Remembering to Breathe While Raking

      © Swadesh Misra

There is a meditation to picking up sticks.

Never have I picked up more sticks in my life!

I make piles:

          1 Big branches to be (like a tv husband)

broken down, and (like a tv wife) kept,

for some fire in the desirable future.

          2 Sticksized, for kindling.

          3 Bitty twigs I’ll leave on the deck

out back, for birds/squirrels to take

for nests, say, on an as-needed basis.

I put dirty or molded

wet wood with leaves

in bags they mark

‘for yard waste only,’

as if leaves & felled things

were the result of my lawn’s endocrine.

My own adrenaline kicks up when

the lawn bag breaks.

Shush shush!  goes my rake.

-by Bree

Bree is founder of Green Panda Press (Cleveland, OH) which publishes poetry and art paperbacks, chaps and sundry of the small press. Her work appears in little mags. She is the author of three memoirs.

Photo Courtesy: Swadesh Misra

Swadesh Misra is a photographer, writer, traveler and an artist. He loves music, nature, divinity, dreams, country, hiking and nothing more. He believes in miracles.