Listen for Silence

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Unshaken by Time

You Carry One Word

Light Fills the Ancient Sky

You Dance Your Own Way

Lifeline

 

The bold ants move

Almost as one army

Tiny and fierce

They organize

To pierce a tunnel into the earth

 

A small lion falls

Into a deep pit of mud

His mother sees him

And feels him call out

In her blood

 

She moves down to rescue him

Some furry speck

She lifts from death to life

With her teeth reaching into his neck

 

The wind blows a shiver into us

Biting our skin

Like something carnivorous

 

I am told nature has its own plan

I do

And do not fully understand

 

Is that why I look past all of this

And wait for someone to stop

And kiss me

 

Maybe you will be so bold

And move to the center of something

Where crumbs are a feast

 

Maybe you will lift me up

And make me feel tiny

Like a kitten

In the mouth of a beast

 

Whatever happens next

Will be a surprise

 

God or animal

You move in your body

And I move in your eyes

Like some cosmic reflection

Of everything I hope for

As I fall

And you rise

 

I look to you

For resurrection

 

By Julie Flanders

Photo by Jean Wimmerlin

 

#octoberprojectmusic.com

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The Because of Any Word

 

In the ecstasy of the common element

We share with everything

You stare into the fractals

That are and are not a language

Are and are not a system

Are and are not a way to understand

What is both chaos and order

 

You are afraid of mystery

Yet you move toward her

 

There is and there is not a border

Where you end and she begins

There is nothing much to win

But there is so much to lose

If you choose the wrong frame

The wrong name

To say the same thing

And mean the entire

Or maybe just the partial

Opposite

 

For example, to say I mean

Is so different from saying

You mean

Everything

I mean

You mean

Everything

 

There is no elephant in the room

But there is a bird of paradise

Here in her imaginings

Where you are also beautiful

She sees flowers in everything

And she knows that you do too

You stare to the center

And she stares right along with you

 

But there is nothing there

The red is an illusion

The bird’s beak—is it made by your eye

Or maybe by your brain

If you think too much about reality

Very little stays

Just pain

 

So instead you think about her

And that strange energy that pertains to love

You think about Maya Angelou

Knowing why the caged bird sings

 

You could say that it’s unimportant

Or you tell her

That it’s the most important

And the most urgent

Of all things

 

By Julie Flanders

Photo by David Hofmann

#octoberprojectmusic.com

#julieflanderspoetry.com

#aprilispoetrymonth