National Poetry Month – Katie Spring

Searching for Wildness

{In celebration of National Poetry Month, I’ll be posting a poem each weekday through the rest of April, and I invite you to join me! Leave a link to your poem of the day in the comments section below.}

I am searching for wildness,

proving it lives

among us

despite us.

Why do I walk slowly

in the woods, why

do I stop at the rhythmic beating

of a woodpecker, why

do I pause to take in the shape

of a leaf, or a paw print, or the

curve and drop of a stream?

Terry Tempest Williams wrote:

the degree of our awareness

is the degree of our aliveness.

I want to be alive.

If I am to live,

if my cells are to awaken

and if my breath is to expand

into my lungs

it will be because wildness

pulled me out of sleep,

splashed me with cold water,

and poured wind through

my hair, into my mouth,

deep into my body.

If I am to live

it will be because this world

also lives

tangled and pure, wildness running

through the veins.

Sky as Poetry

For the Birds

I used to care

about proper grammar–

well vs. good

I vs. me–

but now, what does it matter?

I know what you mean.

There are already

so many rules

what shackles need to be

on expression?

None!

Sometimes, when I hear

birdsong in the morning

it strikes me that I don’t know

what they are saying,

but I feel their happiness.

That’s all we’re really after,

isn’t it?

To share with each other

our heart’s fire

be it sadness, or anger,

or expounding joy.

Twenty-One Months

Twenty-one months–

that’s all it took

to bring us to this moment.

And just as it delivered us here,

impermanence will take us away

to tomorrow.

Take These Eggs

eggs

Kindling sets flames to lick

the firebox

a cast iron skillet

takes the heat,

holds it in its open face,

and I crack the egg.

Just yesterday I threw compost

out to the chickens,

and the matted roots

of harvested pea shoots,

green stems sticking up

like stubble.

Somehow the earth

is thawing—melting

snow sets rivers running

through the field

and the chickens peck

emerging worms in the barnyard.

We all have creation inside us

The chickens, they take worms and compost,

turn it into muscle and eggs.

Me, I take these deep golden

yolks, thick and smooth, into my mouth

I turn them into muscle and milk

to feed my babe

and he, too grows:

supple skin stretches

over elongating bones

teeth cut through gums

even his voice

rises and shifts—

an audible, intangible

creation.

He does not know yet

of spring

how thin blades of grass cut

through winter’s kill

how green spreads like a wave

from the valley up this hillside,

how the lone call of the raven

is replaced by chickadees, robins, hermit thrush, and

the reverberating howl of the snipe.

He knows of the barnyard,

of chickens and eggs,

of warm milk.

He knows of cool mornings,

hot stoves.

And what do I know of creation?

Only that I cannot explain it,

though morning sun streams

through the window,

though steam rises slowly from my tea

though even in stillness

everything moves, pushing us into

transformation

(I originally posted this almost exactly a year ago, and this season pulled me back to the poem).

What My Life Is

{In celebration of National Poetry Month, I’ll be posting a poem each weekday through the rest of April, and I invite you to join me! Leavea link to your poem of the day in the comments section below.}

I can tell you I am a mother,

a farmer, a writer

but these definitions do not tell you

the quality of my breath

or depth of my laugh

or the hard pulse of my longings.

I’ve met challenges

in every phase, and for so long

I equated what I’m doing with

what my life is.

But the truth is

life is movement, energy–

rain falling to the earth

fire burning in the stove

bodies warming each other

beneath the blankets.

Spring Peepers Rejoice!

Last night spring peepers

sang, the pluck-pluck of their notes

rising into night

finally bridging

late winter to spring, each note

rejoicing in mud

Hand, Rock and Moss

Hand, rock and moss, you

Show me again: each part of

This world is alive

Beyond Loneliness

Make a poem of silence

empty it into your heart–

by which I mean, let your heart be empty

beyond loneliness

We all have space inside us

never meant to be filled

The Language of Wind

This is what I know:

All energy is

Wild

All bodies are

Energy

Let yourself

unravel

Become the

howling moon

Learn the language

of the wind

II.

Some creatures can only

be seen in

darkness.

Go to them

Take your hunger

Your open mouth

Your heartache

Walk into the

darkness

Discover the song

of your soul

III.

We all have spirits—

Stone and Rivers,

Fox and Snakes

Reveal Yours

The wind is waiting

to lift your song

to tousle it in peoples’ hair

to weave it among needled branches of pine

to whistle it across the seas

IV.

Remember this—

You are of bedrock &

mountain streams

Still and flowing

At once

The wind was there

at your birth,

blew into you,

became your first inhale

Root into the Earth

Tumble in the water

Exhale and set a gust

twirling around the world