If you ever lose heart and the earth seems as distant as stars fading into the noise of your busy mind, know this. That a tiny island exists in the blue hands of the ocean. That a tree grows upright into the salted clouds. That two eagles love each other enough to spend their lives greeting the morning sun together. That two eaglets stand in their nest, gazing at the heavens. Looking down to the forever ground. They eat and sleep and flap their wings. And one day in July, one by one, they will jump into the air. They will know the difference between existing and what is beyond. They will hold onto nothing. The hurricane will come, courage catching their pinions on fire, as they mount the wind, climbing ladders into realms of the invisible.


--T.L. Stokes






Friday, February 3, 2012


witch in the garage





In the middle of the night
things were simple,
a party of coyotes
dancing and woo-wooing.

The next day the witch in leggings,
black hair pointing to the damp grass,
talked about the table she set.

She stood in the meadow looking for scraps
they may have left,
listed off the menu: dead bunnies, salmon,
this and that.

All day you wonder why.
She has a baby you know. Raises chickens
and sometimes coyotes like to steal
the weakest.

Drag it to the field. Bless each feather.
Perhaps she's trading one thing for another.
Here take the trash, the what's-left-over.

But then she talks about trimming
the fir by her upstairs window, so she can see
when they come, for blood,

for the song in their bellies.






c2012 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)