Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2025
Mid-chore Invocation, poems by Peter A. Witt.
Mid-chore Invocation
It comes, like a sparrow crash-landing in your chest,
when your hands are full of grass clippings
or you’re knee-deep in yesterday’s trash.
You curse softly, as if the wind will wait,
as if words won’t dissolve like sugar in rain.
The mower sighs in protest behind you,
the garbage bag slouches in defeat.
You drop everything,
because your muse
is a fire alarm in your ribs,
a siren that won’t be ignored.
You sit, dirt on your shoes,
bones bleeding stanzas, and let
the words burn their way out.
In the Shadow of Orchids
In the corner of my room,
where the sun spills golden light,
they linger — those delicate ghosts
of orchids, petals like soft promises,
unfurled yet unreachable,
fragile as a moonbeam cast on water.
I offer the elixir of life, neat measures
of hope and water, their roots nestle
like hidden stories in the cool depths
of well-drained soil, but still they conspire
to wilt, an unbroken silence, like the stillness
before a storm, as if my hands
are foreign to their yearning.
Light pours like liquid gold,
bathed in the warmth of love and care,
yet they wear their fragility like armor,
draped in hues of fateful indifference,
as if they dance just out of reach.
Each bloom a sigh, each drop of dew
a farewell. I stand, a gardener of longing,
an architect of green hopes, watching
the wild ballet of their defiance,
clutching my wishes in the delicate folds
of their shadows, wondering what language
they speak, what invisible thread binds them
to the essence of life that eludes my grasp,
like a fleeting wisp of cloud drifting past the moon.
© Peter A. Witt
Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a retired university professor. Peter’s poetry deals with personal experiences, both real and imagined. He is a twice published Best of the Net nominee. His poetry has been published on various sites including Inspired, Open Skies Quarterly, Medusa’s Kitchen, Active Muse, New Verse News, and Blue Bird Word. When not writing poetry, Peter is an avid birder and wildlife photographer.
Lovely, Peter. Thank you.
Annie
From one poet to another…well done, well said, painting with words, may the celebrations continue!