I spoke to you last night.
It must have been a dream,
For we walked and talked by a silver stream,
And everything felt right.
But with the dawn, like rising steam,
Your words dissolved in morning’s light.
This short poem came to me in two pieces. The first four lines came one night while lying in bed, just before I went to sleep. The last two lines came the next day, which seems about right.
At first, there was a seed,
Which fell into the soil.
Eventually, potential freed
By rain and sun and farmer’s toil,
Its nascent roots extended
Like fingers searching through beds of reed.
And soon were leaves suspended
From woody shoots the light did upward lead.
Day by day, its branches grew
To shade the ground where it was tended,
As fallen rain was lifted through
Its limbs until, with sunlight blended,
Living flowers sprang
Whose scent and shape and varied hue
Attracted those that hummed and sang
And pollinated others as they flew.
Now, upon my plate
Are pies of apple and lemon meringue,
Ingredients brought by growth and fate
From seed to sleep where branches hang,
Then plucked before their time’s too late.
Such links have lived in all I ate.
This is something I think about a lot - how everything I eat came from somewhere, and went through its own journey, its own life, to arrive upon my plate. For me, it can sometimes create a sense of connection with other places, other things, and other lives.
January summer
Spreads throughout the southern world
Beyond that equatorial divide,
January summer,
Where bright flowers stand unfurled,
Ensuring that their beauty will abide
Forever, always somewhere,
Whatever petals fall from the other side.
I wrote this short poem while out on a walk this morning. As you might imagine, it was inspired by the fact that I just traveled from the US back to Kenya, crossing the equator and going from winter to summer in the time it took to fly.
