My Pocket Poem

Today is the second national Poem In Your Pocket Day!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends

To prepare for our soon-to-come summer in the desert, here’s a tanka-style exercise I recently penned and will carry in my pocket for the day:

A humming desert

Lifts its skirt of sand to kneel;

Its prayers scorch the eye.

Rabbits run from grazing hawks,

Scorpions waltz in the moon.

Morning comes early.

Midday wears its beggar’s coat,

A dirt rag of sky.

Summer’s so close I can feel

It’s breath going up my shirt.

My skin is a heat;

Air thermals rise in the throat.

Orange blossoms dangle

Hope, yet midnight I’m shaking

Those scorpions out my shoe.

Auburn McCanta

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