turning trope

so maybe its true
that all my metaphors deal with flowers
or seasons
or the circle of life
but i wake up in the morning
dreaming of hens and chickens
and and go to bed in fields of daisies

unless of course
i'm going to bed in darkness
with just a few sky-dotting stars
or on a beach
or somewhere else equally nice
i try not to go to bed
laying on the bed of a flatbed truck
wearing dirty jeans and a snagged flannel shirt

but not all my metaphors are of flowers
some are about
being thrashed by the rapids in the au sable river
and how amazing it felt to crawl to the bank
finally, so bruised and cut and covered in blood
but so very alive
and some too, are about being dragged
by the current, 30 feet into the deep
and how my fingers felt raw dragging along the sand
and how sensational, too, that felt
when i came to the surface
and put fresh air back into my lungs

and i think of those events, sometimes
in direct correlation to my life
and how getting the shit kicked out of me
from time to time makes me
remember again
once it's over and I've survived
that it's good to be here

but maybe i don't obsess as much about that,
as i get older, because more and more
i choose to walk away from pain
maybe i've just had enough to last me for a while
without asking for any more

i don't often walk down my paths of despair
but i do often linger at their entrance
and hover at the forks

when my mother was a daughter
she had lots of brothers and sisters
and she loved her dad
and she loved being in the sun
and she didn't like it when people hurt her
hit her, or smashed in her tiny turned-up nose

when my mother was a mother
she had so much love to give
and she loved me so much it hurt
and she still loved being in the sun
and she loved me enough to make
everything more or less okay
for us both, i think

when i was a daughter
i loved feeling the sun on my shoulders
in the rock garden next to her
freckles or not, i was hers
and sitting amongst the daffodils
pulling pigweed, life was good
and i knew it

so i guess
maybe my analogies are rooted back there
when i was hers, and she was mine
to the sun and the smiles
and the hot summer sand on my feet
and to the daffodils
swaying their goofy yellow heads
back and forth in the flower bed