Remembered Afternoons

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Monet, verger en fleurs

in the public domain in the United States

I pencil in the blues and greens of remembered afternoons,

The leftovers of summers which linger best on the tongue

their sweetness understood viscerally

with an aftertaste hovering in the periphery of closeted thought.

The days hung loosely folded then

Their gauzy nature swayed in the waft of the bees’ flight,

Evincing a softness which lay easily upon you.

In our indolence,

We failed to notice the bite of time on our backs.

Now I color in between the lines

charcoaled in when I wasn’t looking.

Those blues and greens pastelled together,

A picture of a time gone,

The last of those summers for us.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013

Posted for dVerse

My heart on this autumn morning

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The River Avon at Sea Mills.

Mattbuck

I am grateful for the life I have this morning--




i watch the dust motes circle in their small orbits
falling around each other like stars
kissing the dust of loves left behind,

their patterns holding my heart as it turns.

i hold the promise of a newly minted day,
coffee cup pressed against my cheek
to let its warmth seep in
next to the place you leave behind each day,

as i turn toward the sun again.

i feel the press of you
encoded somewhere in my skin
DNA metered and puzzled out over time

a lifetime of days, folding one into another
weaving blues and greens,
a sea of cotton,

their patterns a cushion for my heart.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013

posted for Poets United

A Little Death

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Vera Buhl

Leaves, Bodenheim, Germany

they dance in their way
moving to rhythms
deeply embedded
in messages carried by sap
stung by autumn's latent kiss

they die the little death
mourned by grub and weevil
as blood dances upon
withered leaves
crimsoned,
an italic
upon a plate
of copper
etched

and i,
festooned in their garb
shed my worry
as they do theirs
each to a small sleep
predetermined
a book of changes
wrought

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013

forgive my absence. November is being usurped by Nanowrimo--

Brevity

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Naherholung: alter Rhein zwischen Hohenems und Lustenau in Vorarlberg

-Böhringer friedrich

The brevity of moment

          Shines its light upon the mist

A pearled sky above.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013

Posted for Poets United

i grieve for you

i thumb tacked my sorrow up on your wall

again yesterday.

your facebook page telling us all

that you lost Libby today.


It was Sunny last week.

Kajarkur a couple of months back.

they get old and sick

and we watch they die

hold them so they can go easy

and tell them again how much we love them

as we ease them toward death

and ourselves toward the pain that lies waiting.



sorry isn't enough

not by a long shot.

my words don't help much

but they are all I have

to let you know

that i hurt for you.


My inlaws--Bill and Kay--two of the gentlest and most loving people I know, had to put their two dogs down during the last two weeks. I grieve for them.


copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013

Posted for Poets United

A Taste of You

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Anna Bilinska-Bogdanowicz

My desire swells

    Stitches pulling

        Against tightly folded days,

   Piercing skin

       With blackened needles

Pungent in its patina.

Colors stroke cheek and arm

  As I reach

For the image of you

     I have scattered in the stars.

I press my eyes against them 

as I gather them

In the fullness of my skirt,

A bowl of you

Offered up

Slowly,

As I taste you again.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2013 

Posted for Poets United.

Afternoon's Exhalation

Ukiyo-e print book wrapper (fukuro). MEDIUM: 1 print : woodcut, color. CREATED/PUBLISHED: [between 1830 and 1880] Page in: Ezōshi fukuro harimazejō. [Japan, not before 1878]. Published in: The floating world of Ukiyo-e : shadows, dreams, and substance / essays by Sandy Kita ... [et al.], New York : Abrams in association with the Library of Congress, 2001, p. 207. Exhibited: "The Floating world of Ukiyo-e: shadows, dreams and substances," organized by the Library of Congress, 2001. No known restrictions on publication in the U.S. From the Library of Congress.  In the public domain in the United States.

The afternoon gently

sifts amber light

across the backs of leaves

veined by autumn's first push.

I watch their shadows dance

in the wind's chatter.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt

posted for dVerse