Today's poem is by Anthony Frame

Come In, Houston, or Everything I Know I Learned from the Guitar Solo in Tori Amos' "Doughnut Song" (Live in Frankfurt, Germany
       

Lately, I've been into transformation,
the way a wing can be a dream, a stream of flight,

the aurora borealis as a battle between
light and atmosphere, gravity and our brittle eyes

as referees. I want to always remember all of the firsts,
the first kiss followed by the first blissful sigh,

the first foggy morning that covered me
with its gorgeous cloudy cold, the first star that startled me

when it seemed to briefly blink away. I plant
a row of sunflower seeds and know the word

future. If these fifteen foot flowers are suns, and
yes they are, then I choose to be their satellite, the way

fungi serve a forest, the mycelium making the soil more
than just a mess of nutrients. Yes, let me be

the fungi, and, yes, one day I will be but not here,
not now, my feet having finally found the ground

— for once I won't let this be about death. Can I
say that? So directly? I'm learning, when the string

is plucked, the note matters more
than the instrument. Somewhere,

in the depths of space, a star is dying and in
the drama of its death, hundreds of new stars will

be seeded. And that's how we were made, too,
one tiny element born from a breaking supernova

building newer, bigger elements, again and again and
again and then, love, there was you and me.

Yesterday, as I cleared a bed for peppers, you kissed me
on my balding crown, removed my earbuds, and said,

Do you hear the earth breathing? Listen. I want
to always remember those sounds passing between

my hair, always aware of the chattering squirrels, of
the sunflowers breaking their seed pods, that battle between

dirt and shoot. I'm learning my hair is always growing.
My fingernails, dirty and dented, are always growing,

The child next door, the birds at the bird bath, even
the soil, always growing. Have I done it, yet?

Changed my metaphors from death to birth? From fear
to future? The earth and you and I are breathing

and I'm listening. I want to remember
— no, I will always remember it all.

Remember, you and I began as stardust. Whatever
we turn into, let us live up to that brilliance.

Copyright © 2025 Anthony Frame All rights reserved
from The Shore
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission