The World In Three Acres

When I was a young girl

revelation came to a small house

on a gravel road where agony

mossed the north side of dysfunction.

Angry words never reached

the roots of why … They just

left the broken bleeding.

When bitter shrank the walls,

I ran to where the wild things go

and buried my tears among

cottonwood seeds.

 With bare feet searching echoes

I roamed creek beds, watermelon vines,

and honeysuckle fences until a mockingbird song

bid me to sit and rest beneath its nest.

Open souled rhema came to me

in a psalm delivered on the wind.

“You are a child of earth and wings.

This world of three acres is your freedom.

Among decay, apple trees, bird,

deer, and rabbit are lessons to learn,

stories to tell, ties too strong to be severed.

The butterfly spirit lives in your heart,

wherever you fly hope will never desert you.”

So many years have weighted clock hands.

In the gray of shorter days I still hear

the wheel crush on gravel where dirt road met destiny.

 ©Susie Clevenger 2017

#NaPoWriMo2017

The photos are from that small bit of land where I grew up. The gravel road is the photo I chose for the cover of my book, Dirt Road Dreams.

Real Toads ~ Hope And The Places That Heal You