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How Do I Shrink the Moon

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My mom says my imagination is too big. I should cut it into smaller pieces so the coloring book in my head can fit on the kitchen table. But how do I shrink the moon or turn a rainbow into ribbon when tomorrow seems a year away? I never fit where I am or reach where I want to go. Chairs are uncomfortable, shoes keep my feet from feeling the grass, and every time I see a butterfly I know one day I’ll have wings. Mom can’t hear the dandelions or hold a spoon against the window to catch drops of sunlight before night covers it with stars.  I don’t think I ever want to grow up. I’d be too bored. Where would I put my teddy bears when my bed is nothing but an ocean of pillows? Susie Clevenger 2024  What's Going On? ~ Children   Susie Clevenger 2024

Sister of a Dandelion

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I wonder if my legacy will merely be a faint light in the peripheral vision of a passer’s eye or a shadow figure of a memory, the name on the tip of a tongue one can’t seem to form.   No matter how many letters I write to my ten-year-old self she doesn’t seem to trust she will ever be first in line because she’s been taught, she’s supposed to be last.   I am beginning to understand why I’ve always been in love with dandelions. They are petaled, defiant sunlight thriving where nothing else can.     ©Susie Clevenger 2023

I Listened to the Bees

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  “The body knows things a long time before  the mind catches up to them.  I was wondering what my body knew that I didn't. ” ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees Am I building a hive of thoughts or is it simply I hold on to what I should let whither into forgotten? There’s no industry in building on a scrapbook that is filled  with artful attempts to decorate misery. Not every seed holds light nor  does sitting in a dead garden bring the bee to gather hope’s pollen. A bee’s wings move with incredible speed to remain still…Perhaps my mind’s frantic motion is the sound of my spirit ushering me toward tranquility. Oh grief, I’ve sat beneath your black lace that teases with release, but it is I who must seek the sun.  Even a rose grows when the clock chimes midnight. I wish life would not bring its hurricanes that demand resilience, yet do I expect my humanity to give me escape, when it is the honeybee that fights the hands of men so I might live.   ©Susie Clevenger 2023 The Sunda

Last Words of a Rose

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  There was an emptiness in the air as I clung to the stem, a thorned rose who trusted scissors would never bleed me into water and glass to die on a shelf without ever tasting moonlight again.   Hands smooth as my red petals hovered over my face in a butterfly pause I felt I would escape…my imperfection too obvious to an eye determined to ribbon me among snow cheeked lilies.   Yet separation came in a determined cut that divided me from my sister blossoms and the root hum of mother earth.   With why clipped from my tongue I became little more than a trophy, a pretty “thing” to be admired, a handmaid of ego that sought praise while calculating how long I’d survive in the vinegar of artificial rain.   Intention or not, when wilting came, I was pulled through the throat of the vase. I did not succumb to the fate of a plastic shroud, but was gently lain on green grass by a small hand amongst a dandelion rosary.   ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal    

Unburdening

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  Hymns once rattled stained glass and stone built to house the faithful.   In the middle of nowhere footprints ate grass, a biblical apocalypse growing dust where green once gathered.   When hallelujahs failed to grow numbers in pews, failure’s eye stared into the sun without repentance for planting doom where the meadowlark once sang.   Within the very echo of the last human leaving, bird, beast, and field gathered to redeem Eden from the curse of abandoned.   Revival now speaks in seeds and prayer rows of growing. Butterflies are winged notes singing praises for summer.   Crows own the pulpit, rainbows the baptistry. What man purloined; nature reclaimed. The tabernacle of Mother Earth grows stronger without walls. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal Re-Wilding  

Dandelion Owl in Clouds of Concrete

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  In the backward forward I unravel, unfeather.   Destiny sits on my shoulder warning, “Use your voice to divide truth from the noise of what shouldn’t be heard. Earth spins on broken bones. Be the calm in the fire, balm for the wound.”   Today is what I’m given. Tomorrow is my hope.   I am one linked to the heartbeat of many. For every feather I’ve lost there’s a hundred forming new wings. I’m a dandelion owl trusting I can see change through clouds of concrete. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Earthweal Re-Wilding

Pulled from Gray

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  Bottled Moon She poured moonlight into a bottle, dream elixir, perfume of wishes to place on her temples to protect her in the shadow winter of grief. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Dandelion Skin I’m the wish grown from dandelion bouquets, and shades of moonlight. Rebellion’s child bold in yellow petals formed in stony fields of secrets. ©Susie Clevenger 2022 Apple in Water Tower Town I’m an apple in a water tower town. A sister serpent who doesn’t garden with a Bible or submit to a rib.   Branded a witch with banned book wings I collect whispers in journals and judgement in ink.   From the highest peak of narrow, I see what the faithful won’t hear. I’m in the left of right and preacher’s scape goat sermon Jezebel.  ©Susie Clevenger 2022 The Sunday Muse #219