This Poetic Earth Month 30 Days, 30 Poems Challenge was offered throughout April 2019.
Thank you for having written with us all month long!
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Photo by Sonia Joie. Used with permission.
Helping you get inspired. With poetry & poetic things.
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Bethany R. says
Starting small
What difference
might it make
if we called
the environment
our environment?
L.L. Barkat says
Oh, I LOVE that. And that is starting small indeed.
One. Little. Word.
A perfect slide-in, three for three letters. So, taking up the same space with an entirely different sense.
Bethany R. says
Happy you like it, L.L. 🙂
Yes, reduce, reuse, recycle,
replace?
L.L. Barkat says
That made me smile!
(There is a new idea out there: “reduce, reuse, recycle, refuse”… which is a little redundant on the “reduce” side but I get the spirit of it. Personally, I like the idea of positive replacement, because most people really don’t like the idea of just giving things up or living within what can feel like imposed constraints, whether those constraints are imposed from the inside or the outside. So, choosing to slip something new and positive in, something that engages our creativity and actually opens things out and feels expansive to our hearts and minds and souls, I believe that can ultimately work better. Some might say it’s just semantics. But words do have power. How we frame something to ourselves and others, in words, matters.)
Dave Malone says
And I saw this: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair, Refuse.” I agree with you, L.L., couldn’t we slip in something positive. Or even use the order to stay positive: “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle.”
Sandra Heska King says
Ocean
microplastic
plankton to planet
macroproblem
Last weekend, our church formed several teams to “serve the city” by partnering with 12 nonprofits for several projects–gleaning tomatoes, working on 5 homes for foster kids, moms, and women in distress, distributing groceries, making care packages for at-risk kids and more. My husband and I joined the team that patrolled a section of the beach and collected 125 pounds of trash, i.e. refuse–most of it plastic of some sort and cigarette butts. I didn’t know that filters contain some sort of plastic. It was an eyeopener for me. Until you really look, you don’t really see. D and I determined to take a bucket with us on every future visit–and not to build sand castles.
I think the ocean will be my April focus.
L.L. Barkat says
I love the ocean. It is, to me, both primal danger and soothing cradling. When I am there, I lose myself in its endlessness and the sound of it stays with me for days and speaks in my dreams. I look forward to seeing what happens with you and the ocean during April. I wish you marvels and discovery and vision and inspiration. 🙂
Katie says
Sandy,
“Until you really look, you don’t really see.”
Thank you for filling those buckets on your walks.
Sandra Heska King says
🙂
Bethany says
I like that you’re choosing one specific part of our environment to focus on, Sandra.
Beautiful comment, L.L. 🙂
Katie says
streams and rivers
run to the sea, filled by wet
clouds, snow melt; happy we
L.L. Barkat says
Starting small, Katie. That’s a happy thing. 🙂
Maybe you want to focus on water as your place to “just begin,” for Poetic Earth Month? (Sandra’s focusing on the sea. But there are also the rivers and streams asking for our exploration and voices. 🙂 ) Well, and the sea is big. So I’m thinking Sandra would share that with you, too. 😉
Sandra Heska King says
Always happy to share. 🙂
Katie says
🙂
Katie says
Thank you, L.L.:)
Sandra Heska King says
Laura, is this where you want us to share our poems from the daily prompts?
L.L. Barkat says
Indeed. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
—after Ezra Pound
The apparition of these Post Oaks on the hill:
Feathers on a Texas Spring.
Sandra Heska King says
Nice!
Dave Malone says
Lovely.
Richard Maxson says
Thanks Sandra and Dave.
Shelly Faber says
Hello April, and Day 1 of the challenge
look to the sunrise
find where morning golden sky
greets the morning sea
https://myredwinediary.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/poetic-earth-month-challenge-haiku/
Sandra Heska King says
I like the golden photo you paired with this on your site, Shelly. 🙂
Shelly Faber says
Thank you, Sandra. I’ll be looking for that ‘single grain of sand’, next time I’m at the beach.. All the best
Sandra Heska King says
Poetic Earth Month Challenge – Day 1
Counting Down Ocean Time
Find a single grain
of sand–if you can–beneath
the seaside debris.
L.L. Barkat says
1
•
On my walk today—
two tiny pine cones nestling,
my hand a cradle.
Dave Malone says
Love it! Love the strictness to the 5-7-5, too. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
Lovers in the Park
Lupine stand
in lavender spears,
where I notice lovers,
alone with a Spring rain
and their fears
palpable between them.
They walk with them,
like a third something,
ancient like the Cycads
they are passing.
He is looking for the bones,
the artifacts, that abide his sorrow.
She is remembering an embrace
worn for days like skin
warmed by a fire.
She is chilled by the shadows
extending ahead of her
in different worlds as they go
where the path curves
out of sight,
her hand reaching
through the past,
touching his fingers
bathed with fresh rain,
she turning toward him
where anemones frame the bend.
Dave Malone says
1
•
Dark pine bark. Mulched trees.
Round hills, a robin’s puffed breast.
Old dirt, finds a worm.
Sandra Heska King says
Poetic Earth Month Challenge – Day 2
Inspired by this article:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/photos-reveal-plastic-plankton-in-ocean/
Ocean Images
in just scoops of time
deceptively artistic
a plastic soup world
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Sandy, your haiku well reflects the “deceptively artistic” image. I like the phrase “scoops of time” as well.
Mary Van Denend says
Pond
You wear many masks–
today you appear murky
but I’ve seen you shine
Small square of water,
you stare, a mirror open
to each passing cloud
Bright fish flash under
your glassy skin, orange slivers
who know you as home
Sandra Heska King says
Mary, I love this. The pond as a mirror with glassy skin. And the last part–orange slivers who know you as home.
Dave Malone says
Love. 🙂
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Beautiful, Mary. See it with my own eyes; feel the coolness of the water.
Richard Maxson says
Perfect capture of a pond. Can’t we just watch them for hours?
Shelly Faber says
Day 2 .. A Hurting Time.
https://wordpress.com/post/myredwinediary.wordpress.com/4490
Richard Maxson says
In the Time of Lilacs
My coffee has gone cold,
in the dawdling morning light,
the dew unsettled in the trees.
Now, birdsong—the hum
that shaped the winter air
inside the house
has not followed me.
The disarray of print on blue lines
rivers away as a spare rain weeps,
touches me like a hovering ghost.
The paper binds and then withers,
its familiar words taken by a finger
formed and crooked, then
vanishing from the table,
where the edge begins and ends.
Shelly Faber says
So sensory . Really lovely.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, the quietly elegant second strophe arrests me:
“…the hum/that shaped the winter air/inside the house/has not followed me.”
Richly poignant, evoking time and season plus an almost visual AND kinesthetic sense of spatial volume juxtaposed alongside its absence—as well as sound and implied silence —in mostly one-syllable words, within one strophe!
Richard Maxson says
Thank you for your comment Laurie.
Florence says
Prompt from Day 3: Just when I thought the day had nothing left to give…
Enough by Florence Brooks
Just when I thought the day had nothing left to give
I realized it wasn’t the day
It was me
Worn from hours of responsibility
Of children, of work, of unending lists
Tired, with sore throat and aching limbs
I moved myself through what remained
Watching the clock
Aware that time was moving fast and slow
Too fast to do all that needed to be done
Too slow to take me to a night of rest
And I wondered how
How to move through what was left when there was nothing left of me
And I chose
Chose to plant in my mind and heart that
No matter how little there was
There was much around me that was precious and good and beautiful
And it was enough
Enough to carry me through.
L.L. Barkat says
Florence, I love how you played with the “as much as she could carry” line from the end of Mowry’s poem as well, by unfolding it into “enough to carry me through.”
Yesterday, I was feeling so weary myself. Too many cares. And my 21-y-o daughter leaning into me, tearful, afraid that people won’t end up coming together to deal with the climate issue we are facing. I put my arm around her and pulled her close, there on the steps where we’d decided to sit for a few minutes, to take in the healing air of spring. Then, just for that moment, we found the new crocuses by the steps and she said she sometimes forgets to look at them before they are gone and I said, “Let’s look at them now.” And, “I like to call them little sun cups.”
I hope you find something today that brings you a bit of sun in a little cup, even if that cup is small and hidden from obvious view.
Florence says
What a kind response. Thank you. I am the doctor’s office now.
L.L. Barkat says
Now
At the doctor’s office,
the sun seems far,
and I wonder what
will be a little cup
of comfort for me.
Then it comes
unexpectedly.
A kindness.
A thanks.
A you.
And suddenly
I am.
Katie says
Florence,
Thank you for “Enough.”
“It was me”
“Watching the clock”
“And I wondered how”
“And I chose”
“And it was enough”
This puts me in mind of Gretchen Rubin’s: “The days are long, the years are short.”
Gratefully,
Katie
Sandra Heska King says
“Aware that time was moving fast and slow”
So true. Sometimes it is just a matter of planting our mind and heart. And that last line made me smile. Perfect.
