Growing Up Woodland (unfinished, perhaps), and another stanza

Growing Up Woodland

We climbed the boulders and grabbed fistfulls of pine needles
Cracked twigs with every step
Emily Callahan said she liked Old Blue Eyes
I told her I liked Sesame Street
at the edge of the woods right before the road
there’s a flower i’d never seen before
Emily says stop its illegal to touch it
it’s a lady’s slipper and why didn’t I know that

this was the greatest thing i’d ever seen
bright yellow and so shiny in the sun
it wasn’t so much a flower as
a drawstring pouch like the one dad keeps his fortune cards in
it stooped like an old lady
under the weight of what might be fairy dust
i wouldn’t touch it but i knew
it would give a wish to those who dared



Life is so beautiful, wonderful, so amazing and sweet. Sorry to post two poems in a row without audio, but I promise you that I could never let such behavior become habitual.

Oh, as long as I'm posting maybe-unfinished-but-possibly-not poetry, I should include-- what shall I call this poem?-- perhaps "Stephen", but then, there will be so many candidates for this title as I write more and more under the spell of love for my one and only.

I only regret the lack of rooftops
from which I can shout of my love
and that underwater, my mouth filled with rocks
in the trick of the old orators
my exaltation of a life in your arms
would be muted, softened by the tides