We need heroes and heroines

Because we weren’t raised right,

And it helps to site goodness in our heads

Archetypically,

And give us a  reason to smile and 

To get out of bed in the mornings,

And try to be the best at something,

Or just happy.

But martyrs are not the flip side of the coin.

A martyr is not an anti-hero, or heroine,

Yet all they really do is make us sad

When we see the victory they could’ve had,

Should’ve had, would’ve had,

Had their lives mattered more,

And not been cut so untimely short.

We don’t need martyrs, but we have them,

And we will always will,

Because we weren’t raised right,

And we never will be.

-jenn

*When I climbed the apple tree, 

To hide from my aunt 

Who wanted to give me a spanking,

I had time to think,

And I wondered what I had done

That was so bad.

I didn’t know that being so human 

Could get one into such trouble,

And while I was thinking of the hell

That she said I would surely find,

I slipped and fell. I fell completely out of time.

And when my aunt hit me

With her car,

I flew farther away,

And saw stars and heavens

And fell into a pomegranate bush.

I saw the apples on my way down,

And realized the fall of all mankind,

And plunged into a creek that ran

Which carried me to a place downstream,

And now, I was clean, but I was lost,

And didn’t know if I should try

To make my way back home,

Or go ahead and die, while I was pure

And forgiven,

Or take a chance that living life

Might stain me again,

And heaven might catch me dead, in vain,

And twice as dirty as before I knew

What dirt was.

But here I am.

I’ve survived people not giving a damn

And worse,

And learned to nurse myself back to health,

And learned to care for my own soul.

I’m not a victim, anymore.

I learned when to accept that I’d done wrong,

And I can decide whether I need punishment, or not,

Or deep attentive love to make me whole again.

-jenn

Just now the sweet magnolia blooms.

Delayed by unseasonably cooler days

And nights of chilly starshine,

But just in time, as a bit of the gloom and doom

Gives way, as the Eyebright and the Feverfew

Begin to shoot up, through the soil

And start to leaf,

My heart skips a beat to the tune

Of the late bloomer.

And as I smell the intoxicating ivory spray

Of magnolia on its wedding day,

I hesitate to hope and dare

To say it waited just for me.

-jenn

They like their house time enough,

But wish someone had planted a better tree in the yard

A hundred years ago,

Forty years before they were born.

This elm has grown up big and strong,

But the neighbor has twin oaks,

And folks around here are tree snobs.

So they are thinking to mow around

Eight small saplings the squirrels planted

By randomly burying treasured acorns in the ground for food,

So that, in another hundred years,

When the house has fallen down,

At least there will be some sturdy oaks

Grown up, albeit fractally spaced.

Who’s to say if oaks will be out of style by then?

Though complaining seems to be ever in season.

-jenn

If I feel naked without you,

What does that say about me?

That I would go naked by myself 

In broad daylight down the street?

I would you know,

Like Godiva on her horse

O’er the Cobblestone Roads of Coventry,

With only my long hair to cover me,

To pay the ransom taxes,

To set you free,

And only one soul

Gauche enough to peek at me,

Sir Thomas, the brave peeper,

Now known as Thomas the Blind.

But if, as for some noble cause,

I ride for you,

What does it say

That I would do something 

I wanted to,

And yet, in such an altruistic way?

-jenn

In the dreamy Other Place,

It’s always morning cool,

And shadowy upon thy face,

And birds fly low.

They sing clever melodies

And dive and land and eat

Upon the ground so close

That one could reach and touch them.

My feet are light and I could fly to you.

In this shade, it’s always spring.

The grass is drunken green,

And lilacs bloom anew again each day.

Two birds flutter in the untroubled hedge

The branches and the leaves move

With the breeze, and the birds at play.

My mind flies away, to the Other Place,

Where nothing exists but love and peace

And bliss and muted shades of May.

I’ll be back to live again right here,

Where fear is not even a memory.

Soothed by the trills of satisfied songbirds,

I will dance and put my face

Into the fresh lilacs filled with dew,

And wander the lolling, strangely, Irish hills 

Of this Other Place.

-jenn

If you’re a good artist,

You might be famous in a thousand years.

If you work in stone,

And you alone see the dream,

You alone work out your vision 

With fear and trembling,

Your muscle and your bone 

Doing your bidding.

Thy will be done.

And if you are a poet,

And can afford the clay, the vellum,

Or the cloud space,

See if anyone reads you in a hundred years,

Or two, or five hundred,

Like Shakespeare, or two thousand years,

Like Catullus, or 2500,

And still be known for only beautiful fragments of phrases,

As Sappho truly was.

Though the by-line she was given

Somewhere down the rolls of time

Still stands, “The Tenth Muse.”

Who knows what may still be considered poetry

In the days to come,

But if you and your art become a muse

To others, your spirit will live on and on,

And you will have become a mother

To the gods, or a father to them.

-jenn