when the tulip pushes through?
You think it a silly question, I know.
You say the soil isn’t human with feelings
or animal with instinct. Is more like a table
that can’t answer when someone knocks
for good luck, laugh when someone pulls
its leg, or scream when someone’s knife
digs in. Is oblivious.
But I see a sharp tip as the bud pierces
the sepia skin like a thick needle, then red
like blood hitting the air. And it inhales
like a babe who sucks in first breath,
tight-fisted, rooting for the milk of mother
earth, the throbbing womb it’s just split
open. You know full well life can’t come forth
without pain.
Originally appeared in Flint Hills Review.
Listen to Julie L. Moore read this poem:
Inspiration
Head resting on the window sill,
my Lab sits, sniffing the cool autumn air
like new grass in spring,
watching, perhaps, the mist
as it gathers around the ankles
of trees, then floats across the lawn
like words across a page, wrapping
around itself as breezes move
its margins,
breath of morning flowing
like inspiration, drifting
through the open window...
Julie L. Moore is the author of Slipping Out of Bloom, forthcoming from WordTech Editions, and the chapbook, Election Day (Finishing Line Press). A Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the Rosine Offen Memorial Award from the Free Lunch Arts Alliance, Moore has contributed poetry to Alaska Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, Cimarron Review, Dogwood, Flint Hills Review, Free Lunch, The MacGuffin, Sou’Wester, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her website is www.julielmoore.com.