ManicDDaily

Locust Leaves

What to do when your brain is teeming too much to think straight!  Write a poem, especially a rhyming poem.

A rhyme offers a wonderful thread away from fretful pre-occupations;  it can take you somewhere quite magical.   So, in the stress of mid-week, even though I no longer have the excuse of National Poetry Month, I am posting a draft poem written this evening, made up of rhyming quatrains.  (I don’t think it qualifies as magical, but it was a fun exercise.)

Behind the Locust

She tiptoed under the locust trees,
their shade bared earth, her shorts bared knees.
Their bark was rough, as rough as you please,
though the wood is soft in locust trees.

Though the wood is soft, the thorns are not;
sticks fall down, and leaves on top.
She tiptoed through the thorny plot
of earth and stem and leaf and rot.

The trunk was thin but she was small
and stood at angles–so, and so,
shifting from tip to the other toe,
to hide from all who’d come and go.

No one was looking, but still she hid,
looking herself at all they did.
She watched them walking, watched them sit,
keeping close the tree’s close fit.

What mystery to be lost and found
beneath the slightly rustling sound
of leaves like grapes; inside, the pound
of a heart that’s longing to be grown.