thread

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

nothing is sacred
anymore
except the most feelings

& those are caught between the teeth
of beasts we feed tears

& dragged, unspooling
what is our fine
in threads

a spiderwebbed trail
over & through
every(one)thing

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

=nox

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

the birds bring it
in hope, not science
that greening at the tips
of trees

the run of sap

a tilt towards warm
not felt yet,
but measured
in daylight

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

melt

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

spring begins
not with crocuses
or tree budding

but with snow softening
over raw mud

not so much happening
as unmaking

that slow thing
in the north
we call thaw

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Patience

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

My spin and fidget
are past, though I toy
with the right word
for this waiting:

A quietness
thinner than paper
slides between the gun magazines
and last year’s parenting tips,
a business of eyes and mind
learning a recipe to brine turkey
in orange juice I will never use.

I have become good at this,
simply being, not measuring a wait
in minutes
or the click of beads
or a snap of puzzle pieces

but in the number of articles
my eyes skim before a name is called
any name.

I am no patient.
I am not patient.
I cannot learn patience.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , | 25 Comments

Mud (fragment)

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

The paths that I walked
are grown over,
impassable from melt

a mud that holds everything still
in its need for footprints
and bones, not yet hardened
to shale

a process that kills
and preserves
you call fossilization

but I call 
a dangerous past

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

March is not spring (micro)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

March is not spring
promised in seed catalogs
other places

here, it is unbloomed, precrocus want

a softening, finally naked
and waiting

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , | 38 Comments

full worm moon

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Susan L Daniels

The robin’s voice
breaks the back of winter.

You can see it
if you know where to look:
the rise of sap
pinking the tips of maple branches
or dripped to thin cicles
snapped from tap mouths and tasted,
a kiss of snow,
the sweet before sugar.

Posted in New Free Verse | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments