Monday, February 28, 2022

Microclimate

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--where I ride my bike into
a tunnel trains once burrowed through
that sunlight never warms,

where easy hazy summer drops
away and wintry dampness grips
my neck my back my arms,

and though I pedal faster,
still the end seems farther --
that's like the stretch between

the words I didn't think they'd hear,
the message that I didn't mean,
the look in their eyes angry, wary,

and

the way that they respond to
Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Image by Susan Rouse.

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Though I've never arranged bouquets, I've seen others do with flowers what I did with a bundle of ideas when I started this poem. After my draft was posted, like the arrangers who step back to look at their work, I saw lines to be trimmed for clarity's sake, which revealed opportunities to relate ideas through rhyme, which led to rearrangements to achieve some pleasing symmetry. The poem looks and sounds very different on Saturday from what I posted Tuesday.
- WSS

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