Month: April 2025

By Athena Stairs, April 17, 2025

I remember long ago
When a ten to sixteen growing girl

My little sister and baby bro
The camping trips, neighbors we’d know

My mother’s green thumb garden
Turned from rubbish pile to bounty

Berries climbing long fences
And birds singing in pine breeze

Chickens, turkeys, rabbits, ducks
And the walnut, fruit, and lemon trees

The 4-H kids looking to me
As I taught them caring husbandry

But no one tells you where you can call home

And so I moved onto high school
And overcame my shyness

My friends were cool, the grades we ruled
And I aimed my sights at college

I ran cross country in the hills
Just up the way from our house

I dreamed of tending to the raptors
Rescued in the canyons

My best friend bicycled like wind
For competing in the olympics

We lay upon our backs and watched
The clouds form shapes as teasing

But no one tells you where you can call home

Right before I turned sixteen
My parents called me back again

My grandma needed tending help
In another town where I’d grown up

And so I left the things I loved
And the family most dear to me

I roamed the golf course greens again
But the swans were gone who raised me

I sought stability as could
And in time I met some new friends

Found my love and we moved on
To better towns by the ocean

But no one tells you where you can call home

Now my kids are all grown up
My mother’s pin upon the shelf

The cats are gone, the night is long
And I worry about my health

I think I’ll get to learn at last
How to create my own music

Would my grandfather be proud
Or would he still look to refuse it

That wonderful amazing man
Saw the classics fading like the land

And as a child I tried to tell him
That life was just evolving

But no one tells your heart to change
When the past is what you’re craving

And no one tells us where we can call home
Yeah no one tells us where we can call home

—-

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By Athena Stairs, April 15, 2025

Ebbing tide
By fireside’s low

Creeping in
Too far to go

Up onto dunes
Where crashed below

Leaving gemstones
Smooth-tumbling after

While ears still
Listen for laughter

Yet hear only
Salt breeze blow

The stars come out
To gently shine

A kiss in dreams
Of love divine

And killdeers
Run along as they sing

With partners
To which they cling

Knowing there are
No finer things

Than caring for each other
And nourishment

Were I a bird
I’d fly to you

On sweeping wings
Shaking off the dew

To greet our own
Morning’s sunrise

For you’re always
On my mind

And I wonder
What will become

Of the hope
Of me and you

—

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By Athena Stairs, April 15, 2025

I’m not going anywhere
Pushed down to ground

By gales beyond control
Wild fires fiercely proud

Give me that sacred flame
Breaking curses that bound

These multiple years’ layers
Singeing wings into shrouds

Oh come at last consume me
Complete the process paused

Consecrate my soul as holy
To fly free again for cause

The world shall be our oyster
With love as its sacred pearl

As death gives up dominion
Wounds given grace to heal

—

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By Athena Stairs, April 15, 2025

There is something about
The breeze off the ocean

So raw in wild mystery it
Sets one’s soul in motion

The sun rises in the East
But always sets into West

Giving strong sense of home
Bones never forget nor regret

I suppose its the same anywhere
West side has certain impulsions

Different from any other direction
To those drawn by its compulsion

We feel it in thrums of heartbeats
And through wind-whistling calls

As the world spins ever onward
Compass needles’ pull enthralled

—

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