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.

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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.