Verse-Virtual
  • HOME
  • MASTHEAD
  • ABOUT
  • POEMS AND ARTICLES
  • ARCHIVE
  • SUBMIT
  • SEARCH
  • FACEBOOK
  • EVENTS
September 2022
Cynthia Anderson
cynthia@cynthiaandersonpoet.com / www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com
Bio Note: As summer drags on in the Mojave, it feels like the heat will last forever. Early morning walks are my salvation—that, and taking refuge in poetry. My latest book, Full Circle, has 120 haiku and senryu poems, many of them about the changing seasons in the desert. There’s a lot of glory out here along with the grit.

The Spinner

Tentacles of silken thread 
stretch from pot to pot 
on the patio, and up 
the stairs to succulents 
on the sunlit ledges.
There, swaying in space, 
sit the spiraled center and 
its architect, an orange 
clump big as a cat’s eye, 
legs drawn in, waiting, 
as I bat the web apart. 
The moorings stick 
to my hands, and the more 
I pull, the more the spider 
reels out, until I finally see this, 
and stop, and laugh—
for a moment letting go 
of my fight with a foe’s 
deliberate designs 
on my universe.
                        

Needed Elsewhere

The sleeping earth saw no sign 
of a storm, until, before dawn, 

a soundless sky flashed white, 
then white again, electricity

seeking an outlet. That energy 
formed a jagged bolt, struck 

a single Joshua tree, reduced 
it to a cinder. Were those 

ragged arms needed elsewhere, 
to hold something unnamed, 

in a place without bodies?  
                        

The Sycamore

Sycamore tree and God say the same: 
You won’t meet your end in these woods. 

Wake up. Watch stars between branches. 
Keep trying to do good. Which means: 

Escape. Use your hands, your feet, your teeth.
You have the power to hurt the hurter. 

Find the will. Find the way. 
Sycamore bows in the wind, whispers—

Grow up. Get up. Get out of here. 
That’s what your legs are for. 

You didn’t expect to move again. 
But you will get up, and run.

Not like the others.
Not like them.
                        
©2022 Cynthia Anderson
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL