Zinnias

Zinnias, like us all,

Randomly tossed together seeds in the same pot.

Close.

Some flowers stand tall.

Some small peeking out at the edges

Colors in pinks from pale to darker rose,

A few in salmon.

Some with one row of almost horizontal petals.

Other petals curled u- shaped ,

With layer upon layer reaching toward the sky.

All blooms laced with yellow stamens,

Some bright some barely yellow,

With pink center pistils.

One tiny blossom, with  bent stem,

Leaves furled and  curled from striving but surviving under an adjacent table.

Still blooming,

All the same.

Leaves basic v- shaped,

 But some light, some dark green,

 One leaf has holes where something nibbled.

All have some dried leaves from a hot day when we didn’t water.

After a brief summer rain, all look cheery,

Even,

In the same pot!

In This Sanctuary

The oboist plays the prelude.

Her slow, solemn, solo widens

a crack in my broken heart.

Beneath lies a lava lake of sadness.

It is sliced open with a sharp pain from

 memories of thirty years in this Sanctuary:

My children's growth til graduation,

Wednesdays and Sundays in choir,

My first solo,

My in-laws' memorials,

My husband's memorial,

My children's baptisms,

My baptism.

In this Sanctuary,

 I found my faith,

and my own belovedness.

Unable to sing,

 I sit in a chair and listen.

My heart is splayed like a carcass for the grill.It's invisible ink- blood spurts on the church walls,

 and runs down unseen pooling on the floor.

When I walk, it covers the bottom of my shoes.My foot slides, as I grasp for the swaying tether to my faith;

while  the truth of my belovedness,

slips in and out of my searching hand.

At Sea

I've waited for an inspirational shaft of light

 to break through my dark clouds of creative doubt. 

My poem's first rejection, family's disinterest and self-talk

toss me into a rowboat on a sea of negativity.

I could search for a lighthouse of saving metaphors.

Instead, I wrap myself in a blanket of pity, and

 imagine throwing my poems overboard.

They swirl down. My sweat-ink dissolves

 as the pages smudge

and flutter in their final throes.

And I forgo creating them forever!

Or

 maybe I should just keep writing.