Weight

The reason

_we have lost track_

to run a lean life muscular slim

is that when it is time to move on

you don't need it all that girth

the weight the accumulation holding you down

because you will always have to move on

again

 

It has little to do with what you thought it did

attracting other insecure people with your absence of flesh

playing the game, of being not-you.

It has something to do with you though the actual you:

 

who would you be without the stuff

the flesh, the power you deny, all the busy

that keeps you afloat free from thinking,

That holding on is keeping you from moving on

from learning painful learning

 

Do you ever ask

 

04.15.2025

The Women

We look to the mothers of mothers

to hold the weight of the memory

that death and birth are locked together

in the merciless gears that grind out life.

 

This child not yet

is not an equation to be calculated

but the alchemy of spirit and courage,

the tenacity of life that endures all struggle.

 

This small fleshy seed must first survive

the war zone of a mother’s body,

Find nourishment in the midst of commotion.

 

The girl so suddenly named mother must survive

the assault of this stranger entering through her

seemingly from another world.

 

Until finally, recognition.

You see yourself cradled against your breast,

alive with the gift of contradiction.

 

3-1-2022

See

Times like these,

Artists’ eyes are born.

Eyes that ask

And sometimes see.

 

Eyes that live

In that ironic, uncomfortable crevice

Between joy and cynicism,

That simply say what others will not.

 

05-11-2020

The Myth

You sniff the breeze and feel the difference,

Something new is coming on.

Green was your life,

it was around you and among you.

There were rumors of other colors, out there,

but you were sure they were a myth.

But now, what is this--

brilliant red leaves are appearing

out of your once green ones.

Neighbors all around have become

orange, brown, variegated gold.

Ecstatic color is waking up, and

you discover

you never even knew what color was 
until there was change.

©2015 Donna Jo Wallace

shared with Poets United / Poetry Pantry 326

Home

Is it the place you left behind

or the place where you are going,

Is it the place you chose

or just where you happened to land,

Do you see it with your eyes open

or only ever with your eyes closed?

How far back do you have go

or how far forward,

To get to

the place in your

mind

where you feel well?

Can

you

get

there

from
here?

Does your home have a name

an address with a yard

signs to point the way,

Or, is it a path

The road itself the only constant

That keeps you moving on …

@2016 Donna Jo Wallace

Interview

Eight-twenty in the morning

and I have escaped my orbit for a day.

The highway has already spun me out

in some new direction,

another trail of false hope,

probably.

We’ll do the dance:

Handshake on One, Smile on Two,

Do the Positive Spin.

It’s the first date of the business world,

always awkward,

full of fear, and yearning.

Maybe all this

real-world play-acting

is just a dream, and

tomorrow I’ll wake to find that

the only thing I’ve really done today

is to write this poem.

©2004 Donna Jo Wallace

Go

if we knew what we were seeking

we wouldn’t need to go.

fragile travelers

vulnerable to change

young before experience

dare to go, return, and go again

enter the void

our eyes search

and discover humans

just other humans

in the great kaleidoscope of life

going, then coming, then going again.

©2008 Donna Jo Wallace.

Almost Hope

Cardboard towers gather around me

like stone giants of old, and I seek their wisdom.

Perhaps if I learn life’s lessons well enough

I might yet be rewarded with the right to stop in one place.

The voice of the box tape, raw and demanding,

punctuates my comings and goings,

All evidence of life’s messy work,

contained and taped and moved on again.

I seek the Zen of reaching and not grasping

Knowing and not knowing

Having and not having.

The disappointment

I feel is almost

like hope

These boxes are just little Christmas presents to myself --

Time capsules to be opened

in another reality.

Far away from here.

My exhaustion keeps me company,

and I feel consumed and happy

in a frenzy of activity

which seems like progress.

I will it to replace this hole inside of me,

as I close this box and that,

erasing each one from my memory,

relinquishing it to the future.

©2006 Donna Jo Wallace.