2026 Poetry Challenge - Poems

Buffering

Our country and its cultures,
we are Buffering.

We are caught between
loading our future
and letting go of the past.

We sit, stare and wait
willing the clarity to come
and yet the picture
is pixelated, scrambled.

We should know that
a half-ready video link
observed with impatient eyes
will never load.

We could stay
motionless
and watch the
Loading
Loading
Loading
symbol spin
indefinitely.

Or, we could
push out of the chair
and find the path forward
ourselves.

The answer is out there
not in our screens.

Poet, writer, photographer and slightly distracted day-dreamer who muses on (gestures at everything) from the petty to the profound. On a semi-serious, fully earnest search for meaning in the mayhem. Perimenopausal, melanin-deprived, irony-enhanced recovering perfectionist Type A+ millennial woman. She balances the ever-continuing quest to Know Better/Do Better, with the distinct ego-death of parenting a smart, full-throated child who was raised to know the power of her voice. Mothering a teen means catching a side-eye in almost every interaction. Diana navigates the minutiae of everyday life through seeking the magical in the mundane. Follow along and laugh with her as the world flames out!

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