Cicada
Fortune-Telling I’m in a daze.The fog rises.It’s morning. The roosters crow. I run outdoors.The sun is apt, dancingits daily path. I get my axe, chop wood, carry it inside. Get my axe, chop wood, carry it inside, wash my face. The sun passes through the housesoverhead; I wash the dustfrom its gaze. It ripens to red. I raid the chicken housefor eggs. I busy around the stoveand smoke rises from the chimney. Smoke rises and I am busy around the stove. I shuffle around the house,moving furniture, dusting, washing the clock face.I stay indoors.I cook, I dust, I make a path. I slip around, dancing.At nightfall, I close the doors.The shadows tuck in the crows.Now the moon risesa quarter full. The stars slip out. Dazed. Noon Meditation Justbreathing in:applesmell,woolburn.Breathing out:appletaste, crow’s caw. Breathing in the hum of insect and airplane.Breathing out approaching motor roaring away. Porched and breathing in and breathing past the windblow on my toes and cheeks and chin. Breathing in,the leaves aglisten.Breathing out the sound of expectation. Breathing in the sigh of the valley,and echoing out the eggsong.the glory of the hen. Breathing in, I quit the drop from sleepy dreaming. Breathing out, I follow order—my inbreath touches crownand chestand belly. Breathing my ins to nasal glamor,breathing the outs for cranial wonder.Every bellring lights a neural fire,every squawk, a dawn in skull.
I don’t forget or do forget.I delve in deep or stick to shallows.Breathing in and breathing out:what it takes to drag the plow. Cicada (aka Kelly Marie Musselman) is a farmer living in an intentional community in the western Catskills where she is in charge of celebrations. She was born and raised on the Front Range in Colorado, and was the summer program director of the Beyond Academia Free Skool Summer Poetry Camp for 2016 and 2017 and a co-editor of Boar Hog Press’s Love Shovel Review #6. She has been published in a number of Love Shovel Reviews, The Poeming Pigeon 9th Issue: Cosmos, in Punch Drunk Press Anthology 2018, and by Grinnell [press].
I don’t forget or do forget.I delve in deep or stick to shallows.Breathing in and breathing out:what it takes to drag the plow. Cicada (aka Kelly Marie Musselman) is a farmer living in an intentional community in the western Catskills where she is in charge of celebrations. She was born and raised on the Front Range in Colorado, and was the summer program director of the Beyond Academia Free Skool Summer Poetry Camp for 2016 and 2017 and a co-editor of Boar Hog Press’s Love Shovel Review #6. She has been published in a number of Love Shovel Reviews, The Poeming Pigeon 9th Issue: Cosmos, in Punch Drunk Press Anthology 2018, and by Grinnell [press].