Small white kitten

In tall dry grass
Staring ahead
With sea blue eyes
I stare back
Wondering why
You lie so still
Until I realize
I step away
But I can’t stop
Seeing your eyes
Staring, still

© 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

What if we rose with the sun and sang each morning,
Sticking our heads through windows or chasing after

Creeks in our nightclothes? What if we rummaged
For our breakfasts under layers of decay? What if

We turned our faces to the sun? What if we ate
Sunlight and drank rainwater? What if our bodies grew

Down into the earth, clutching the soil in our twining toes,
Binding us to one place? What if we lived centuries,

Each year stretching the miles of lives
Underneath our canopy? What if we lived silently?

What if we bloomed pink and purple, yellow or orange
When we got what we needed? What if we

Passed winter curled underground with our families
And our stores of fat and food? What if we scurried

Through life on an endless quest for berries,
Mushrooms, and grubs? What if we were the grubs?

© 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

Last Friday Ruth at There Is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town shared Mary Oliver’s poem How Would You Live Then? I was so taken by the form of the poem with its repeating “what if” questions I wanted to give it a try. As you can see my questions took me in a different direction.

For more Poetry Friday, go to A Teaching Life.


For Sale, Fixer-Upper by Orin Zebest at flickr

I wear this house
Like my favorite t-shirt,
The one you dig through the drawer for,
The one gone soft with wearings and washings,
The one you long to put on
On Saturdays
When you just want to be
Yourself.
It used to be my favorite color blue,
Like the ocean in the sun at noon.
It’s faded now,
Ragged around the collar,
Dribbled with little kid ice creams and
Either it’s shrunk or I’ve grown
Because it feels tight when I stretch.
But I don’t care
Because this t-shirt is my home.
How can you ask me
To give it up
And find another?

© 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved


Pie by RachelEllen at flickr

What if our colossal sun,
which every single thing goes ’round,
all the planets,
all the trees,
all the you’s,
all the me’s,
was nothing
but the glimmer of pie
in some mischievous
fairy’s eye.

© 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved