Discipline

I realize now that I have no discipline. Which is why I depend on my friend Oliver for challenges. So he talked about mystery, and I wrote it. He also is writing a poem a day in August, and while I'm nowhere near that, I'm up to 2 for the month, which is 2 more than the rest of the year, so here's the first draft:

Mystery Is


The moment a baby is lifted out of a belly
and follows silence with a cry

The measure between lovers
on nights they do not touch

The way thorns grow on roses

How a dog is compelled to eat
those things that will surely kill it

A toddler’s anguish with language
and its inability to speak without her

An hour of thunder without rain
when rain is the object of desire

A thousand branches growing
where there is no longer a tree

Penguins that molt for winter
but do not believe in darkness

and, after all, every morning’s
inevitable rise of light.