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the call
to get stronger
is a daily
rooster crow
my aging bones
my too-feeling heart like a pulled muscle
(chronic gentle ache spiced by spasm)
a body twinging with signs
that it is time to learn
how to lift heavier waits
-------
what comes next for this unhealed country,
for my neighbors and their neighbors,
for each worker who has lost their job,
for the innocents disappeared into ICE holes
what comes next for my home,
for my mom's dementia,
for the routine cancer screenings i keep putting off,
for the forests i can't bear to lose to fire
what comes next?
-------
i dragged my exes old weight bench
out of a buried mess in the shop
scrubbed off the poop and the cobwebs
i don't rightly know what to do with it yet
but while i was carefully carrying 200lbs
across the yard, bit by bit,
i think i caught Capacity watching me,
nodding gently in approval
___
April 7th, 2025
It’s National Poetry Month! I’m participating in a modified form of NaPoWriMo, also know as the 30/30 Challenge. In this annual creative challenge, poets commit to writing and publishing (in whatever form) one poem a day every day for the month of April. It’s time consuming! My personal goal this year is 4 poems a week, for 4 weeks, in the 4th month of the year—more doable = more enjoyment and less self-induced anxiety. The point is to be generative, and there isn’t time for extensive editing. The pieces will be fresh, sometimes obviously unripe. Hopefully, a few will bloom. If you’d like to learn more and play along, this is a good place to start: https://www.napowrimo.net
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