I see her going out to play before breakfast,
Her hair a mousy fawn in the predawn light.
She is dreaming, and it seems to me, pretending.
She glides amongst the thistles,
And bluebells, their blooms still nestled tight
And covered with dew.
She pirouettes, and dips, and curtsies,
A gentle ballet, in step with the morning birds' song.

But just as the sun breaks over the distant hills,
And golden light crowns the lea,
I see the gold wash through her hair.
I'm aware of her divinity,
And for just a glimpse I understand
That she is not pretending,
But every motion of her dance supplies
The world around her with fertility and life,
And her movements now
Will cause the stars to shine later,
And cause the bees to come,
And the morning flowers will open
And there will be homes
For mothers of all kinds to birth their young
And see them grow.
And even from this maiden goddess,
Not a woman yet herself,
But within her power, the aura of life exists,
And motherhood.

-jenn

They wondered why I was late.
I saw them silently ruminate
About the causes all thereof.
They never stop to think that love
Might be the reason,
A season of sex, maybe,
A flat tire, a blowout in my underwire bra.
Most people think the worst of me,
As people do,
But don't worry, they think the worst of you, too.

But I had only just heard
The gospel about dandelion fur,
And on my way, about halfway there,
I saw a field full of dandelion hair.
And what was I to do?
For now I knew the truth about the seeds,
And how, tho considered by so many now to be weeds,
When you pick the stems up and give the heads a blow,
Your wishes go out and forth,
And all of them come true.
And so I ask again, my friend,
What was I to do?

People don't like to go to a place called home.
They like to go where it feels like one.
Some seek bars and smoky places.
Some seek trouble or friendly faces.
Some seek dollar bills or diamond rings,
But I have found that I seek fields of bittergreens
Where bright-as-sunshine flowers turn
Magically into wishes I didn't know I had,
And I reap gracious fields I haven't sown,
And mercifully, I bloom in riches that
I haven't earned.

-jenn

I'm just sitting in the car,
As the earth revolves around the sun,
And the sun travels around
Whatever it is it travels around.
And like a shark
That swims its circles around its supper,
Trying to decide if it should eat it,
My mind contemplatively orbits you.
Just as the sun circles that black hole
In the center of the galaxy,
And thinks of eating it,
Just as the earth thinks of eating the sun,
I think it might be just as dangerous
And possibly a bad comparison
To think I am the shark in this equation,
To think that you are the prey,
When clearly a more precise metaphor
Would be one that depicts you as a predator
That stays right where it is
And let's the black hole in the center of the galaxy
Come to it.

One could say that nothing in this world
Is like anything else,
But I have stuck my same foot
In the same stream
Twice,
And I have swimmed the Milky Way
Before and will again, I'm sure,
And I know, there are vaguely new things
Under the sun,
And many new things over it.

-jenn

The weather men
And weather women
Want it to get terribly hot
They warn us of the heat index
With a gleam of demonic glee
They want us all to have heat strokes
They want us to leave our children in cars
With the windows up
So they'll have something to say

Oh it's really baaaad over here
They say and wring their hands
With happy anticipation
A hook echo, a super cell
A million cloud to ground lightning strikes
And hail
Lots of fucking hail

But just in time
The clouds relax
The wind stops
And a gentle rain cools the air
And waters the crops again

And all the weather men
And weather women
Are wrong
Again

-jenn

Fear not, my child, for that's not thunder
That you hear, but a cannon
On a nearby plain,
And war cannot touch your noble brow
As easily as lightning may.
So stay inside a little while,
Perhaps until you're thirty-five,
Then you can run for president,
Or some other resident evil.
But then, you'll have to give up your nobility
By submitting to the vulgar vote.
And so, remember,
You could become a casualty then.

My child, if you would deign to have
Real power, then I do beseech thee,
Stay safe within your name.
Don't ever color outside the lines
Or go beyond the norms
Of such great standing.
The meek inherit the earth,
But the pious rich receive a bounty seven fold.
So eat your ambrosia,
And rest here in the fire at night
Until the Goddess Demeter
Has had her perfect work in you
And you, too, can be immortal.

-jenn

He is starting to distrust my toes.
If he pops them in his mouth
Without looking,
His plans sometimes go out the window.
He never knows
What I've dipped my
Toes into this time.
Sometimes I dip them into hot wax,
For it helps relax sore ligaments.
Sometimes when the humidity is thick among us,
I've dipped my toes in Vick's menthol rub
To stave away the smelly toe fungus,
And the night before the 3rd Saturday waltz,
I always dip my toes in salts,
For general purposes.
But as it were, I think I see
His distrust of my feet
Creeping up to apply to the rest of me.
If my toes aren't sweeet, afterall!
It seems that even spring can be a season for cold feet.

-jenn

The stars are just fire flies high in the sky.
They go where they want in no particular order.
They wander randomly without rhyme or reason.
Whenever the physicists fall asleep,
When the guy at the telescope takes a break,
They dive bomb one another,
And run for cover out of their orbits,
And no mathematics in the world could ever describe their flight.
The stars don't care
How many miles light can travel in a year.
They only care about you
And keeping you fooled
So you'll continue to stare up there at them
And smile
And wish
And forget about your math homework,
So you can never solve for X,
So you can never tell where in the heck
The earth will be in relation to the center of the Milky Way
Today,
Or the day after tomorrow.

-jenn