Patti Masterman Poems

I see you walking all alone
Down that road, just waiting for sunset,
Shaking your head, to silence the voices;
You know, that we all have to make choices.
...

Humans think the whole earth
Should subjugate itself beneath their feet;
Even their religions cry out
That they are meant to dominate this world;
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The faith of a child could ring
a church bell on the stillest day
and the sound carry
for thousands of miles
...

Outside, in a cloudless sky
I try to decode scattered wakes
In cuneiform, made by noiseless airplanes-
At right angles to each other, unfurling curls of silvery rickrack
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forest speaking green
of the damp blossoms blooming
tomorrow's full of color
roughened bark of many boughs
...

On a sunlit desert day
Like the other thousands of days
Within the faceless sameness of mud-colored houses
One indistinguishable from the next
...

broken stone tool wielder
patient flint fire striker
round rolling wheel finder
winter cave hide wearer
...

When touching your two cheeks
There's a map there of the first time
The fingertips felt the smooth
Flesh coaxing- not pushy, not teasing-
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Quick as a wink you find yourself alone
And you go to find that lost music
Hidden so carefully inside yourself
On some long ago hide and seek,
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I sometimes hear things
That remind me of your last breaths-
Fast and continuous, like a sprinter
Trying to finish a course before running down:
...