Writer's Invitation

To sink like a snapping turtle into the bottom-mud of memory

to repair like the bear to a den of transformation

to huddle like the mallard with the myriad ducks you are

to tuck butter-bill to feather sealed tighter than a letter

to ice over like a pond shut fast against the weather

to spin as the snowflake your own essential crystal

to rest not upon your laurels, but on something elemental

to flock not southward, but to the heart's true north

to head not outward, but to your own magnetic core

to burst not as the blossom into a hemorrhage of petals

but like ice within some hairline crack or cranny

shattering from within the granite mask you're wearing

revealing the clear, the sheer, the unbirthed face

that summer's mazed exuberance swells to hide.