Hollow
Doesn’t have to be a bad word
Hollow
Doesn’t have to mean “empty”
And “missing”

When I listen
It means there is a container
Wrapped tight
And taut in something warm
The hide of a once wild
and free animal
is now a fate reverberated
as another passionate, wild being
Strikes it
Sparks the potential aflame
Into a sprout of a heartbeat

Or it is
The fog
Once aimless and reaching
Until it finds a lighthouse
Its beam also reaching for it
So when light strikes the micro droplets
Each effervescent molecule
Is lit in the turn of the path
In each passing round
An orchestra plays

That is the word
“Hollow”
To me

It takes heat to open an oyster,
or a knife(or time).
Humans are enough like oysters, I suppose,
but they don’t need pain to bring out their full potential—
they do need time.
Time takes too long for some,
and pain is an easy alternative;
forgoing sleep and forgetting to eat,
distance from loved ones,
pushing and pushing and pushing and—
a pearl.

Every child grows a pair of wings.
Some are just never taught to fly.

I miss days we knew before
Both of us were free
Blissfully naive
Unaware
Our lives were so easy

I took it for granted
Then it went to hell
Would give up everything
To again be under that magic spell

Back when each day was happy
Along with each night
A simple conversation
Occurred without a fight

I miss not carrying weight of the world
Weightless when we'd kiss
Those people we used to be
Would be shocked it's come to this

How did we let potential slip away?
Is this what we're destined to be?
Is it possible to attain
The future young hearts used to see?

Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love’s bright promise
lies tattered by the thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter ****
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers, **** and sore.

Published by Songs of Innocence, The Aurorean and Contemporary Rhyme. Keywords/Tags: love, rose, bright, promise, potential, tattered, torn, thorn, winter, naked, ****, shivering, sore, scent, fragrance, aroma, sweet, pallid, aphids, lilac, devotion, ****, hoarfrost, frost, ice

Tillage
by Michael R. Burch

What stirs within me
is no great welling
straining to flood forth,
but an emptiness
waiting to be filled.

I am not an orchard
ready to be harvested,
but a field
rough and barren
waiting to be tilled.

Keywords/Tags: tillage, raw, potential, barren, field, tabula rasa, blank slate, palimpsest