ever done that thing where you think of one thing and write about something else?
#1
The wind blows through my hair
my horse steady under me
and I feel splintered
like when your boots don’t fit right
and your heels are tight
after a long day on the range.
The toasted scent of digested grass
ploughs through my senses
but the lone tree on the horizon
never gets closer
and the range never seemed so far away
as the shadows lengthen out of day
and one solitary star comes out
the saddle creaks with my shifting legs
when I realize I’m lost.
#2
There’s this flower growing crookedly out of a crack in the sidewalk
and I want to go over to it
and bend over it
and say “Little flower, why are you here
in the middle of this concrete jungle
where no one cares about you
and no one stops to water you or smell you
or even pick you and put you in a vase
in their stainless steel kitchen
above the sanitized sink basin
next to the bowl of cat food on the windowsill that belongs to no cats.”
But I’m too afraid of the trampling feet
sliding in and out of the street
to bend over it
and say anything at all
so instead I meander up the hill
towards the school where the rubber balls make exhaling noises
on the sharp stacked bricks
and I look at the kids in the cartoon t-shirts
and bubble gum hairties
and I look at the grass growing up from the chain link fences
and I look for the smallest blade
and I whisper “Grow.”
The wind blows through my hair
my horse steady under me
and I feel splintered
like when your boots don’t fit right
and your heels are tight
after a long day on the range.
The toasted scent of digested grass
ploughs through my senses
but the lone tree on the horizon
never gets closer
and the range never seemed so far away
as the shadows lengthen out of day
and one solitary star comes out
the saddle creaks with my shifting legs
when I realize I’m lost.
#2
There’s this flower growing crookedly out of a crack in the sidewalk
and I want to go over to it
and bend over it
and say “Little flower, why are you here
in the middle of this concrete jungle
where no one cares about you
and no one stops to water you or smell you
or even pick you and put you in a vase
in their stainless steel kitchen
above the sanitized sink basin
next to the bowl of cat food on the windowsill that belongs to no cats.”
But I’m too afraid of the trampling feet
sliding in and out of the street
to bend over it
and say anything at all
so instead I meander up the hill
towards the school where the rubber balls make exhaling noises
on the sharp stacked bricks
and I look at the kids in the cartoon t-shirts
and bubble gum hairties
and I look at the grass growing up from the chain link fences
and I look for the smallest blade
and I whisper “Grow.”