Phoenix Feather
I stole a feather from a phoenix,
and it seldom gives me grief.
First it shimmers in the sunlight,
then it changes like a leaf
turns from violet into silver,
then from silver into gold,
then igniting into fire,
then to ashes, grey and cold,
then I sweep it all together,
and I make a little pile,
and I rearrange my papers,
and I wait a little while
till it rises from the ashes,
and I take it up again,
and continue writing stories
with my phoenix-feather pen.
Archaeology and Archives
Archaeologists unearth the past
while archivists lay down the day
in a conversation built to last
the test of time and slow decay.
In ages old the pages fold
and wait to be peeled back
revealing long forgotten gold
of a different time and track.
Waking up the mysteries,
laying down the clues
dusting off the libraries,
that were bound and shelved brand new.
Alexandrian cartography, papyrus pictographs.
The archivist records a joke, and the digger-upper laughs.
So when I shelve the records of this present day and age
I wonder who I’m talking to through the ever-living page.
Paper Duels
Paper dolls duel (not with swords
but with letter openers and staple guns)
for injustice that just can’t be ignored
among flat flippant fellows too noble to run.
The seconds arrange for the terms and the time,
and the proud paper gentry strut forth to their place
ready to punish or pay for their crimes,
while I stand meekly by with the tape just in case.
English
English,
you glamorous fish,
you are all that a poet could wish,
as messy as mudpies,
and massive as moons,
a tongue for the tuneful,
a language for loons.
You’ve got platefuls of puns,
and such synonym stacks.
You are filling up ears
with clicks, hiccups, and cracks!
You’re a borrower, a lender,
ever tender to the times,
generous to paradox,
and paradigms, and rhymes.
You have grown,
you have aged,
and you changed as we changed,
and I’m grateful for all that you are.
Hey You!
You are not what you eat.
Do you know that?
Do you know you are so much more?
You are more than matter,
more than cells.
You can’t fathom what’s in store.
We do not live on bread alone.
We are made of more than flesh and bone.
There is purpose at our core.
Paper Crown
All I have is a paper crown,
but when I lay it down at Your feet
all my incompleteness
is suddenly complete,
and this crown that would have wilted
in the damp or in the rain
has turned to solid gold and will
eternally remain
a witness to Your glory, and Your mercy, and Your grace,
that have brought a paper pauper here
to see You face to face.