CHATTING IN YOUR LIVING ROOM
 
Have you noticed how
   star flowers
as if programmed in paradise
spring from our fingertips
circle our shoulders
   color the room
skip along the furniture
   a photograph
rest awhile on our knees?
We are not lovers
are not always loving.
But still, star flowers.
 
(c) Claire J. Baker
 
 
HEADING FOR THE OCEAN
     WITH MY DOG
 
I drive into the dawn --
the sunrise & my truck same
color as my dog's tongue.
 
I am no one at all and am
everyone. Who are you?
Just enjoyed a roadside
 
latte, a biscotti --
my only aim: be fully myself
and kind. For lunch this
 
tangy sun, even the peel.
An apple break is a whole
orchard of crunch.
 
(c) Claire J. Baker
 

WHITE ROSE
 
Chris, your
"Cathedral of death"
is so beautiful
that one day
we hope to enter
its golden doors
as light as air
inhale musk
   incense
      old mahogany
ah, stained windows
a blue altar
three candles burning
   a single white rose
      in a sea-thru vase
 
signifying
   everything.
 
(c) Claire J. Baker

AFTER A FORTUNE COOKIE
 
A family is a cluster
   like pine cone petals
      or flower petals.
 
Her family is away, she is
   drawn to constellations,
      flocks of birds, good books.
 
She watches ocean waves roll in
   along the beach, sees
      loneliness become loveliness.
 
Buckeye trees beckon,
   their leaves like fingers
      forever open.
 
(c) Claire J. Baker
 
 
FLUX
 
When she feels like a moon
stuck in the first phase,
her pull on the earth
at wane, ocean tides ebb
under her weakened power.
 
Yet, hallelujah: full light
comes round again.
Then see her, earth, and all
you darling inhabitants
hip-hip-hooray rolling along
pulling wisdom and love
into her luminous center --
ready for the next phase.
 
(c) Claire J. Baker
 
 

FELLOW TRAVELER

Should a star fall
whole into your hand
you need not place it
back into the sky.

If you must break new
ground, why not start
with the lovely land
on which you stand…

If you feel you are
on your way, though you
haven’t moved an inch
you are on your way.

You don’t have to fly
a hundred miles
to know that you can
soar.

©Claire J. Baker, (From Beacon on the Hill)