Dorothy Friedman

IN OUR NEXT LIFE WE WILL BE FREE, PART I

What has the human season produced? Spontaneous heat and havoc.

Here we are browsing each other among the buttercups.

So take this cup of modernity Dorothy and elucidate your feelings,’

We are falling backwards into a field of possibility–catch us before we
land.

So the past is the past but what about new beginnings for Johnny Appleseed.

standing so tall and brave at the helm of this tomato?. Love us, he pleads

twirling the stem, for we are sick of nations and wish to belong to
ourselves.

And as we film his alienation we wonder if  he can be satisfied to live
in these altered

states. And will accept this offer of a trapeze to expand the library of
missing sounds

Conscious of change and smiling at remnants of ourselves, we suddenly become

infatuated with myth and empathy for the needs of seeds like J. A.

The temperature is just right–ah yes–to demystify worry and expand our
wing span,

so we will rise to new heights, though for some it is humid today without
doubt, though

even the devious turtledove braces its wings just before the twister
propels us north.

DOROTHY FRIEDMAN AUGUST  is a widely published award winning poet who has won two New York Foundation of the Arts fellowships and published three books of poetry.  Two upcoming books, L SHAPED ROOM and DRINKING ALASKA will be published in 2021 by Poets Wear Prada, etc. She founded WHITE RABBIT, a compilation magazine whose most recent issue was dedicated to John

Ashbery and Colette Inez, both of whom she studied with, and she teaches writing at Empire State College and Bowery Poetry Club.