4.1.17

Today's prompt urged us to write a "Kay Ryan-esque" poem, with short, tight lines, interwoven rhyme, a little philosophy, and maybe an animal. If you want a primer, a couple of my favorite poems by Kay Ryan are ""A Certain Kind of Eden" and "A Hundred Bolts of Satin."  Enjoy!

Lizard Memory

Reptilian impulse—slanted sunlight

cues the past with precision out

of my control. Lower brain runs

the course of habit. You rise whole

out of ten years’ thick honey.

We once sat in the sun

on a western Nebraska

butte, resting our hiking boots.

We watched a lizard bask

on a rock, still as a church. Clouds

built arches to everywhere, and

in that moment, we could not be touched.

And we still cannot—not the we

we were, that day. Cornfields and miles

and mis-numbered days push out

from that butte. Even so, when the sun

overshoots its mark, and

a certain breeze doubles back

to pick up what has fallen,

something primal scrabbles in

to scratch on the present.