mind
bursting
and stumble,
exhausted
on the finish
at last:
a poem.
Driven
Brakeless, I am driven,
pressed down against
each day, racing
around curves and
railing against
time. Failing to yield
rights of way, I swerve
to avoid missing
anything.
Idle, I feel surges
of caution and
debate. My blood
whines not to be
still too soon or
still too late. Horns sound
my dilemma. I
sit, umoving and
exhausted.
Creeping, I stay within
two lines tracing
the path of my
decline. Will speed
blur my vision?
Slow-paced, might I see
the missed turn, or a
shoulder kissed by moss
on my way?
Cat Dreams
Insinuated on my lap,
my cat sits priming for a nap
with kneading paws. His head is pressed
entreatingly against my chest
and in his throaty thrumming purr
cat memories begin to stir:
of mother-belly soft as silk,
the smell of her remembered milk.
In half-sleep now it seems that I'm
caught in up dreaming, lost in time.
My kitten-baby, nuzzling, feeds
enveloped in the bosom needs
of cat dreams. This redemptive sense
of lost and found is recompense
for all I've held and fed and kissed
and all my wistful breast has missed.
My cat, past kneading, drifts transposed
on liquid sleep, his length enclosed
in rusty fur along my thighs,
his lowered lids on dreamless eyes.
And so I rock and stroke his head;
our memories are put to bed
and tucked away at precious cost:
cat's cradle found, cat's cradle lost. |