Madeleine's Poetry Collection

A sea of cerulean blue and white,

Brooklyn scenes on the wall,

With drawings of

The Brooklyn bridge,

The Notorious B.I.G.,

The cyclone,

Seagulls,

A man on his bike - fishing

A woman with her baby stroller

And a group of Hasidic Jews

Plunk

Plink

Ker-plunk!

Raindrops painting the windows

Or sometimes,

The sun

Flooding through the windows

Trying to reach, grab, twist, stretch

Trying to have something it can not

A seagrass rug is so cozy there on the floor

It is waiting for you, you know,

Feel free to curl up and rest

On that seagrass rug

Relax,

Why so tense, child?

You’re safe here,

Read the books on the shelves,

Sleep on the bed

Sit at the desk and draw,

Or do whatever you desire to do, child

This bedroom is yours

Until your brother comes knocking on the door, that is

Isn’t it wonderful how stars will whisper to you

if you lean in close,

A dreamy moon

shimmering in a pool of black

Woven from joy,

sorrow,

intelligence,

hope,

evening,

sunset,

and twilight

She knows

everlasting peace and harmony,

The sun is intelligent, and brilliant,

cascading

Down,

down,

down

When I look at the world and the place we are at now,

I think of the future - a better future

A more fair future

Where more voices can be heard

Like a cat scratching

And scratching

At your leg

Until you acknowledge,

That you heard its meow

Why does the sound of the ocean get stuck in a seashell forever?

Is it unable to let go of the sound of its homeland?

If I were a seashell I would also never

Want to let go of the sound of the ocean

I wonder how the seashell can listen to the ocean

Is it because it is clever

And memorized the sounds of waves overlapping

Fierce

And

calm

Or was the ocean sad to let it go

So they gave it a parting gift?

Maybe the ocean can sew

The waves into a seashell

So it will never forget where it came from

Whatever the reason,

I love seashells and their ocean hum

Where does the river flow?

Where does the rainbow go?

If I had a boat I would see where the river goes

I would paddle everywhere

Even In a moat

Too bad I can't swim

I can just

Float

If I could fly,

I would see where the rainbow ends

Does it have more than one bend?

Does it ever end?

Does it ever lend

Its color

To another

Rainbow?

In the sky over Colombia

Is there a collector of clouds?

I take the clouds

Wrap them in the finest silk

Weave them together

You say

Black thundering ones

And soft gentle baby blue and white ones

Why don't the clouds run out?

I ask

There are infinite clouds,

The sky is forever weaving together the stars

You collect clouds?

Like you collect rocks

But I collect them in my mind

Images of shifting colors black and gray

Blue as well

Sometimes though, I put them in a basket

Weaved together so tight that even the clouds can’t run away

Sew them to make the finest garments

Night gowns shifting from black to gray to blue

Like the sea

Like the sky

Like the clouds.