In this short life that lasts more than an hour by Maria Castro Domínguez

I’ll stop listening to the news,
instead listen to the birds, their wings
and the wind
and how it edges doors open.
I’ll wake up at dawn hearing
how the black-inked sky inhales its blues;
watching the clouds chase the sun
before tripping over its ragged orange threads.
I’ll follow the off-beat rain
creating a new rhythm against the window’s back.
I’ll taste each cup of breath
aware of the brevity of a life’s hour.
I will touch a tree trunk
for its layers of life, trace
the light on petals falling
from my neighbor’s oak.
I will silence my phone
and look at the dandelion´s
open-faced hope
as it burns
and burns
and burns.

Maria Castro Dominguez is the author of 'A Face in The Crowd' her Erbacce–press winning collection and ‘Ten Truths from Wonderland’ (Hedgehog Poetry Press) a collaboration with Matt Duggan. She is the winner of the third prize in Brittle Star´s Poetry Competition 2018, a finalist in the 2019 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry contest NY, and was highly commended in the Borderlines Poetry Competition 2020. Her poems have appeared in Apogee, The Long-Islander Huntington Journal NY, Popshot, PANK, Empty Mirror , The Chattahoochee Review and The Cortland Review.