Laurie Klein says
Florence, this:
“How to move through what was left when there was nothing left of me”
Thank you for saying it, straight out.
And then those two acts: the choosing, and the planting. Small. Quiet. Bold. An irresistible invitation.
Florence Brooks says
Thank you all for your generous comments!
Richard Maxson says
Florence, the world is large. Large “enough” to contain more good than bad. Your poem is a testament to that.
Technology has miniaturized the world so that we seem to see so much that is wrong or destructive. It takes a conscious choice, as you and LL write, to open to the many wonders and strengths of this world.
Thanks for sharing this poem.
Florence says
Richard,
I am grateful for your thoughts. Thank you.
Florence says
❤
Richard Maxson says
Burl
…sometimes those hard women
who abandon you get you to say, “You.”
— From “Bad People” by Robert Bly
You have thought of cutting the burl for years,
with its silent secrets, held in the bark,
like a frown of spite for the creek water,
with its life of smooth stones and dappled light.
Between the worried rings and lowing song,
the slow earth ruffles your hair as it turns
in its nest of space, the way sleep turns you
toward mornings you do not recognize.
When the snow comes, the water rolls below
the ice, never the same, you can feel it,
more so than the blood that keeps you here,
circling, like the clouds you cannot touch.
Laurie Klein says
“… creek water,
with its life of smooth stones and dappled light.
Between the worried rings and lowing song,
the slow earth ruffles your hair as it turns
in its nest of space, the way sleep turns you
toward mornings you do not recognize.”
Palpable tenderness and loss. Stunning.
Richard Maxson says
Thank you.
Sandra Heska King says
Day 3
Delights
Just when I thought
the day had nothing
left to give
and I was weighed down
and walled in with worry
over the state of worldly affairs—
politics (I’ll say no more),
a college student and a non-Uber,
local school shooting survivors
and their suicides,
compassion versus personal space,
a female whale (and her fetus) dead,
found carrying fifty pounds
of plastic in her stomach,
a kidnapped tourist in Uganda,
measles and Ebola,
someone shot in the face after
an argument over gym shoes.
I mean–seriously???
But then the dog begged to cuddle,
the Facebook Marketplace table
was perfect and perfectly priced,
and the mail delivered
The Book of Delights.
L.L. Barkat says
Gratis
On what
light wings, the butterfly
carries her
burden
(and yours).
Soundlessly,
she drifts
from milkweed
to white clover
in the enough
of this day—
earth’s price
for the empty-hearted
looking, looking for something,
is nothing more
than the time
it takes you
to see.
Sandra Heska King says
I see what you did there. 🙂
Shelly Faber says
Very beautiful. Your words leave space to breathe. Saying so much!
Richard Maxson says
Love this, especially the repetition of “looking, looking” in the same line, though part of different thoughts, an urge toward seeing.
A reminder of what nature does for us at its own expense.
Laurie Klein says
“she drifts/from milkweed/to white clover
in the enough of this day—”
“earth’s price/for the empty-hearted”
I admire this poem’s range of motion and shifting proportions and nudge toward hope. The words pause, early on, to include me, then encompass seekers everywhere, and finally alight in those short lines framed with extra white space: a hush, the voice intimate again, as if to ask me, Will I look?
Richard Maxson says
God bless dogs! How they can tip a scale with love beyond words. And let’s not forget Ross Gay.
Richard Maxson says
5.
The Tin Box
Always there on the front porch
by the door, peeling letters—Milk.
Sometimes it was the scratch
and halt of the truck with no doors,
or the flickering clink of glass
in the spaces of boots on tiptoes.
Like the coming morning sun
yellow, drifting up toward the crowns
of bottles, safe in their silver shield,
waiting to be turned upside down,
cold, sweet and running free,
like ribbons of pasture buttercups…
a memory forever deep in my bones.
L.L. Barkat says
I love this. 🙂 It reminds me of my mom’s stories about stealing the milk from the milk box to make beautiful mud pies. 😉
Richard Maxson says
That would make mud pies almost good enough to eat. 🙂
We lived in a small neighborhood with brick streets. Nostalgia for me will always carry mornings seeing or hearing the milk (with Elsie the cow on the side) and bread trucks circulating those streets, and of course, that tin box that kept milk cold in glass bottles with a paper top and a little flap that you pulled up to open it. (sigh)
Laurie Klein says
“in the spaces of boots on tiptoes”
“bottles safe in their silver shield”
“waiting to be turned upside down”
Thanks for taking me back in time. I’m remembering condensation on gleaming bottles stowed in the shallow cupboard on Grandma’s back porch. And, of course, Grandma.
Richard Maxson says
Thank you.
Richard Maxson says
On Treasure Island
—for Carol
If September hadn’t come,
to wake us from our past,
whose sunflower would be
the one I gave to you?
The rain that dropped our secrets
in the evening air
may have let them fall
into a deep and silent sea,
to never find a shore.
We are like two shells found
along the sand, pearl colored
open twists, winsomely turned
inside, where we have listened
to each others’ oceans calling.
L.L. Barkat says
This is beautiful. 🙂
Laurie Klein says
What a breathtaking remembrance. I love the opening line, the images, the profound conclusion—intimate, yet opening outward. It makes me wish I’d known Carol.
Richard T Maxson says
I have not been feeling well. So forgive my late response to thank you, LL and Laurie.
I’m feeling better, so naturally I resume my insomnia. 🙂
Linda says
Sweet Boy
We lost you so many
years ago.
You were his brother,
at times you were our son.
If only we knew how
short the time.
You planted a tree
that now grows
so tall.
Today I look at
the butterfly string art
you created for your mother.
The pain has healed
but the ache
is still felt.
You, sweet boy
are loved.
Laurie Klein says
That image—”the butterfly string art”— captures my attention as well as imagination. I feel the tension between the delicacy of the ephemeral and what we try to fasten down. Love, once shared, then an absence, invisibly filled by the lasting ache.
Florence says
Autumn Calls
By Florence Brooks
Cool, autumn evenings
With twinkling stars
The crush of leaves
And laughter
Young boys who dream
By day
And grow by night
It seems
Make ready to depart
On roads that lead
Away from home
As autumn calls
Again.
Laurie Klein says
“The crush of leaves
And laughter”
This pairing grounds me in details I can picture and hear. It also makes me ponder possible subtext: laughter’s complexity.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Though you’ve been gone near fifty years,
I still think of you and divine what you’d look like,
muse at the sound of your words that linger nigh
the stone with your name in a far-away orchard of souls
that once sat outside a small town now swallowed by apartment
buildings that evicted the old Indiana farms—but I remember
the day I came with your sister, born after you,
and we picnicked amidst stones under oaks and sycamores
where spry corn fields hemmed us and the ghosts wavered polite,
where we visited and laughed, joyful to be near you in the breeze.
Laurie Klein says
“the stone with your name in a far-away orchard of souls”
“divine” (a surprising verb)
the remembered picnic “amidst stones under oaks and sycamores”
“spry corn fields”
“ghosts”
Lively constellation of details
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Laurie.
Richard Maxson says
Love this: “where spry corn fields hemmed us”
I remember getting lost in those cornfields in Ohio.
Florence Brooks says
Day 6 –
Still Here
by Florence Brooks
Slipping away
overnight it seems
Wet kisses on cheeks and afternoon snuggles framed by an overabundance of hugs
evaporate.
And I wonder…
What did I miss?
How did I not see the subtle shift
the end
of childhood –
abrupt, unanticipated, awkward.
She slips into a chair
book in hand and phone
ready to connect
with others.
Do I demand? Insist?
No.
I wait.
I yield.
Much like the gentle rain gives way to the sea to the heavens and back again
I trust that time will return all we’ve shared fresh and new and full.
And I treasure
the unexpected glimpses of
a child long gone,
but very much still here.
Bethany R. says
“Slipping away
overnight it seems
Wet kisses on cheeks…”
“a child long gone,
but very much still here.”
Thanks so much for sharing your poem, Florence.
Richard Maxson says
The Way Light Changes
They’re always going through tunnels
—from Burlington Arcade by Julian Stannard
They’re always going through
tunnels, those days
the winds rocked
the trees I scaled high
over the quilt of rooftops.
Weightless as a cloud,
in the blue of my eyes,
I lifted myself
into the world of wings.
Now, my feet remind me
each morning that I am
no longer, even for a moment,
one of those birds few watched,
small and quick as a year.
I go there, nevertheless—
and maybe it is practice for a moment
to come—the traffic of so much time
surrounding the way to the light
at the top of a tree, so much taller now,
so bright among the stars.
Sandra Heska King says
I’m behind. This is from Day 4.
The Crabapple Tree
I don’t have to cut you open
to know you’ve staked
the southwest corner of the garage
for just a tad over half a century.
Of course, I don’t know how old you were
when you were grounded. It could have been
the same day Marilyn Monroe
sang happy birthday to the president.
Then you wriggled your roots deep and wide.
