My Favorite People

What fills me with love and adoration about those in my life, is not what they look like or anything grand.

It's the way they fold clothes or the grace of their hands.

It is their manner of movement when looking away and alone, doing the things they don't think about shown.

It's their phrases that came out without much thought and habits which pointed towards order and home.

 The way they prepare for their bed and their days, the way they make food and direct their dismay.

Some is contrived towards living a good life.  Some is a natural response all unique that makes them my favorite people I think.

-Kelly Voelker

Breaking Icicles

 The tufts of summer's foliage

Add depth to the shallow innocence  

Of a temporary snow soon fleeting

As the blush of the dawn heats

Past Venus and melting streets

There and then will reality set in

As fun or dreary as I decide to elongate

The fair truth of any moment as this one waits

For me to decide how deep will 

Joy trickle before it's stopped by 

The icicles of yesterday's beauty

And the perceived bleakness 

Of today's emotional weakness.

-Kelly Voelker

My New Home

I step outside and realized I'm welcomed everywhere I see outside my home.  As far as I would choose to wander is mine for the moment, yet requires nothing of me except shared reality. Ownership is remote and has trusted decisions when needed to be mine.  Otherwise the precise geometry of the large pines and self regulating pastures and fence lines guide and remain automatically. The creatures seen and unseen have well established patterns and knowledge of the area in which I may live as if in a natural basket of well being.

The house has waited for us, with our expertise, to repair and focus attention on those hidden problems which others do not see.  The goal is to make the house hum with precision and secure boundaries between the outside and inside where two different sets of rules apply. 

I honor the field mouse and tree frogs nearby, which have shown themselves to me one by one.  I agree on their habitat and will delight in watching the mouse run through open pasture like a miniature deer. I will listen to the tree frog sing as I work in the garage.  The catbirds patrol my outside windows for insects, meow from the hidden pine boughs and perch at the pinnacle of the pines; a vector of known mathematics to some supreme designer of catbirds and wind-resistant trees.

Kelly Voelker

The Village I Left

 The village I left

Again and again

This time the last

I know as a fact

There are no more reasons

For ever coming back

There's nothing left to write

Nothing left to observe

No one to visit

Nowhere to splurge.

-Kelly Voelker

Where There Are No Memories

 A bright and cool autumn morn

Is leaving me feeling forlorn

Even as the obvious beauty of the day

Promises the best for work or play

I remember working with my father

Feeling how far from this I've come

I don't know what I'm becoming

As my guidance is unseen

But each intricate skill and task

I've dreamed of and now mostly done

Leaves a feeling of satisfaction

In its familiar yet totally foreign spin

On the person others 'round here know

Who is but a shell I will outgrow

I want to put myself where

There are no memories which

Constantly want to shape

The growth I have enjoyed to date. 

-Kelly Voelker

Between the Seasons

 The wind had went down

The sun was near set

The football team so far has led

The feeder birds had all been fed

Doves were near silent in groups on the ground

Geese too were quiet and flying around

A half grown kitten was safe by a house

His mother was playing nearby with a mouse

Some of the trees had gold on the top

The outcomes were known so far as the crops

Decisions were made and questions were known

I'm enjoying the silence and walking alone.

-Kelly Voelker

The Chemical of Love

I remember

The pastel sky was calm

Behind tall palm trees always in threes

As the light faded he pointed to something

In the sky there was a pattern of stars

Not known to me before 

Which he said, "Is your sign"

Scorpius is dominant this time of year

Then and there the whole season was mine

Everything I've always wanted

In a new place which always looked like vacation

I know now it was the chemicals of love

Making each of us more special

Grand enough to dominate the sky

Soft enough to remain in constant wonder

If this chemical were used in the water system

Instead of fluoride

All of humanity would feel their connection 

To each other and to the macrocosm of wonder we share.

-Kelly Write Away

The Only Secret

 The only secret I ever kept

Was sealed off from others

Without an attempt from them to wonder,

Speculate or guess

Why my life to them didn't make much sense.

The only secret I ever kept

Was the brilliant and clever

Way I was exempt

From the fate or the fracture that others have told

As long as the stories reoccur from the old.

I succeeded for a long time riding the crest

Of a wave between freedom and surely contempt

From others who walk a more well traveled road

They wouldn't believe me even if I had told.

-Kelly Write Away

Patterns and Depth

I AM the patterns and the depth I sweep away in a flurry of gust All the papers and tokens kept I accelerate the rust On ironclad beliefs you trust I change the weather In front of and behind To rearrange the plans you make To show you undulations of fate And spread apart the leaves you rake. -Kelly Voelker

The Precipice of Today

Is this the first day or the last Which progression will unmask Is it the last day of security Or the first day of impurity Where my beliefs and instincts fail Or my newest triumph will prevail Is this the last day of a glorious age In which we were too distracted to Realize it was the best we knew Is this the gateway to being tranquilized For an operation we wouldn't choose otherwise But settle on as diminished options rule A ways and means to stay as best As we can with herd control Today however beauty streams Even within societal extremes I still feel happiness and hope Stronger still than yesterday On the precipice which is today. - Kelly Voelker

Sweetgrass and Sage

Within my chest The power of the sun My vision aligns with great and powerful heroes My heart aligns with all inclusive compassion My mind aligns with genius and order As part of a beautiful web of design and harmony Invisible to my human eyes Yet here, in my humble room Simple and unfestooned My spirit decorates the world With parties and celebrations Out of fashion and out of reach To a day filled with uncertainty and strife What situation is this test That I should witness for what reason For what purpose am I in this body Of a sensitive woman Seasoned with contrast and experience For what outcome can I broadcast my will To outshine the complexities I have outgrown To leave behind the drama I once enshrined Can I now in this age of sunflower's fade Shine what I need to with sweet grass and sage? -Kelly Voelker

Fishing for Answers

The thought that the worst

Could contain all the best

The thought that I might be

A little bit wrong

Even this thought felt

Like a new favorite song

The thought of recovery

After sickness and death

The thought of connection as

A new escape hatch

We're in it no matter

We're together the same

Let's hook the answers

Like a fish in our brain

So deep in the unknown

It won't yet have a name.

-Kelly Voelker