Curtsy

Sandpiper scurries
to and fro
with the fanciest of footwork
from tide’s leading flow,

dipping, receding,
with each orchestrated ebb,
back and forth
in time, once and again.

I raise my arms
and curtsy too
and dance
with the wind
despite the gray and
black and blue.

Glass Portals

If I have to have walls,
give me windows
big and bright
where shadows can dance for hours
with the light,
windows that open
wide
to invite the breezes
inside.
In all mental-health seasons,
I so easily slip away
for days,
lose myself
in those sunny sills
and rainy panes,
faraway thoughts
that need not be
sorted nor restrained;
even my muses need
a holiday.
The spaces inside
my dwelling fade
in comparison
to the glass
and screens I need
for my soul
to not suffocate.
If I have to have walls,
give me windows
through which to endlessly
escape.

Silent Leaps

They still dance for me
in winter
upon autumn’s
painted, fading
stage:
white petal ballet,

paralleling
my silent leaps
and stubborn faith
in dreams.

The axis piercing
my soul
slows,
and for a moment
I believe

I can pirouette right off
and finally become
free.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Concrete Daisies

Concrete daisies
veiled in silhouette,
shadows upon the crushed,
colorless.

Wind-caressed
nonetheless,
the mood of the kinesthetic,
interpretless,

no witness,
for every glance
is upon the source
hues and scent,

the cast-shadow dance,
musicless.

I fall into a trance
watching all the ways
the whispered stories
on the side non-stage
are artistically portrayed
in the concrete-daisy
ballet.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Sea Dance

Barefoot atop the deep waters,
white dress and wild tresses flowing,
sunken-ship cemetery of the past beneath,
I twirl in this present moment.

The sea is mine
as my dance floor,
and I skim across
to my pick of shores;
I explore, I vacation,
not searching, just jubilation
of losing
worries and fears,
exaltation of the lightness
of the lifting of those stormy years,
each moment an eternity
to get to the next,
each stepping stone
sinking with each vine grasped,
no beanstalk discovered
to bring me to the clouds,
only faith each day
for decades
of a better tomorrow.

That tomorrow is today,

hence the head-raised dance
in the sun and in the rain,
embracing with wide-opened arms
the achievement of having started
upon this horizon
I only viewed from the beach.

The stepping stones still sink.
I just realized the only missing factor
was to fully

believe.

They were never needed.
Self-love was the only key.

I was always worth it.
Eventually, I fought
for me
and this
dream.