VACANT LOT ~ a 2nd Tribute to the urban farm

A sure footed approach makes it down intact

Most are hunched and pulling at the ground

In the garden

He takes their hands and brings them to their knees

For these kids... that's a steep plunge

You could say, he's somewhat of a

Messianic farmer

Recruiting young disciples for his outdoor hearth

Taking their rage under his wing

Sanctifying it

Stirring it's heat into a ground of  true and forgotten wealth

The soul of another Vacant Lot revived

Made holy for a while

Trust-timed to explode abundance

It's hard not to notice, how patiently

He's raking in the alfalfa meal, the potassium

How he's developing a knack for

Deterring flea beetles and face to fist contact

This evening, he strolls with a steady stride

Around volatile corners of flare-up kids

Their gunship alleys

Each face reminds him of someone he knew

Each one, not letting him forget

If you asked him how he does it, he might say

"It's like harvesting seed...

You know what to look for...You gather when they're ready...”

Pause

“You pray for good conditions

Long enough to establish roots”

Everything and Empty

Empty like many things

cannot be named

empty is a verb
but doesn't happen
empty's not a doing
empty is what we
consist of more
than anything else
life living itself

We seem to have
a universe empty
empty full empty
Is light empty?
Is house empty?

All things are full

of themselves

even Space is

full of itself
Is this because
they are also
Empty?
Housing themselves?

Do we call something

Empty when we

cannot otherwise

perceive its thus-ness?

Perception itself

is empty / capacity

to receive

As I touch in

em

pt

yi

ng

≠
when

how

with what

where

does

some

thing

be

come

emp

ty

?

VACANT~ a tribute to “Growing Home” a Chicago inner city urban farm

Pace along pace...

Husk of emptied womb flying

Constellating seeds of grace

Rains from yesterday's crying

Farmer claims this vacant place

Lost

Between broken row housing

Wisdom's hands, hips and face

Her hooded scarecrow rising

house empty

house empty

no tea or coffee
naked fixtures no bulbs
toe torn linoleum
shadows removed from closets
echoes stuck in stairwell
white plastic covered doorbell
entryway long uncrossed
dust settled untasted
paled green wall untouched
no fingerprint evidence left

neighbor points her cane
& says “ It’s a shame to see
an empty house like that
that someone could live in”.

The empty house

Wood floors, walls and angles
encompass rectangles of space.
Here's a room with no trace
of any living race; for no
bedstead, bookshelf, bureau,

robe, roast or radio is there

in the small, quasi-lair.

It is daytime. The bare window

permits the light to flow

in from beyond and go around

the walls, then on beyond

this room. It isn't bound by four

walls, for one is no more

than made-believe—and forfeited

since she uncommitted

her game and admitted that toys

aren't interesting as boys.

With a clattering noise, her dolls

fell into cardboard stalls

and their home's sunny halls went down

to the crawlspace, a town

of vacant, underground tangles.

snatch

i.

the unborn

who are a mighty tide of life

waiting in the now-ocean of future unfurling

beside us,

inside us

like all the ocean tides that will ever

kiss the lips of sand and foam

where life started/starts/will start

ii.

if you think it’s all going to

hell in a handbasket

imagine meeting a woman in labor

in the middle of the sidewalk,

water broken,

bellowing – if we didn’t

know she was in labor

we’d just think she was crazy,

going to hell

in a handbasket even

iii.

instead, trust

that all is somehow well

that we are breaking open

into something capable of carrying on

life

iv.

wombs,

handbaskets,

houses,

tides:

the world, which is a woman, earthen, holy,

dynamic, nurturer, nest, cavern, wholeness

the earth-world

mound magma gyre pyre pyrenees

plankton skeleton algae guano

tornado hive

is making more life in the snatch

womb basket house tide

ladle

kangaroopouch

of possibility

v.

remember to stand

close to the teacher

(who’s channeling the future unborn

laden with advice)

as we learn to weave

(how life weaves)

and listen, and

for the sake of life, of earth

do as she guides us

pick up the floss, the straw, the branch

and flex it through, connect, and flex;

weaving things back

together

again

IMUNURI prompt: Empty House

Write a poem about an empty house.


Searching for an image to go with this week's prompt was a good reminder of how many ways there are to go with this idea.

labels: poem, emptyhouse, your moniker

*

If you'd like some notions to toss into the hopper of your creative mind, here are some to consider:

... interior or exterior...

....your house, your prior house, someone else's house, nobody's house, whose house?

...why empty?

...shack, mansion, condo...

...house also means the seating or the audience in a theater; house also relates to the 12 divisions of the celestial sphere; house also means a gambling establishment; house can also refer to the body; house is also a verb.

... and what about the word empty?!