A garden of flowers

Trees and plants

Cigarette buds and litter

But only at first glance

A common place

For folk to enjoy free time

Smoke and eat seeds

Or drink some wine

A garden with life

Laughter and tears

A garden with friendship

Shared food and shared fears

A place many go

To talk to everyday

A common meeting ground

After being away

Where people stop by

To make plans for the eve

But always come back

After their goal was achieved

Always at least one

With a cig or a toke

Always in the garden

Are the Garden Folk

–Katie Rose Waechter

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Brian (Monty). I will always miss you. I will always miss San Francisco.

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

– Langston Hughes

Source: Family Friend Poems

Rain

prittle prattle, prittle prattle

On the roof top above

Creates the sensation of a drowsy membrane

Or maybe it

tittle tattles, tittle tattles

As it hits the window

and waters the flowers on my window pane

My cat

purr, purr, purrs

Demanding my attention

Biting the pen I use to write

Meowing at me all the same

Breathe

in and out, in and out

My eyelids grow heavy

Perhaps ill sleep while it rains

–Katie Rose Waechter

Water dancing on

Sand and rock, sand dancing on

Sand dunes, wind dance too

–Katie Rose Waechter

Does the heart justify its body?

When bodily pain covers the feelings underneath

The needle, the knife, and the love they don’t know

Is it ok if this justification only comes in sleep?

Do people justify society?

When they pay just to be the same

When society dominates people

Is their uniqueness covered shame?

Will you justify my love?

If I give you my heart and lend you my hand

Will you be there forevermore

When I grow old and can barely stand?

Does the end justify the beginning?

And the middle – bad as it may be

Is the result worth its actions

Filled with sadness or filled with glee?

-Katie Rose Waechter

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying of the sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

– Francis William Bourdillon

Source: Scrapbook.com

Planes are quite extraordinary things

To mock birds without moving its wings

With bodies of steel and manmade tons

It’s a miracle the flying machine runs

–Katie Rose Waechter (Published in The Storyteller Magazine)