What are you thinking of?
Plump aspens
Bamboo spears
The skeletal hands of oaks
Maybe the star shaped maples
Are they interlaced
Or waving
Are they still and heavy in hot dense air
Are they arching above you in a canopy so the shade
around you is mottled with shapes
not named in geometry?

Or maybe that funny mind of yours
Is thinking of her exit
That moment when she stopped occupying the space next to you
You can probably diagram that emptiness with an architect’s precision but
Was it green or golden
Or blood red?

The practice is inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye and her notion that words are like oars. Dip them in the water. Explore with them. Feel how they touch and bump up against one another. Let them take us further down the stream.