An Uncrushed Flower

If fate is all boot, and your roots
grow too strong and too deep
to transplant your Self
out its path (while remaining whole), be
an uncrushed flower.

If society is all storm, and human
decency is the only shield
keeping the world
from being torn (and turned hopeless),
be the peg that holds and wholes.

If most things have run fast
towards (certain) fracture,
fight to whole back.

Kintsugi Flower, by A4Lien
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 - for Twiglet #209 (“hung from pegs”), and for Poets and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #52: Something About Mary – where we’re asked to write poetry or prose inspired by Mary Oliver’s “Landscape”, I chose “the most fragile of flowers”).

Scars Are Armor

 embraced scars
make the best armor
of living

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- originally shared last year, right before the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, the blog where I first shared my poetry, closed. Thankfully, the site remains open as an archive, so I didn’t wail too violently. Still, I do miss it...  I wrote this senryū for a prompt where Rommy asked for poems brewed out of “words to live by”. I chose the words scars and armor. And since I just got a brand new scar, it feels just right to re-share this bit on Poets and Storytellers United (Writers’ Pantry #35: Change Happens (for the Better, Let’s Hope) Aug, 2020)