Tag: Pages

Arid: Reflections on a Morning

Published on by annwjwhite2 Comments

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/arid/

Morning comes with stale coffee lingering in the air.

Dogs in and out, and in, then out. Two words erupt.

Then fall to pieces as likely to grow as limestone.

The cord is missing, my laptop still and thoughtless.

Bright sun burns my eyes, warms my hair,

Overheats the brain straining to find a foothold

In actions positive and bright. But the morning hour,

With its teasing laughter, places me in an arid state.

Atmosphere, dry as my mouth,  nothing  grows today.

Pages to remain blank. Inkless as the well in which

I dip my pen while seeking some other way,

I wish to be in the barren deserts of sand in

Timbuktu, where treasures lie beneath,

Hidden for centuries. Their gift? Knowledge

For the eyes of Africa, hidden from the French,

Manuscripts of jeweled splendor, golden highlights,

Speaking of mysteries solved long ago.

Surrounding a barren land with science, government, humanity.

Like cacti, needling those who would steal their worth.

These documents from the twelfth century, thirteenth,

Fourteenth, Fifteenth. Poetry of the stars to linger.

I would linger in the libraries and ponder how, in an arid desert,

The jewels of creativity could bloom and grow.

I would dally at the question posed of a green world.

How could I, in the setting of new leaves and buds,

Think myself without the soil of imagination?

Such a silly thought that morning is more dry, than the

Deserts of Mali or the great Sahara. Perhaps tea

to motivate and enervate? Or a simple peeled orange?

 

Whitewash

Published on by annwjwhite1 Comment

As a little girl,
She read a book where whitewashing was done on walls and fences.
She pretended to be Tom
Swishing and brushing to put a shine
Where the fence was between
The neighbors.
Swish, splash, she turned her head
Looking for missed spots in the surface.

As a woman,
She worked long hours for a firm
That asked her to clean up
After their long day of dealings,
So she bent over her computer
Editing the to and from
The up and down
She washed the pages clean of color
Transposed them into a harmless key.

As an ancient one,
She sat and snipped her luscious
Thread, using the rainbow
Stitching and splicing
Ribbons created of long colored
Memories that never
Were just as they were remembered.
She thought of her paint brushes,
Dry and gone, from when she ran out of white paint.