GRAYSCALING: poems for dark and light spaces

How could I write without the 

Exactitude of your spectral

Platform

This spinning ball of

Ecstatic threads

Dancing quarks and sinus reds

Consuming blues, purple

Passion hues

Oranges, grays

Sunrise yellow haze

Igniting every sense and saying

This is why our moon keeps waning

Sigh

Simply see

How lately

Your green is wooing me?

Original poem by Kristen Lippert, October 2021

Emotional health

Becoming wealth

Takes work

Abstinence from absorbing everyone’s anxiety

Only listening consensually—

I don’t mean to be rude, just

This assumption that we engage

With every thought, mood, and rage

Is how we end up exhausted

Let’s stop expecting each other

To be sinks for our psychological faucets

Instead, ask to see

if someone is ready

To offer that energy

My attention and yours are

Beautiful gifts, each

a sacrament and chosen application

Of timeless skill sets—

Not an obligation

Original poem by Kristen Lippert, August 2021