You watched my husband ride his horse
up the drive when he was just fifteen.
I didn’t have eyes for you that May when he first
brought me home to meet his parents,
but I bet you smiled.
We moved away, and never did I dream
that we’d return or that you’d greet me
every day for twenty-five years.
I took you for granted way too long
before I fell in love with you.
Then each spring I watched you
resuscitate yourself,
searched for signs of life in rusty niblets,
for tender leaves to sprout,
for rosy buds to unfurl fragrant
pink petaled blossoms,
a banquet for the bees.
Orioles danced in your branches.
I stood below and inhaled
your perfume, tried to capture
your beauty with my camera.
When you spent your flowers,
they fluttered down like confetti,
laid down a velvet carpet.
Months later, the fruit of your arms
plop, plopped, and skirted
a squishy mess around your feet.
Then you undressed yourself.
Now you are preparing to bust
out your beauty again,
but I won’t be there to see.
Leaving you sliced a sliver
from the corner of my heart.
Richard Maxson says
One of the things that makes us truly remarkable as human beings is the ability to see the soul in everything. Isn’t it all one soul on this planet, that we see?
This memory of your crabapple tree seems to say so. I was very touched by this and read it again and again.
I loved the way you weave events into your love and appreciation for this tree and its beauty, which you say stands alone, even after you are gone.
Beautiful poem.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Sandra, your The Crabapple Tree is beautiful, lyrical and poignant. Such a visual created with your words; such a binding relationship. I LOVE it. (I, too, am behind. Struggled today to create my first villanelle.)
Sandra Heska King says
l love this so much.
Sandra Heska King says
This was in response to Richard’s “On Treasure Island.” I don’t know how it got way down here.
Shelly Faber says
Day 7 – A challenge, in many ways, this one!
https://myredwinediary.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/day-7-30-day-poetic-earth-day-and-an-exciting-new-form-challenge-distances-magnitude/
Bethany R. says
Shelly, I clicked over to your poem. I like the sensory details here:
“he smoothed my hair, as cool can be
around my neck, he gently placed
a locket, a picture of him and me”
Florence Brooks says
The Sycamore
By Florence Brooks
Nestled down by the Little Tuckahoe
Where murky creek waters trickle towards the James
She sits wide and low
Her roots stretching deep to quench their thirst
In the moist, black landscape
Her bleach white arms stretched up into a canopy of poplar, birch and oak
My young sons create their own path
Through ivy, chickweed and dandelion
To her breast
She calls to them
Behind a thin veil of honeysuckle and scrub pine
Inviting them to climb and explore
And one by one they respond
The oldest wise and sure at eight years of age
With long legs and strong arms
Heaves himself up and extends a hand to his younger sibling
Graceful, the 6-year-old seems to ease off the ground and into her cavern
And then with no prompting from their mother they both reach down
Each offering an arm to the youngest
Not big enough to climb, but curious enough to follow
Yearning to be with “the boys” in the tree
The small child runs to her side and reaches up his little arms as high as he can
Each big brother, braced and sure, grasps one arm and …he’s up!
In the tree
The older brothers peer out and shimmy up and down her mighty arms
Shouting instructions, exploring where other children, long since gone
Surely did the same
And she waits patiently
She seems to know
To have learned with the passing of time that this place
Is a haven, a place of wonder and joy
That will not last forever
But remains for today
Her arms strong and sure, swollen with the passing of years, cradle them
Nourishing their spirits, their young tender souls
Without whispering a word.
Florence says
I should note this is in response to day 4’s prompt – age of a tree.
Laura Brown says
Day 5, an ode to food.
Itinerant Banana Bread
Someone baked you
for the coffee hour at church
the Sunday I was doing cleanup
so much of you
that I brought a loaf’s worth home
double-bagged you
to preserve in the freezer
took a piece or two of you
for breakfasts and evening snacks
warmed the rest of you
in the oven at 250 this morning
toted you back
for the Friday women’s study
ate a piece of you
instead of the muffins Sheila brought
fetched a piece of you
for Maude, who hurts when she walks
tinfoiled the last four of you
to send home with Angie for her kids
brushed the crumbs of you
from the table where the kids ate
and I still don’t know who to thank
Laurie Klein says
The particularity here, so accessible and authentic and then that last line, Laura! Marvelous!
Mary Van Denend says
Oh so delightful, Laura! If your banana bread rituals aren’t holy communion, I don’t know what is.
Laura Lynn Brown says
Thank you, Mary!
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Mother Earth’s Angel
I love the tree’s
they sparkle green lights
save the earth
plant new flowers birth
give to the soil
enrich the name
with rain petals
like medals
the sun a diamond
filled with love
giving all her beauty rays
dressed in orange dress
sharing so much
Laurie Klein says
I am late to the party.
And wowed by the marvelous poems here.
Here’s one for Prompt #6, love and loss.
LUCENT
Once, your arrival meant never
bypassing a single knob
or switch plate, my backlit boy,
obsessed with “On”:
where one toggle kindles
each arm of the chandelier,
and two clicks awaken
the jointed anglepoise lamp,
while three tugs on pull chains
rouse a blue sprawl
of dragonflies crowning
the Tiffany knockoff—
thirty-nine pounds of adamant
purpose, loose in my house,
crying, “See the light?”
Dusk, wrap your shawls
around me, one more shadow
now, in a room remembering
joy incandescent.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Laurie – So many beautiful phrases … ‘backlit boy,’ blue sprawl of dragonflies crowning.’ Loving the light. So beautiful.
Laurie Klein says
Sandra, thank you so much. I’ve not been able to write for weeks. It’s encouraging to know the words haven’t left for good. 🙂 You’ve really encouraged me, thank you!
Bethany R. says
“thirty-nine pounds of adamant
purpose, loose in my house”
I love this, Laurie. Thanks so much for sharing it.
Laurie Klein says
Bethany, thank you so much for reading and commenting. 🙂
Mary Van Denend says
Gorgeous language here, Laurie. I too love your “backlit boy.” Glad you made it to the party.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, thanks for the welcome!
Isn’t it wonderful when the apt phrase emerges? “Backlit boy” seemed to capture the literal image as well as a slippage in time, allowing me to see my grandson again—and a-fresh—at that earlier age when reaching out for light was everything. I suppose that’s one reason we poets keep trying to find the words, our own way of reaching for light. 🙂
Katie says
“Joy incandescent.” INDEED, Laurie:)
Laurie Klein says
Katie, thanks for the rousing affirmation. 🙂 A gift at the start of a new day.
Richard T Maxson says
Laurie, may words never leave you. They certainly haven’t here.
Of all the beauty, those of the last stanza are my favorites.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, I take these words of yours deeply to heart. Thank you.
Laura Lynn Brown says
I love this. Especially that economical and luminous last line.
Mary Van Denend says
It’s been hit or miss with me on making time to write poems, tho’ I’m reading them all with relish. Here’s an offering for Day 5 (ode to food). Not a new poem but fitting.
To a Half-eaten Peach
What we always wish for,
what draws us in–
smooth curve of a cheek,
the eye’s almond shape–
is not what tethers the heart.
There must be succulence,
sweet interior flesh
like yours, long after
we’ve devoured the fruit.
Something mysterious must linger.
Katie says
Mary,
Your ode to a Half-Eaten Peach reminded me of this one I wrote to apricots a few summers ago:
Pretty Apricots
You smiled up at my appetite,
from the cylinder
in the salad bar.
Small halves of sunshine,
wet and shiny
mouth-watering.
Wooing me to spoon
you onto my plate
as I smile and drool.
Mary Van Denend says
Hi Katie– “small halves of sunshine” Yes! Apricots and peaches are some of my favorite fruits for their beautiful, sensuous shapes and lush taste.
Katie says
Thank you, Mary:)
Laurie Klein says
“wooing me to spoon”: lovely vowels, and an arresting line break, simmering with subtext. 🙂
Katie says
Thank you , Laurie:)
Laurie Klein says
“There must be succulence.”
Lovely repeated vowels and consonants within an irresistible decree.
Laurie Klein says
SURVIVAL
After 100 days of contagion
and quarantine, pipe bones
litter my crockpot, oozing
marrow. Barely scrubbed
carrots, beheaded, float
alongside a green corrugation
of celery ribs. Along the rocked heel
of my knife, quartered onions fall open,
evoking tears. How fleetingly French,
the perfumed rustle of skirts
when I smash the knob of garlic.
Then, the crushing—tangle of thyme,
parsley, bay. Salt and peppercorns.
Whole cloves. One cider-y stun
of vinegar. Forty-eight hours hence,
I practice arrival, become
my own guest, a leaking vessel,
swamped, in daily broth.
Richard T Maxson says
What perfect word choices to describe vegetables and spices:
“a green corrugation
of celery ribs”
“How fleetingly French,
the perfumed rustle of skirts”
“tangle of thyme”
And I love these:
“Along the rocked heel
of my knife.”
and
“One cider-y stun
of vinegar”
You’ve made me hungry at two AM
Laurie Klein says
Richard, you night owl, you’ve made me grin. Thanks for being specific about details that are working. Your response bolsters my sense of humor about slurping bone broth every day for 3 months.
