My tea bag this morning preached,
“The beauty of life
is to experience yourself.”
I throw the brown, sodden mess
across my sunny kitchen,
tea juice droplets arcing into a big splat
on the sparkling window.
A plump rabbit outside turns her head
to the thump, suddenly aware
of the danger of me.
The swamp of I.
Sometimes wet, sometimes dry,
you cannot predict my terrain.
Mesmerizing, it is, to linger at my cool, dusty water,
under the spindly shade of pond cypress.
But stand back.
Do not dip your toes.
Alligators snap at my edges.
Bobcats glare with yellow eyes.
Mosquitos dance on my surface,
planting sharp, thirsty babies.
Hold tight your riches and
do not build here.
When I stamp my foot,
trees move.
Lora Keller found beauty and solace in her toy typewriter when she was eight. And she hasn’t stopped writing since. After college, she was a scriptwriter and public relations executive in Milwaukee, New York and Kansas City. For the last 15 years, she has owned and run three small businesses and turned again to writing poetry. Her work has been published in The New Poet, Poised In Flight: An Anthology, The Lantern Journal, Writers’ Haven, Blast Furnace, The Shepherd Express and The Appleton Post-Crescent.
© 2013, Lora Keller
Halfway Down the Stairs 