by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
We’re walking to school together,
and it’s clear, even on the
short half-mile walk, that people
don’t really care about the earth.
Soda bottles hug curbs.
Candy wrappers flap like flags,
caught between two blades of grass.
An old fast food bag,
with the trash that tells of
almost everything consumed
except for a few fries, crunches
beneath the tires of careless cars.
No one stops to pick any of it up,
put it where it belongs.
Not even me.
My boys stop to hassle a snail,
on its way to who knows here.
They stop to examine a busy ant pile,
waves crawling across the indentation
of a shoe that, from its simple print,
leaves no indication as to whether
this disturbance was accidental or purposeful.
They pause to pick flowers in the field
beside their school, and I am struck, momentarily,
by how beautiful this earth is,
by how solid it appears but
how very fragile it actually is.
I wonder if my children’s children
will be able to stop and trace
the shiny path of a snail.
I wonder if my children’s children
will bend to observe an anthill come alive.
I wonder if they will have the pleasure
of dancing in a field of flowers,
picking handfuls of purple and white
to thrust at their mother.
I hope they do.
I want to make sure they do.
But then we are back home,
where the madness of life
tornadoes around me,
and I forget about the
fragility of the earth,
in favor of my own fragility.
And I know, then, why people forget
to care about the earth.
Life is
much more urgent.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Chang Qing on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
I had been racing
around a corner too fast,
and someone had just
waxed the floor,
and you have to understand
that everything had been
flying apart at the seams,
we didn’t know when
things would stabilize,
and the lighting was off,
and I was running
from something,
maybe bullies,
I don’t remember,
I just remember
I took that turn
way too fast and
the floor was too slippery
and my feet flew out
from under me and
I went careening off
toward the tile floor,
and I hit hard,
I mean really hard,
it’s a wonder I didn’t
break something
(maybe I did),
and the whole cafeteria
grew hushed and still,
like someone had pressed
a pause button,
everyone looking at me,
waiting to see what I’d do,
and I didn’t think I had
the courage or the strength
to get back up,
but I did,
so I did,
I got back up,
and I was thirty pounds lighter
and dying of an eating disorder
because life’s waxed floors
are shined to
kill you.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry, Wing Chair Musings featured
When I was a little girl,
my mother would take me
to the library every week.
We lived in a tiny town,
with little else to do.
These days were my favorites.
I’d run my hand along
the old book spines,
taking my time choosing
the ones that I would
carry home with me,
the ones that would
carry me away for hours.
I would gather as many
as I could manage
in my spindly arms,
and my mother, knowing that
I would read them all in
the course of a week,
would check out every one of them
and then leave me
to my words.
The library was a place
where the world expanded,
where I learned that it was possible
to be more than just
a poor girl from a poor family
who would never amount
to anything spectacular or significant.
The library brought every possibility
to my fingertips and said
it could happen for me.
The library gave me knowledge
and perspective and a way forward
through every circumstance
that found me.
And so the library
was essential to becoming,
to understanding,
to enduring.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Helen Montoya Photography.)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
an arm wrapped
around shoulders
or wrapped around
a waist
carrying the hurt one
out the door
loading up
leaving all
the work behind
at the drop of a foot
an ear turned
to a lover’s call
a cry for help
even if it
isn’t the first
a sandwich made
in the busy
a water bottle
filled by the bed
time carved out
to tend to a
lover’s list
even though hours
are too short
the rumble of breath
in the dead of night
comforting in its
familiarity
words whispered
in an ear
cutting through sleep
and warming
the one they meet
a book saved
from a plastic bag
and given during
need
a foot rub
or scalp massage
when sleep is
what’s needed
but it just won’t
come
a kiss
on the mouth
light and soft
and lovely
stolen in all
the silent moments
a flutter deep down
in the same place
it was all those
years before
this is how
you know
This is an excerpt from This is How You Know: a book of poetry. For more poetry, visit my starter library, where you can get some for free.
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
4:43:56
Sometimes, when I wait
for my world to wake, I pen
a poem of love.
4:43:57
Sometimes I pen my
thoughts—what happened yesterday,
what’s coming today.
4:43:58
Sometimes I pen
randomness: thoughts, wonderings,
the questions of real life.
4:43:59
At times they are
philosophical, sounding something
like what follows:
4:45:30
If we are who we
believe we are, then we must
believe in greatness.
4:45:32
The only journey
we really make is the one
that happens within.
4:45:34
We are always
enough for the world we have been
given. This is truth.
These are excerpts from The Book of Uncommon Hours, a book of haiku poetry. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
I write so I can
discover what is
mysterious about the world
to me.
I write so I can
bring my clouded thoughts
into a clarity of purpose
and mind.
I write so I can
figure out the past
and turn it into something
more beautiful.
I write so I can
think and feel and
understand what is
not understandable
to me.
I write to preserve
a moment in time,
snap a picture
with words.
I write to
meander through
the maze of
my mind.
I write to gather
my dreams close
and give them
wings.
I write to fight off
depression, anxiety,
anger, fear,
hopelessness,
suicide,
death.
I write to
find peace,
love,
hope.
I write
to discover
who I am,
to love myself.
I write to uncover
memories, sorrows,
hurts, joys, dreams,
plans, feelings.
I write to forgive the people
who have hurt me, embarrassed me,
discounted me, protected me, stripped me,
celebrated me, misunderstood me,
hated me, loved me.
I write to embrace
every experience as a shaping,
a rounding off of my hard edges,
a softening of the points.
I write to
dust off the
diamond of
truth.
I write to breathe,
to grip order
in chaos,
to love.
I write to
change the world
and me with it.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