On good days I envision a wiseacre cookbook: “Beyond Broth.” 😉
Richard T Maxson says
The Love Song of Alfred’s Fried Quickdogs
Se ho creduto che ho detto
una persona non dovrebbe tornare a questo
corridoio, La fiamma padella non necessita più di me.
Ma perché burro fritto colpisce profondamente, non posso
resistere al ritorno qui, è vero, senza timore di coronarie proclamo.
Let us go then, you and I,
Where the Ferris wheel circles into the sky,
Like a funnel cake upright in my fingers;
Let us go where vendors deep-fry treats,
Of butter and fat meats
And restless crowds spend hours as if some spell
Were cast on them in the House of Haunts,
A curse that followed them insisting
On the penitents of Lent
And the silliness of nutritional type questions:
Oh do not ask, “Will it make me sick?”
It’s a hotdog fried in Bisquick!
At the restrooms people come and go,
Holding their stomachs and moaning ohhh!
Laurie Klein says
And now I’m laughing out loud . . .
I salute your wit!
Richard T Maxson says
Day 10.
Two-Headed
It was Indiana where I turned
left too far, with no intentions
to go East to Cumberland, the road winding
toward the clouds then disappearing
behind me, the curve I followed West,
like a shattered and forsaken moon
turning from the gravity of relationships.
Brand me you snake farms
and diners, pump stations rising
like heat on this Mother Road,
a mirage opening to my last chance.
Carry me to where you disappeared
and keep me there. I was not ready then,
but I pressed close, past my reflection
in the glass, to see your wonders.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, the last two stanzas are magic. I love the energy direct address provides, and the startling specifics (snake farms and diners!), and the hard-won wisdom in a wistful conclusion.
Richard T Maxson says
Day 9
Made Thing
I have gone into the narrows
of wet redwood and boxcar roofs,
baked for miles of track. Poetry
gleaned in the glide of stacked
beams out the door, and set
neat on lath, five wide, ten high.
In the galloping hammer sounds
to raise a house, a cadence lies
and hides the reaching for a nail,
cantos for the carpenters,
making stanzas with each room.
A house and poem live in such things.
Mary Van Denend says
You had me with the first line, “I have gone into the narrows.” I imagined a water poem coming, but you led us into a workshop. “Poetry gleaned in the glide…” lovely phrase and the last line too, “A house and poem live in such things.” Indeed, just right.
Laurie says
So many extraordinary lines here. Well done!
Richard Maxson says
Thanks, Mary and Laurie.
Richard T Maxson says
Catching up here. Still working on “Pretend”
Day 12
Uncle Jack’s Tattoo
There were doors I walked through as a child,
where I learned the depth of water
by its color—the way it holds the sky
against its skin, while the current below
muscles its way through the thickness of gravity.
Your tattoos opened for me the worlds
where you lived—Engineer for the C&O rails,
rough and crude, and loving. On your right arm,
someone I knew, Mabel, who made sandwiches
we would eat on the docks, in the duck blind,
who smiled at me and spoke with refinement,
with words different, but inclusive of yours.
Your left arm—USMC and the insignia,
an eagle with the world in its talons.
With every request to explain, a story,
but the anchor and chain behind the world
remained a mystery that time has blued and rusted.
It was a large world you gave me that inclined me
to stay wild, so that my heart slows
among the pied trunks of sycamores,
the brush of pines and seething course of rivers
that keep you rough and wise in my memory.
I can’t decide what to sing for you—hereafter
spreads before me, like an inkblot full of stars,
ending in a faint line that is neither sea nor sky.
Laurie Klein says
So vivid and rich with remembrance. Uncle Jack casts a shadow across my screen. He’s that real.
Mary Van Denend says
LLB, you asked if I could say more about my recent post on food and love. That quote from Sam Wells was included in a mini essay I wrote about what sustains us. The gist of that piece being: In January my husband and I decided to eat vegetarian meals 4 days a week (Mon-Thurs) and meat or fish the other three days, but only if we choose. We love vegetables so it’s not a hardship, more of a discipline to eat lighter on the food chain, and try not to buy or consume feed lot beef (so cruel) or any other industrial meat. Buy local, eat local, as much as possible, in other words. The relationship between land designated for mass-produced cattle and loss of arable habitat is pretty shocking. Also what’s happening to the planet because of all that methane released into the air. I’m not an anti-meat zealot, but am coming to realize we can all make simple changes in our diets that have profound effects on global health and happiness. Forgive me if this is way off topic!
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Meadow
The colors glitter
in the meadows
prayers I say
lavender and soft grass
a special place
at spring
bunnies playing and running
birds and cardinals
bluebirds are so pretty
woodpeckers hiding in the tree’s
rainbows on each window to spring
Bethany R. says
JoyAnne, I’m happy you’re writing with us. 🙂 These lines stood out to me:
“Prayers I say
lavender and soft grass”
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Thanks
Laurie Klein says
I absolutely needed this image today:
“rainbows on each window to spring”
Thank you JoyAnne.
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Thanks so much, so happy you liked the image
Mary Van Denend says
For Day 13– prompted by ongoing questions about spring, death, and resurrections of all kinds
Cabbage Moth
Common as clouds
they float above me
on a morning walk
just days after her death,
my mother’s spirit
loosed into another life,
unreachable for now.
They hover in the cover
of collard leaves and
San Marzano tomatoes–
small, fragile, and ordinary.
Nothing of note, except this:
every time I think of her
now these three years past,
one or two or half a dozen
suddenly appear in view
to flutter by my side in
grief’s long garden.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, you’ve so beautifully rendered loss via these ephemeral moments, this glancing, seemingly weightless companionship when sorrow weights the limbs and heart.
And this breathtaking conclusion:
“in / grief’s long garden”
Bethany R. says
I loved this poem too.
“Common as clouds” strikes me. How clouds are common, and yet—always point to something more—something beyond us.
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Bethany. I hadn’t really thought of it like that, but you’re right. They do point to something beyond us. I just loved the hard consonants together, and wanted an image that would speak to the intangible nature of loss. All we have are metaphors really, to try and give shape to our feelings.
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Laurie. Much appreciate your kind words. I wrote this poem 5 years ago. My mother died in 2011, on April 6, which fell on Good Friday that year. All the more potent and poignant for me. I still see these little moths, often when no other insect is visible. One will appear, literally out of the blue. I find them very comforting.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Mary … this poem is so tender in voice and message. “loosed into another life,” “hover in the cover of of collard leave,” and “grief’s long garden” amidst the ever-present cabbage moths. I really enjoyed this.
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Sandra. It’s nice to share this space with you again and hear your voice.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
I apologize for going back to Day 7 – Distance and Magnitude, but I’ve made my attempt at a villanelle.
Captured Moment
The sky browned moody as
the hues of a storm
swirled like a painting
and I cradled the camera
as we lingered near the sea
and the sky browned moody as
a hurricane loomed off shore
as a family frolicked in cloudy surf
as it swirled like a painting,
silhouettes, like children, swathed
in the draw of the waves that echoed
the sky browned moody as
I focused the portrait
of our farewells in a frame
where the sky browned moody
and swirled like a painting.
Richard Maxson says
Are We There Yet?
They moved like journeys,
the thick-veined maps
of your hands, fitting in glass
the skewed halos of saints
and wings of angels.
What was the secret
you knew then—the loneliness
of artistry, the trembling fire,
in the painting cave?
You are the loneliness of me,
a journey thick with fire.
Your child is still enchanted
with the when and where of angels,
the home of saints, and how
the secret painting moved.
They, like the halos of you,
are skewed in the subtle we.
I still have persistent questions
of a child—where is home
and when are we going to get there?
Could you have told me
to have veined hands going there?
Laurie Klein says
#12, Influences
MAELSTROM
Uncle Dunkel skipped rocks.
He scalloped sweltering air with a stone.
Six feet of lean, he was lath
held together by sinew. Before Korea,
he clambered up trees after cats,
strode along ridgepoles,
re-shingled roofs like an urban card shark
armed with a royal flush. Those hands,
mapped with cuts and bruises,
blisters of blood, and nicotine stains,
lifted a rose-sprigged cup the size
of my 5-year-old fist, his pretend tea
never spilled. Nor did he say much
after his war, half his mind
languishing, somewhere in Asia, the half
that might have said No
to the tree and the noose. Why,
why did he do it? All those weekends
he rowed our boat, me, draped over the prow,
every last dip of his oars conjuring
vortices, those gaps I fall into
every time I remember he’s gone.
Florence says
Nicely done.
I am sorry for his loss and yours.
Laurie Klein says
Florence, thank you.
