Instructional Poem

I hope you will visit my Starnesland blog often as it is an eclectic catchall for the many things that excite and interest me in this amazing Universe we are blessed to be born into before vanishing again not long after. I also now and then feature some of my creative projects, such as the "instructional poems" I wrote in my 30s, before and after I moved to Denver in 1987. Here is one I wrote during the Reagan-era military build up. John



Gesture


If, one morning, as you work in the garden
the air raid sirens wail one last time,
continue combing the soil with your rake,
your hands grasping the warm wooden handle,
the hopeful green glint of unfolding leaves
diluting your fear.

Be sure to be stooped over lovingly planting seeds
when the fireball suddenly kills the sky
above you.

Seedlings will survive where your shadow falls.