On this first day of my forty-first year
I woke up in the air conditioned woods
Walked with my partner on unseen new trails
Finding good wishes from friends near and far
Traveled a road I had never driven
Dined on favorite foods and birthday cake
Followed a bee from flower to flower
Waved at deer from the bed of a dry lake
Watched the sun as it set behind the trees
Admired the frogs hopping from leaf to leaf
Sat on the porch savoring written words
Felt new hope in electoral relief
Another year passed a new one begins
A moment of stillness while the earth spins
Tag: Sonnet
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AugPoWriMo 11
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AugPoWriMo 10
As if any of us need reminding
Everything that has been going on is
Still going on but with no end in sight
And no insight into where we have been
Which is still where we are both then and now
Not that the then we thought would be the now
Is any closer to the beginning
Of when this chapter will come to a close
And the work we knew we would have to do
Will somehow begin if that were the case
The progress we make will still be unmade
Erasures wait in line to be erased
If not can we sign a paper to say
This ends our problems they won’t go away
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AugPoWriMo 9
Driving the freeway for the first time since
I don’t even know how long it has been
Gives you the sense you are a resident
Of Earth not just the inside of a room
Or a mask you should keep above your nose
(Respiratory disease gets there too)
Altered landscapes make a new frame of mind
Beyond our reach in stationary chairs
Think of all the thoughts that have now been lost
Not only how many months it has been
Leaving us stranded astride of a hill
No matter how far you wish to follow
Will never let you catch the horizon
Once lost it’s impossible to find them
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AugPoWriMo 8
With every day that passes I wish that
All there were for me to worry about
Was the dysfunction in my brain making
Me believe my students were terrorists
Planning to destroy the United States
Even as they wrote about the crazy
Candidates running for the president
I remember spending a whole dark day
As I rewrote their final assignment
I woke up thinking decades had passed by
And as they brought me to the hospital
I checked my email for the late papers
I would never get any chance to grade
Written about the world depression made
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AugPoWriMo 7
I want to start a YouTube channel that
Consists entirely of me reacting
To people younger than me reacting
To music much older than both of us
The fact of a new Bill and Ted movie
Might mean that we are all time travelers
Moving day by day into the future
By gazing at detritus of the past
Through futuristic yet slow devices
That are all somehow due for an upgrade
Any day now though what that may look like
Is anyone’s guess which makes the future
So exciting to be living in—see
How much it sucks to go through history
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AugPoWriMo 6
I took another glance at my journal
That I no longer write in which offers
Helpfully a feature called On This Day
Dating back almost fifteen years ago
All of which I would not recall myself
Had I not put them down digitally
But even this sampling of existence
Seems random yet also contiguous
As if they could have been successive days
Yet here we are in fact an outlier
Neither bound by word nor are we written
We are ghost days passing secretively
Lucky if we will not be remembered
But more fortunate by chance if we are
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AugPoWriMo 5
Today at the library the phone rang
Off the hook people were asking if we
Were open if we still had power if
They could just sit and charge their devices
For awhile and they did some sat all day
Some browsed the stacks as if it had been years
Since they had set foot in a library
They kept their distance though it was hard to
Given it was as crowded as it’s been
Since we opened bringing items to cars
Welcoming inside if they wore a mask
Today the day after the tornado
Landed taking with it a roof some cars
And any notion of shelter in place
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AugPoWriMo 4
I have had it with the arguments for
Returning to normal when normal was
How we got in this mess in the first place
When the storms come do you think the power
Just returns out of a sense of good will
If everyone made a living wage then
We could talk about returning to work
In those vectors of unrestrained disease
When we look at spreadsheets we should agree
On what the hell it is we’re looking at
A hurricane won’t burn the country down
But levers pulled in wrong directions will
Prepare a mask to meet faces you meet
Democracy hangs in unbalanced tweets
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AugPoWriMo 3
They stay with us as our creatures at peace
Nestling upon laps or under blankets
Sometimes both staring at us longingly
With a tilt of the head a raised eyebrow
Standing on hind legs asking us for treats
They know they deserve for they are our home
Always a few seconds away from sleep
Their comfort how we measure our human
Qualities we wish were never absent
But wait for us when we walk in the door
Knowing the space we keep for them is rest
And food and shelter and a place to pee
But mostly living easy with eyes closed
A heart that knows no other way to be
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AugPoWriMo 2
Some of us think we won’t forget this year
As if nothing were more memorable
Than anything like expendable lives
Being called on to make a sacrifice
No one of any standing wants to make
So they make mail undeliverable
By enforcing these arbitrary rules
That regulate the planned obsolescence
Of all our most essential services
Incompetent in their evil designs
Let’s make them pay so that maybe this year
Will be memorable for the death of
Such a cynical ideology
As suffering that makes for great TV
Joshua Keiter 