Richard Maxson says
I find these images astounding:
“re-shingled roofs like an urban card shark
armed with a royal flush”
“lifted a rose-sprigged cup the size
of my 5-year-old fist”
They are astounding for their distance from one another to describe a complex man.
I can’t imagine the loss you felt.
Laurie Klein says
Uncle Dunkel was mythic. Magical. And mine. For a while. The coolest uncle ever. Thank you, Richard, for pointing out one way the range of images is working toward bringing him to the page and to the reader. And thank you for your kindness.
Mary Van Denend says
“mapped with cuts and bruises, blisters of blood, nicotine stains” followed by “a rose-sprigged cup the size of my 5-year-old fist”
I love the juxtaposition of images, Laurie, the way you show us both strength and tenderness through his rough hands with their life wounds, and yet so gentle they don’t spill the tea he shares with you. Such loving insights into the kind of man he was.
And the question lingering throughout the poem, why did he do it? Exquisite and very sad.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, thank you for seeing him. And for letting me know which lines bring him to life for you. That means a lot to me. I wonder sometimes if the questions, after a suicide, ever stop. Fifty-some years later and a prompt like this one takes me back and there I am, not as reconciled as I’d thought, and still asking. And isn’t this one of the reasons we love and need poems?
Laura Brown says
Day 14
Locked and Goaded
A friend posts a photo
of the barstool he has shoved
under the door handle: “I get scared
staying in AirBNBs by myself.” At least
he’ll hear an intruder coming,
but there’s no barrier big enough
for the wall-to-wall patio glass.
After no response
to knocking or phone,
one neighbor uses her key
to open another’s door,
tries to loosen the chain
that is simply doing its job,
sings and hollers her name
through the crack.
“You know she sleeps til noon,”
I say. It’s only ten. Yes,
but she fell last week
and may have fallen again.
She is ready invoke
the bolt-cutters of maintenance.
To save our friend’s lock,
I yell too, until she answers.
There have been mornings
when, leaving, I see
I left myself unlocked all night.
I think the neighbor
was truly worried, but
the thing she couldn’t wait out
was the grassy basket
she’d set on the doormat,
its chocolate risking theft,
its rabbit patiently expecting
to be noticed and lifted,
a return knock
of thanks.
Laura Brown says
Actually, let’s pare that down.
Day 14
A Thin Chain
After no response
to knocking or phone,
one neighbor uses her key
to open another’s door,
tries to loosen the chain
that is simply doing its job,
calls and calls her name
through the crack.
“You know she sleeps til noon,”
I say. It’s only ten. Yes,
but she fell last week
and may have fallen again.
She is ready to invoke
the bolt-cutters of maintenance.
To save our friend’s lock,
I yell too, until she answers.
I think the neighbor
was truly worried, but
the thing she couldn’t wait out
was the grassy basket
she’d set on the doormat,
its chocolate risking theft,
its rabbit patiently expecting
to be noticed
and lifted.
Mary Van Denend says
Yes! I love how you find humor everywhere, Laura. This version works much better for me, same great story in fewer words. Lovely!
Laurie Klein says
And I love how freely and easily you offer the streamlined version, Laura, proving how safe this online space really is (where we’re all risking new expressions without the luxury of elapsed time to see more clearly what’s needed).
And I really like ending closer to the rabbit. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
Day 14
Suffering With Succotash
It is the way of payback,
the distant nomenclature
for parts: the rare burlesque
of a New York Strip, or rare
loin, nasally enunciated,
as you unfurl the pressed roll
of a white lap napkin, your suit
comfortably cut and pieced.
It is their nature to scratch
at the bark, and so it falls
along the walls of veins,
the white coat explains,
ears draped around his neck,
the pen silently tracing
the map of your heart.
So it’s kale and romaine,
if you want to live. You
recall the Terminator’s
titanium hand outstretched,
the surprised Sarah Conner
succumbing to fear and trust.
Take heart, no pun intended,
he says. A plethora of delicious
sobriquetical cuisine awaits you:
Ratatouille, Caprese, Chapathi,
and there is always succotash.
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Poetry Prompt Day 14: Eve’s Second Garden
Snakes In Poems
The scary shake
seeing a snake
by the green lake
or pond
is such a fright
to me snakes are sneaky
they glow in
when you least expect them
they are used to keep
the rodent population
down under
from gardens
to protect our fruit
so we have more food.
Richard Maxson says
Day 15
My Sun, Moon and Stars
When I first saw you,
stars in the nights
of your eyes,
where now the sky
expands, even beyond
the fragrance of your hair
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Day 12 – Father’s Day Short and sweet and real for Father’s Day ….
My Dad’s Daughter
Dad didn’t come to be my father in a waiting room,
but with a signature on a dotted line.
He volunteered for the job
as if he were joining the Peace Corps.
He came like a Sunday drive in his Chevy,
shiny and steadfast with a bumpy ride
and obscure destinations, and, in the end, departed
rusted and weary, his road-map entrusted to me.
Mary Van Denend says
Oh Sandra, I just love this! The whole second stanza, especially. The wonderful vehicle imagery, “He came like a Sunday drive in his Chevy…” and “rusted and weary, his road map entrusted to me.” And you with your love of travel now. Such a fitting legacy he left you.
Laura Brown says
Love this. Especially that last line. And the word “entrusted.”
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Mary and Laura. My adoptive father was a gift. The road-map being significant with all our travel and military moves … and, thus, like you said, Mary, my love of road-trips. These prompts and poems here are so inspiring … making April a wonderful month.
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Day 15: Poetic Earth Month
My Mom a delicate flower
filled with roses i.n her smile
angels in her kindness
lights my room with everything.
Mary Van Denend says
For yesterday’s prompt (4/15)– Sun, Moon, and Stars
“You Are Here”
We orbit a paltry sun–
in a minor galaxy in a vast
universe of dying stars
and expanding space,
the smart scientists proclaim.
Earth a barely visible speck
on astronomical maps;
one’s very existence doubtful.
Might as well just crawl off
into the nearest black hole.
Yet out my window a world
grows green again, a rotation
round our small, shining King,
whose scepter of flame & light
opens new buds on the French lilac.
Robins bend to pull the grass
as earthworms rise to meet
the warmth of an April day–
And I vow to remain forever
your most loyal subject.
Dave Malone says
Hi, Mary,
I really enjoyed your poem. I’m obsessed with the cosmos and the night sky. Love what you did with the theme. Those first two stanzas really draw the reader in. 🙂
Dave
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Dave. I had some fun with this one.
Dave Malone says
🙂
Richard Maxson says
Day 16
I Didn’t Know the Cost of Entering a Song
—from a line by Ocean Vuong
It was the strum of water flowing,
and the music that attended you,
a warmth for the wounds of the day.
I cried to hear that softness of your heart,
The music that attend you,
I was four, the words a mystery to me.
I cried to hear that softness of your heart,
the song that must have mended you.
I was four, the words a mystery to me,
it was the sound that stirred my sympathies,
the song that must have mended you,
if only for the moments of a shower.
It was the sound that stirred my sympathies,
a hollow in the wall between us,
if only for the moments of a shower.
Through years the words come back to me,
a hollow in the wall between us,
there echoes an anguished melody.
Through years the words come back to me,
with understanding too late in arriving.
There echoes an anguished melody.
a warmth for the wounds of the day,
with understanding too late in arriving,
here now, within the strum of water flowing.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
This is mysterious and poignant and beautiful. Your poems raise the bar for me, and this one was truly touching.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Day 17 – Reclamation
Salvation
Remember the clapboard house on the dirt road,
a road between roads, graveled and going nowhere
but to the only suspension bridge In Texas
that sways in history? Remember it?
It once held laughing children and stabled roans
and chicken suppers and the prairie light.
Now it sits forsaken and smirking at passersby,
and the children ran off to teach in the city,
leaving distracted rooms in search of sunlight,
leaving the field mice and ghosts to their mischief
amidst shade-loving vines in the kitchen
and cedar shrub lifting the porch to new heights.
Those dark windows stare and plead for crystal
corneas all the better to see me with,
and the raised porch asks if I have a can of paint
and invites me to come in and light the hearth.
Richard Maxson says
I like the way you animate this house with life. We do this with abandoned places where we’ve lived, and places still holding enough of the past, like the last green leaf of an autumn.
The first stanza drew me in with its invitation to share a memory.
Dave Malone says
I agree with Richard. This poem really draws you in. Love the images, feelings here, and the rhythm. It’s one that’s definitely meant to be read aloud. 🙂
Laura Brown says
I remember a house like that. But it was in Ohio. 🙂 So many great images here, Sandra. And the word smirking. I love that it begins and ends with a question.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Laura, Dave, and Richard … and grandson Austin for bringing this house to my attention.
Richard Maxson says
Day 17
Project to Widen Fayetteville Road: Notes on the Dray Horse
Whence will kindness come,
in the scorch and stark
sparkling pickets of a city?
The aging coachman,
a poet by day,
night tours, park and crickets.
He brings fresh apples
for the tongue,
a world of words.
