Welcome to Day 20 of the Ithaca Sanctuary Alliance 30 poems in 30 days fundraiser: Please feel free to contribute and also enjoy our poems on this blog!

 DAY 20

                                                        Chi 

                                         (during the time of Covid)    

                                        Fran Markover

                                               

                                 

                                         The force is elusive during these viral days

                                         so I Zoom with Amanda, acupuncturist.

                                         She revisits the hurts on my body, teaches

                                         acupressure, explains inflammation, pain,

                                         how to cool or heat channels that suffer,

                                         blocked from chi. We begin with warm-ups,

                                         bumblebee breaths. I place fingers on my

                                         ears, head, eyes, then hum. My head thrums.

                                         So this is how to become winged, to enter

                                         the pink-tunneled cosmos, to busy myself

                                         inside the honeyed petals. Gently, I thank

                                         the flowers and practice butterfly hugs, my

                                         arms across my ribcage, pulses from this

                                         tender chakra reassuring. My fingers lift,

                                         massage depressions between my thumbs

                                         and first fingers. I rub Earth of the Heart,

                                         channel calming rising storms. My hands

                                         stroll: destination Gushing Spring, descend

                                         toward my heel's center, gathering place

                                         of Sinews, of Heavenly Stars.

---

Planning Ahead             Joanna Green

What good is this clairvoyance
that sees only horror

To say I told you so
I saw it coming

That small satisfaction I will claim
And much much more

We shall teach ourselves to find moments
like bright bits of glass amidst rubble

We shall pick them out tenderly
between fingertips

We shall hold them up against the light
and marvel

Steeling ourselves
to go on

Ash                          Susan Eschbach

 

RBG gone

  no words or

     maybe all the words

moral disease corrupts

    a nation state

virus, cancer, broken bodies

the air is ash in the west

What I know to be true and right

   slips me up like wet leaves on

   my slate sidewalk, one

   predictable step and I am on my face

   stitches on my chin

so

this morning I do what I know

   sweep crumbs

   fold cardboard under a wobbly table leg

   make coffee

   pay NYSEG, grateful I can

   put in a load of towels

   let out the dog

   pen to page

 Be grateful I can.

UNDER THE CLOUDS              Susan Weitz

The biplane on my coffee table
 was made by hand
out of copper, with sculpted wheels
 and a propeller you can spin.
And I do spin it, often,
 thinking of Bill, who made this
and dozens more,
 model planes in wood, metal,
even woven string.

Bill, gentle as a clerk,
 who spent his life in the kingdom of
flying things, and watched birds
 rise up with him, while humans
condensed into darkened dots,
 into an idea that was tucked
under the omnipotent clouds.

THE SENSUAL ACT OF READING                  Daphne Sola

I brush fingertips down the page of my book

Words run up my arm

Trip light-footed across my eyes

And dance a fandango in my brain

That shivers me.

As in all things pleasurable

Feeling no shame

I turn

And go back for more.