26 is four days away from the finish line -- woot!

Another gray day. At least the trees have buds and the flowering trees (which I love as much as I love tulips for the same reasons) are popping.

Signs point to summer.

Today's prompt:

Use all of the following words in a poem: deadline, boom, children, shallow, dirt, creep, instigate. (http://www.writingforward.com/category/writing-prompts/poetry-prompts)

*

About Deadlines

On the way in
to the office today
under fragile buds

and wet skies
I talked to a philosopher
and said

we never know --
any one of us could just
drop dead

boom

then laughed
and said
wow

that's a nice way
for me to start
the day

(with truth:
we don't know
how and when

we'll go --
could be today or
tomorrow

could be
thirty years from now
a summer afternoon

at the lake
our children safe
on the other side

of some state divide
after all
life in context

is a shallow
breath
surrounded by dirt

we creep
toward singular
deadlines

every second

no matter how many
lives or stories or religions
we instigate)