The field of touch is immense—
holds the symphony of trees
the common dream—
tender fescue sibilate in a breeze.
Richard Maxson says
Day 19
Deep in Brooker Creek
In the back country,
born in the lowland loam,
the quiet rises extant.
Only a palpate sound,
like a beating heart
follows my walking.
At the marsh Cypress
trunks rise before me
as if driven there by Helios,
their dark hooves reflected
in the water, like stallions
standing on cheval glass.
Dave Malone says
Wowza! So much to like. What an opening. I read this poem several times. I like the beats, the rhythm, the alliteration, and ultimately what I’m moved to feeling at the end of the poem.
Richard Maxson says
Thanks, Dave for your great comment. Brooker Creek was a favorite hike when I lived in Florida. When I look at Cypress trees ankled in water, I can’t help but see horse hooves.
Dave Malone says
You bet. And now I will see horse hooves, too. 🙂
Laurie Klein says
Richard, this poem breathes. It transports me, from moody countryside to the realm of myth. And I like your comment to Dave about Cypress trees “ankled” in water.
JoyAnne O'Donnell says
Day 19:
Angels
The sea
is a place
filled with glee
swimming so free
like the angels
white in the waves
dazzling water
innocent and carefree
the ocean is a part
of our soul
happy with God
who created the seven sea’s
to make us smile
to feel the soft sand
even touching the souls
of our feet
to the sun in our hair
keeping us safe with each prayer.
Laurie Klein says
JoyAnne, I am glad to be reminded of the seven seas today, this dazzling world always so much vaster than I remember. Thank you!
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Day 19 –
One Last Ride
The rollers ruffle my feet,
sooth my engine as they pull
the sand from beneath my toes,
carry the stones and weeds
out to the deep dark sea
and I feel the drawn lightness.
Over and over, breakers taunt
and tempt me to grab a longboard
and ride the way I once did,
out in the deep dark sea,
the foam giggling at my disgrace,
my mouth spurting sand.
Keeling over worth the sea breeze
as it whistled with me, balanced
me above the deep dark sea
only a moment before I tumble
and the sea’s arms pull me
into a briny liaison
where she whispers “welcome”
and, breath held, I’m lulled
and linger in the deep dark sea.
Laurie Klein says
Sandra, something in me responds to that underscoring line, the deep dark sea, and the subtle ways the changing prepositions reposition my attention until, “breath held, I’m lulled.”
Richard Maxson says
Birds in Home Depot—December
They sing, staccato notes:
statements that could be,
queer tree, queer tree…
Sometimes I see them
brown dots on a brown beam.
No easy nest here,
the spruce branches broken,
straw sequestered tight in brooms
wrapped in cellophane,
except for the threadbare Fall
scarecrow, braced firmly
among the colored corn stalks
and baskets of stippled gourds.
I want them to see the irony
under the steel beams
where they hop and fly, searching—
the fragments of a home
imagined new, repaired, changed.
In the garden center, a sparrow
contemplates the crocus bulbs,
huddled on shelves, awaiting Spring,
under the canopy that lets
in the sky and cool air.
I’ve wandered these aisles,
like today with my scribbled list,
unable to find a pin for a screen
door, a number four brass screw
for a fan, a summer breeze.
What does that weaver know,
I wonder, as he tugs at browned
lily leaves and with a torn fragment flies
out the wide opened doors.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, I really like “under the canopy that lets/ in the sky and cool air.” And the idea of home and the questions you raise. And the way the last line blows open the whole shebang, simultaneously sad and exhilarating.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
I truly enjoyed the playful nature of these lines. Of what we find when we’re looking for something else.
Love this line in desire of nest building: “straw sequestered tight in brooms
wrapped in cellophane”
Richard Maxson says
Day 21
Jasmine Bursting In Air
In a vase on the piano, flowers
from the Moorish courtyard,
fragrance blending with the octaves.
The slow metronome of coming day.
The window pane fails to divide the light,
but leaves its bars along the wall,
where a silhouette bends and plays
until evening writes her nocturne.
Through the morning glass, a vine
climbs the trellis like a simple song
that reminds her of childhood here.
The spaces in the Rowlock
break sun and shade like keys,
to lie against the opposing wall.
The Jasmine blossoms, delicate
as notes written for the right hand,
flourish under fingers unseen.
Hummingbirds play on the pistils,
draw the sweet nectar from the chime,
and with their wings—the drone of bass.
Beauty’s song prevails, even within
the inscrutable—in this music where
are the notes for the sound of guns?
Under distant thunder, the silent brass,
she stops and listens. This is her fermata,
a bird’s eye for this lean symphony.
The flowers of the Fall are red.
For now, we listen intently;
Pianissimo blows the wind
across the strings of hopeful songs
of victory in the strident streets,
in echoes from ruined halls.
Make your anthem from Jasmine’s beauty.
Freedom knows how it came to be.
Richard Maxson says
Day 22
Oleander
So many windows
open to the city’s voice.
Walls full of moonlight. Sounds
of distant highway traffic
strum like strings and fingers.
And the long, oleandered esplanades
are not without music leading
me back to a different night.
It soothes me like a waterfall,
this spray of white that plays
a memory, carried in the air—
slick and liquored honeysuckled avenues,
bars pulsing riffs, from open doors,
evenings lit from balconies,
their candles flickering in time
to home and wayward bounding songs.
Laurie Klein says
What an evocative opening, and the sensual images (“walls full of moonlight,” “oleandered esplanades!”) and seamless time travel enchant me. I do find myself wondering if there is more story . . .
Mary Van Denend says
For Day 21: Look for a lovely thing–which I can’t help but do.
Mark This Day
Mark this day for the mourning dove you hear but don’t see,
for deep purple camas and bright spring beauty,
For yellow warblers flashing past a metal barn where shadows
lean, and trucks list and grow old.
Mark this day for its collision of blue breeze and cloudbank,
for a thousand craggy sisters, their crooked and mossy arms
Bending down to keep you company on this cinnamon log,
where your pen bleeds to the nudging tap, tap of rain.
Richard Maxson says
Mary, every line in this poem evocative and , indeed, lovely. No need to cite different stanzas, they are all amazing.
OK, there is this one that I love:
“For yellow warblers flashing past a metal barn where shadows
lean, and trucks list and grow old.”
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Richard. High praise, indeed, from one so competent with language!
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Such a lovely scene, Mary, like a painted landscape, with the coo of a mourning dove.
Laurie Klein says
#22
Eureka
An adult on the phone should be acquitted
for failing to stifle
one long spontaneous
shriek, as the nurse imparts
news no one wants to hear, but
really, spotting the plastic
gag gift?—right then?
Our molded toy cat fits in my palm
and its painted-on smirk
looks back at me from the glass
hurricane. In a three-decade game
of Seek, we’ve been sneaking
this feline into a hundred hideouts, so
despite hearing I’m still sick,
still highly contagious, what’s clear
is my turn has come, and I can’t
hang up fast enough, knowing
what has not forsaken
an eccentric, much-tested
marriage . . . is play.
Mary Van Denend says
Laurie, I confess I had to read this several times to catch what was going on, but finally did. What I love is the playfulness of this poem, how you wrote comic relief into the midst of deep personal trial. I would love to see that smirking cat! We have a plastic “yodeling” pickle that gets circulated in our family, usually it’s wrapped in a fake package for a birthday or Christmas. Not sure where it went last. Uh oh.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, that’s really helpful, thank you! I wondered afterward if a reader could follow it, or if I’d obscured the story line. I will take it back to the woodshed. 🙂
Three cheers for the yodeling pickle! I’m going to google to find one for us. Those wacky gifts that keep reappearing add spice to life.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Day 22
Hypnotized at Midnight
Marfa Lights spark
like a lighthouse beacon
in the pitch-dark desert,
like lightning leapt from dust,
a cryptic phenomenon—
but it’s our spiraled galaxy
above that warped my eyes
heavenward,
and, spellbound,
I can’t look away
from the movement of
stars, a tide of millions,
flickering and ticking,
ticking clockwise.
Mary Van Denend says
I love this, Sandra, especially your repeating “L” sounds– Light, lighthouse, lightning, leapt…
And how you make the reader turn slowly with you to look upward, to those lovely final lines– “stars, a tide of millions,/ flickering and ticking/ticking clockwise.”
Laurie Klein says
Magical! I am swept up in the implied sense and sound of the great cosmic clockwork
Richard Maxson says
beautifully rendered. What greater phenomenon to observe than the sky spiral where we reside. I can see it in your words. And. yes, magical.
Richard Maxson says
Day 23
As You Lay Sleeping
—for Molly, German Shepherd
They came back to you,
not your best years, chain
moving, rattle-steel
on wood bark.
Then the wolf
in you, the breath
opened, breath yet
rising after you, ascending
beyond your death
with the captive rain.
