Sunday Prompts

Two works written in response to this Sunday's prompts: "it would be fine if..." inspired by a poem called It Would Be Fine by Rosemary Starace, and "art."

If, And, Or

It would be fine

if I walked out the door tomorrow

and became a tree

the tall, sturdy kind

with its roots grown deep

and its head in the clouds

branches outflung, tender-tipped with buds

that would become leaves

that would become producers of oxygen

that I could breathe in if I didn’t become

a tree,

if, instead, I became a bird

that might alight on my hand

if I stretched it out like a tree branch,

if I could be bird, and branch and hand

and breathe

it would be fine.

If I could be a cloud

that sails the blue sea of the sky,

that plies the ground with rain;

if I could be the wind

that moves the cloud

if I could shine down, shine on, shine through,

be a sun of benevolence,

a sun of vast light,

a sun of strident heat,

it would be fine

if I pulled the fallen rain up

to fill another cloud

that might water a tree

which I might become

when I walk out the door tomorrow.

Seasonal Art

On the mat by the door

the winter boots wait—

a welter of rubber and suede and felt,

one small blue boot

tipped over like an abandoned boat

left to wait for the tide.

A jumble of footwear

made into art by disuse,

a hodge-podge of color,

and fabric, and shape,

a still life until

it snows.