Three Poems by Carol Alena Aronoff

This is Not a Drill

I woke up this morning
with twelve minutes to live.
Cell phone bleating, "extreme alert."
"Ballistic missile threat
incoming to Hawaii.
Seek immediate shelter.
This is not a drill."

Stunned like a butterfly just pinned--
by disbelief
the unreality of the unfathomable
I text a few friends and family,
tell them I love them and wait.
Blank except for, "This is not a drill."
"Everything is impermanent."

Unmoving, waiting.  Nowhere to go
in this paradise of palms and plumeria.
Apprehension, a slow burning,
not cold.  Still as winter leafing.
Thirty eight minutes to the official
"false alarm."  I decide I must get
to the ocean, soak in the sky,
wear velvet.


Mapless

If I wait among
the roses
for rain to soften
thorns, lie down
among speckled
eggs readying
to hatch,
I will miss
the thrum of deeper
woods, wilding paths
with no promises.

Resisting the perfume
of convention,
the air of authority,
I feel
compelled to follow
lines of desire,
pirate paths.
No maps needed,
only awareness.
Out of stillness,
signs will naturally
appear.


Wisdom Blooms

Without the need to label
anything
mind's endless conversation
is a flower
and feelings rest on leaves
scattered
by gusts of wind
to settle near marigolds
and water lilies.

A bowl turned up in smile
holds the movement of water
with the stillness
of pond.
No need for misgivings
or even for dream.
Everything is
just as it is.

Carol Alena Aronoff, PhD, is a psychologist, teacher and writer.  Her poetry has been published in Comstock Review, Poetica, Sendero, Buckly&, Asphodel, Tiger's Eye, Cyclamens & Swords, Quill & Parchment, Avocet, Bosque, 200 New Mexico Poems, Women Write Resistance, Before There is Nowhere to Stand, Malala:  Poems for Malala Yousafzai, et al.  She was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, participated in Braided Lives, collaboration of artists/poets, Ekphrasis:  Sacred Stories of the Southwest, and (A) Muses Poster Retrospective for the 2014 Taos Fall Arts Festival.  The Nature of Music was published by Blue Dolphin Publishing in 2005, Cornsilk in 2006, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep in 2007, Blessings from an Unseen World in 2013, and Dreaming Earth's Body in 2015.  Currently, she resides in rural Hawaii--working her land, meditating in nature and writing.