Before I found you,
the puzzled streets, yours,
the gathering of trees, yours,
frightening and familiar, yours—
to be free by choice,
and lost by freedom,
so much like drops of rain
you shook from their refuge
behind the guard hairs,
nestled in the down.
What quenched you
grew deep, grew round,
with swim or drown, lurked
between the shadows of woods,
your shivering and slender shelters,
Lost is a blade of days
honed into countless cuttings.
To be found by fear,
by shout and sheer abduction,
a cage without keys inside you,
formed and friendless.
Even now, I hear you pound
the floor with your great tail
to greet me, story of you
trapped in language, odyssey of you
beyond imagination.
Laurie Klein says
“They came back to you,
not your best years, chain
moving, rattle-steel
on wood bark.”
Way to suck me in, Richard!
“Lost is a blade of days
honed into countless cuttings.”
“a cage without keys inside you,”
“Even now, I hear you pound / the floor with your great tail”
I come away from imagining Molly with a sense of her complex and wounded greatness.
Richard Maxson says
Orchestral Night
hiding in the reeds
the sun has gone—begin:
bantam sinfonietta
bright and green
as are my needs
render me your violins,
keep secret your red eyes
in the peeling palms
cello sustain me now
be my silent breathing,
night’s dark nerve―
door of dreams
Dave Malone says
Beautiful. I remain ever amazed at your rhythm, Richard. Have you long studied meter and traditional forms? I enjoy and respect your rhythm in free verse poems.
Richard Maxson says
Thanks, Dave for the encouragement. I haven’t really “studied” traditional forms, other than reading many of them over and over simply because I enjoy them. Frost stands out as one. I love his “dialogue” poems, like Servant to Servant and Home Burial. I love Mark Strand, a master at rhythm. And Eliot’s sense of rhythm is amazing to me.
When I was in college, I was so slow in completing reading assignments, because I read hearing every word in my head. The rhythm of the prose from writers like William Styron, John Irving, Faulkner are too beautiful to read fast.
Maybe it’s just that I try to emulate those greats. I write words until they “sound” right.
Dave Malone says
Well, that strategy is working, lol. Very impressive. Do you ever read Philip Larkin?
Richard Maxson says
I have not read Larkin that I remember, but I will now on your recommendation.
Laurie Klein says
“bantam sinfonietta”
“keep secret your red eyes”
“cello sustain me now” (which ushers me into sostenuto)
And that final stanza!
Richard Maxson says
Thank you, Laurie.
Bethany R. says
Gorgeous poem, Richard. Oh, that cello…
Richard Maxson says
Thank you, Bethany.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
The Holly Tree
Come, morning of somber skies
and babbled birdsong,
bring the rain.
Bathe my holly tree
where I’ve buried McGee.
Like a stuffed animal, he’d charmed
my daughter at the pound,
was relinquished to our escapades.
Virginia forests bewitched
his slinking forays
in search of chipmunks
and dark matter
and back to Texas
where he sauntered and feared
nothing except missing a meal
always luring him home,
his shadow tugged like a tether,
enticing me to our nebulous years
where he faded to a deck
ornament warmed by the sun.
Oh, dismal Morning, I beg you
bathe the holly tree,
nourished by McGee’s majesty
and abundant with red berries
that tumble to his grave.
Laurie Klein says
“bring the rain”
“slinking forays”
“his shadow tugged like a tether”
“a deck / ornament warmed by the sun”
and those red berries, tumbling . . .
Sandra, you make me feel the loss of McGee, and a slew of beloved dogs I still miss, and you do it so beautifully
Mary Van Denend says
So rich, Sandra, this prayer for rain to water a holly tree, on behalf of a long gone canine friend. “babbled birdsong”, “a deck ornament warmed by the sun” ,”red berries that tumble…”
I feel that I too knew this McGee of yours.
Richard Maxson says
Sandra, such a tender rendering of something all us animal lovers have experienced. For me there have been so many throughout my life and I remember where each is buried and think of them at peace beneath every tree, bush or rocky stream. Bless McGee!
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Laurie, Mary, and Richard. It is such a personal ‘prayer’ (I like that you called it that, Mary). Yet, at the same time, our pets are an all-too-familiar gift and loss for most of us as we travel through life.
Laurie Klein says
#24
Come, Vespers
Let’s sidestep that shunt of sundown
lancing through boughs,
spilling its honey
like too much hope,
and skirt the lone hemlock,
fevered with knobs of blight,
unnerving and raw as today’s news:
“Stage 4, inoperable.”
Wordless as moss,
we edge into the shade
and place each foot, like a kiss,
alongside the living. O Dusk,
pour us two shadows:
one, older than night, seeping,
measure by measure, up from
this earth, tender as Evensong,
and the other shadow
belling outward, tenebrous,
wrapping us, sheer as a veil:
gauze, for all our unquiet tomorrows.
Mary Van Denend says
Laurie, this takes my breath away. So many exquisite lines I hardly can comment on just one, but these are favorites: “spilling its honey like too much hope”, “fevered with knobs of blight”, and “O Dusk, pour us two shadows..” The imagery of shadows moving and footsteps inching into them, the coming darkness both comforting and disturbing. And if this is your story, well, my heart goes out to you.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, you’ve really encouraged me. Thank you. I’m grateful you mentioned lines you particularly enjoyed. It’s always helpful to know which phrases are earning their space. Let me rephrase that to absolutely invaluable.
I started this poem for my father-in-law a while back but could never finish it, so I put it away for a year. After reading today’s poem and prompt, I thought of it again and finally felt able to revise the the original attempt (pretty drastically) and feel my way toward an endpoint.
Time. Distance. A little more objectivity. And a fellow poet alongside . Thank you!
Bethany R. says
“wrapping us, sheer as a veil:
gauze, for all our unquiet tomorrows.”
Wow. Thank you for sharing this with us, Laurie.
My heart goes out to you and your family.
Laurie Klein says
Bethany, thank you for reading and responding with such caring warmth.
Richard Maxson says
I second Mary’s comment. Those lines are exquisite and wrenching. Brava!
Laurie Klein says
Thank you, Richard.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Laurie – ‘Come, Vespers’ is so powerful and poignant. So many moving and sensory words and phrases in this poem. To name a few: ‘shunt of sundown,’ ‘hemlock,’ ‘wordless as moss,’ ‘pour us two shadows,’ and …
‘the other shadow
belling outward, tenebrous,
wrapping us, sheer as a veil:
gauze, for all our unquiet tomorrows.’
I love this poem, Laurie.
Laurie Klein says
Sandra, thank you!
Richard Maxson says
Day 25
Gears
A few shavings
off the edge
of time required.
Now the gears,
each one,
will slow.
How they do this
you will know,
a dissonant
grind. Maybe
only what’s said
drives the day
in day out way
lives fall from grace,
like rain on concrete,
hissing dark, until
it cools, kills the spark,
fills in the empty spaces.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, the voice in this poem arrests me. And the fears. And the fragments and varied syntax, creating a moving target my eyes follow. I feel slightly off balance (in a good way) that ramps up curiosity . . .
Then these line breaks— their unexpected staccato paired with long A sounds : they startle me, rivet my attention . . .
“Maybe
only what’s said
drives the day
in day out way
lives fall from grace,
like rain on concrete,”
And then the last stanza, all those S sounds embodying Mystery: the killing, healing rain.
Laurie Klein says
Typo!
Gears, not fears. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
Day 26
Uses of Enchantment
There are many ways to enter
the woods or, if you prefer, a forest,
let it remain enchanted,
no matter what words we use.
The first of all attributes is magic:
snow expanding the landscape,
or near the May Apples in Spring,
near the Ash trees, a fairy ring,
obscured by the hours gone by,
yet now its umbrellas surround you.
This is the way the world begins,
with a silence, deep in nowhere.
The vivid face in the sun’s mirror
shows you the roundness of chaos.
So much occurs in the silence of space,
in the vast everywhere you are not.
There was an old movie, a fantasy,
of a rocket in the moon’s eye,
possible now say our numbers, yet
you say unbelievable, as you believe.
These are the new woods we watch
fill up with stars, knowing that snow
is local. Let each morning sun be new
and different, as when we danced for it.
—title from Bruno Bettelheim
Laurie Klein says
#26
Bijoux
O confetti-ed light, torn
from incoming waves, I’ve missed
your reflection, kinetic
as fireflies Luck flung skyward,
an icy dazzle against
the rustling vault long elliptical
leaves created, concealing
a child. Unnatural, some said,
my shagbark hickory cruelly
skewed, like the letter J. It was
code, for my middle name. Before
soaring, the lower trunk
slued, hard—shingles of bark
worn smooth at the crook, perfectly
sized for one small bottom. Once
upon a tree, Time wore yellowing
gloves. Gathered in fives,
leaves became funnels I spiraled
tightly, stitched closed with a twig,
my lake sapphires captured,
still winking within.
Richard Maxson says
Oh my! This is terribly beautiful. This so reminds me of Rilke’s poem “Childhood,” translation by Robert Bly, but your poem is even more beautiful.
