Save the blinking dots on the digital clock

that tell us power was severed and then restored.

Save the semicolon that connects

two unconnected thoughts.

Save the boxes on graph paper that may confine

but don’t have to.

Save the berries that make the dyes

bright as blood.

Save the ivy obscuring the door in the wall

that makes you certain you have stumbled upon

something precious.

Save the diamonds in wedding bands

to commemorate the men who died

excavating them.

Save the gold at the end of rainbows

that less cyanide should enter the earth.

Save the fresh perspective

of mountaintops and clear horizons.

Save the body that threatens to betray you.

Save every morsel of warmth

from a sixty-degree day

in January.

Save the patterns in the wallpaper

that stare at us like eyes.

Save all the broken lightbulbs

and make them Christmas ornaments.

Save the old bird’s nest that fell in the storm.

Save the one egg that hasn’t hatched yet.

∞

From the Spring 2012 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 28, No. 2)

© 2012 Jess Hagemann