Words

I live in words, they clothe my world,
probably circulate in my blood too
like red blood cells only
they feed this poet in me who pokes up
out of the ground every morning
ready to dance with the day,

or somedays ready to explode
like a leftover firecracker,
without any direction, or to
leap trying to reach the rainbow
in the sky on others, it varies,
not by any choice of mine,
at least not one consciously made,

it's more a rolling over,
like a pebble in a stream
or a feather on the wind
or an egg in the nest,
a tumbling through layers
of meaning and circumstance
that I seldom understand,
could not map out for you,

but I leave footprints in the air,
in lines and images that
are often read, sometimes loved,
just as often ignored,
snails leave slime trails,
jasmine flowers perfume the air,
and I scatter poems like
an exploding seed pod of spirit.

© Zen Oleary
October 21, 2003