We are going to mIx iT uP this final week of NMP. Today (Monday) let’s take a look at Poet Dreaming by Loretta Diane Walker and mull it over.

Mull it. Ha! That sounds like a fish or a bad haircut.

Tsk!Tsk! Ignore the clown behind me and clear your mind.

Poet Dreaming

By Loretta Diane Walker

(Originally found at Poetry Breakfast)

No sky could hold so much light.

—Mary Oliver

Poems are nomads paddling through darkness

collecting words from the arms

of Orion, Sagittarius, and Perseus

before camping in a poet’s dream.

She sees souls as colliding galaxies,

holes of light burning

with millions to trillions of stars

too bright to fit in the cavity of sky.

 

Those stars are poems

crammed in the dusty envelopes of mortal bodies,

shimmering beneath white ribbons of bone.

A silhouette of stars floats in the window of her eye.

The energy of need forces tiny hands to brush

against the small wings of a sigh hovering in the evening.

 

She hears the silhouette speak

in a voice the timbre of a piccolo,

“Look Mommy! I caught a butterfly.”

On the other side of her dream, she sees the light of joy,

and a moth beating its powdery gray life

in the basket of a child’s palms.

From In This House published by Blue Light Press.

Now let us ponder…

I was immediately captivated by the first line poems are nomads paddling through darkness. I could literally perceive souls as colliding galaxies and got lost in the poetry until I felt like Loretta Diane Walker pressed me [unwilling] into a mortal body and awakened me to the wonder of a child’s voice. I regret I do not have a better photograph to compliment the imagery of the poem. I even added stars among the fireworks in this picture but it does not suffice… Oh well. In short, Poet Dreaming was a relatable piece and by golly I liked it! As a matter of fact I heard a little bird say I will be getting a copy of In This House for Mother’s Day.

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I wrote some poetry once Getting Me Back (The Voices Within)