Read aloud it is full of music. Hard to separate out, the lines flow so perfectly together.
“Unnatural, some said,/my shagbark hickory cruelly//skewed, like the letter J”
“Before/soaring, the lower trunk//slued, hard—shingles of bark/worn smooth at the crook”
And my favorite that reads like a perfect fairy-tale:
“Once//upon a tree, Time wore yellowing/gloves.”
Laurie Klein says
Thank you, Richard. Your words mean a great deal to me. And the Rilke poem, “Childhood,” is new to me. I’m grateful to have read it.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Laurie – Your poem Bijoux is such an extraordinary vision. So filled with gems in each line. I agree with Richard that it is musical … beautifully lyrical like a song. It’s hard to chose a favorite line … but I do like “I spiraled/tightly, stitched closed with a twig, ….”
Laurie Klein says
Sandra, thank you, so encouraging!
Richard Maxson says
Day 27
Beefsteak
You must grow your own miracles.
Special has been hormoned
and hardened against the bump
and bruise. Pretty in the produce
aisle, but pithless and pitiful.
I prefer a nude stocking sling
for the heft, a slow blush,
not the red-on-arrival rouge
needled in the green-to-go.
In a hot June—the prize, only
once a year, the furrowed fruit
weighs down its stems for clipping
in your open hand, quite full
of tender skin. Take care carrying
them to the kitchen prepare
the bed of lettuce or only bread
and mayo, and oh! say a prayer before
you slice a single slice and lay
the flawless redness down and bite.
Laurie Klein says
O how Delicious! And witty. So delightfully dismissive of the market’s inferior (and interfered-with) cousins. Playful, yet pointed commentary.
You had me at the opening line. I love the way you relish the words as well as the subject. Innuendo and commentary alongside come-hither sensuality. Now I want to grow my own again . . .
Richard Maxson says
Day 28
The Trouble With Holsteins
In summer, the fence rails
corral the Holsteins
grazing or lying in the dark
circles of shade, like storm clouds
broken from the sky.
They eat the grass.
You can hear the thunder
in their mouths.
The breeze sounds in the branches.
The rain is coming.
The cows are indifferent
as to why you are here,
or why you are leaving,
watching them in the mirror—
some in cloud shade,
under the tree leaves,
others moving unhurried over the pasture,
some still, anchored by their grazing,
like boats in the mirror of a harbor,
under the dream of a green sky.
Later, this illusion returns to you,
a Bastille in which some knowledge waits.
The Earth is neither up nor down,
you think, the sky is an illusion,
made blue by lack of distance.
The dream from childhood has told you
the sidewalks are wide enough for promises,
and long enough to take you home.
But the grass cracks them like egg shells,
the grass is full of thunder, a warning.
Heaven is not skyward, but inside us,
and we are tasked, its steward angels.
If Earth is an egg, we are the yolk,
progenitors of its future.
Richard Maxson says
Day 29
With the Elephants
I would sleep here, if there were a suitable tree,
a lion, svelte of mind, with a healthy fear.
The city and the moon have plucked the stars
from the midnight sky, but I cannot be reached.
Here, in my garden, I watch the rabbits eat
the surplus green I have grown for them.
In the light of a false afternoon, the four-o’clocks
mark time and space with their fragrance.
Queen Anne’s Lace nod and sway
like spirits busy with their evenings work.
They do not see me, sleepy-eyed on a limb,
here where the crook-necked squash wave
their giant leaves like elephants
fanning their ears on a dark savanna.
Laurie Klein says
Richard, the title and opening couplet entrances. And this one as well:
“They do not see me, sleepy-eyed on a limb,
here where the crook-necked squash wave
their giant leaves like elephants”
Wildly imaginative!
Mary Van Denend says
Fully up to date with reading all these wonderful poems. Not so much with the writing of my own! But I have two more to offer. One on the subject of Loss (Day 24? 25? maybe). And the other for finding a place of Peace. (Day 26?) I’ll share them in separate comments. First one:
Old Blind Cat
This was never the way I meant
for you to end, in rainy April,
disappearing from the back door stoop
where I lay you down last Monday morning,
merely for some fresh air–
At sixteen you were already a gray ghost,
half in this world, half the next.
I imagined you’d just fall asleep,
on a soft summer day, closing
your milky eyes in a cloud of margarites,
nestled among those little white stars
in a bowl of green. But you have not returned–
your cranky, irritating, old lady’s rasp
gone silent these five days past.
We have searched the perimeter yards,
front and back, under the boxwood,
by the wood pile, even scooped the fish pond.
Hoping both that we’d find you,
and that we would not. The dog, too–
your boisterous friend, occasional foe–
seems to intuit that you travel elsewhere.
My prayer for you, old arthritic Kitty,
is that some kindly Virgil found you,
stumbling, lost in the dark wet grass,
and held his lantern aloft to lead you safely home.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Oh, Mary, the sad psalms of our lost pets. This one so tender. The not-knowing multiplying the grief. We know those old cats “gray ghost/half in this world, half the next” do love sunning in the fresh air. I liked how you ended this memory of loss, and I, too, hope the “kindly Virgil” tenderly led her.
Mary Van Denend says
Thank you, Sandra. It is a psalm, of sorts, helpful to write. But a strange mystery. She just vanished.
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, Mary. I’m just starting to catch up here, and this is the first poem I read.
even scooped the fish pond.
Hoping both that we’d find you,
and that we would not.
Even scooping the fish pond. Oh my heart. That not knowing is the hardest of all, I think. And your description –those eyes. I just have to sit with this now for a bit.
Laurie Klein says
Mary, this is deeply poignant, the closing image exquisite and wrenching and filled with the labor of reconciling oneself to the unknown.
I especially love these lines:
“already a gray ghost . . .”
“your milky eyes in a cloud of margarites / nestled among those little white stars / in a bowl of green . . .”
“Hoping both that we’d find you,
and that we would not. The dog, too–
your boisterous friend, occasional foe–
seems to intuit that you travel elsewhere.”
Laura Lynn Brown says
Ohhhh … you can see it coming from the first line.
You know sometimes they like to crawl off and go alone. But uncertainty is harder even than knowing of a hard ending, isn’t it?
I love the specificity of so many images, especially all the places you searched. Even the verb “scooped.”
Mary Van Denend says
Many thanks to Sandra, Sandy, Laurie, and Laura for your kind responses to my cat poem. It’s so hard to write about pets without lapsing into sentimentality. From your comments I must have succeeded. I know that both cats and dogs will wander off when they’re ready to die, to find a quiet, safe spot somewhere. This is my hope.
Mary Van Denend says
And this one, about a serene place not far from home. I’m curious to know how you’ll react to its Frost-like quatrains. Maybe overbearing, too sweet? The opening nod is to Yeats, of course.
Bald Hill, Sunday
Let us arise and go now
to the trails at Bald Hill Farm,
and from their winding ridges learn
the ways a walk can charm.
Each footstep forms the path anew,
though many times we’ve been,
this man and I, this little dog,
in seasons bright and dim.
Let us arise and go now,
it should not take us long
to leave behind the wailing world,
to hear the creek bed’s song.
Everything’s alive today, awake–
the moss, the ferns, the bleeding
hearts in palest pink
that line the bank in turns.
The jogging and the limping,
we met them all today,
humanity out walking–
all sojourners on our way.
If you should come upon us
sitting on a stump, oh let us
rest five minutes more,
just let the dog’s tail thump.
Just let the soft light find us,
where green and wild things give
their voice to this enchantment,
this mirrored place we live.
The forest knows the world grows
weak, there’s sorrow in its bones.
The forest knows we need its balm,
its bird call and its stones.
L.L. Barkat says
I especially like:
“The forest knows we need its balm,
its bird call and its stones.”
Laurie Klein says
Mary, I find this stanza especially vivid and the gentle humor triggers a sense of recognition:
“If you should come upon us
sitting on a stump, oh let us
rest five minutes more,
just let the dog’s tail thump.”
Laura Lynn Brown says
To hear the creek bed’s song. The jogging and the limping …
This does a lovely job of holding Yeats’ rhythm and his peaceful sense of place while also bringing your own place to the fore. Lovely.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Day 29 —
Jonah’s Revenge
Oh, to swim with the great blues,
diving and diving, in grace,
where the chilled krill live
and inching up to breathless air,
where blue baleens, toothless,
chomp on a prophet, abandoned
action figures, and seasoned
Styrofoam that will endure
long beyond salted whalebone
scrimshaw, yet, sorrow fails
to deter the roundelays of rorquals
awash in nylon webs, their wails
unheard back on land where
a wind-up whale, a tub toy diving
in bath bubbles, affirms our hapless
notion that all life is but whimsy.
Laurie Klein says
Sandra, this poem is sobering. It also makes me want to learn more about whales. 🙂
“O to swim with the great blues”
“long beyond salted whalebone”
I admire the range of music carried within these lines—poetic, actual, awful:
“to deter the roundelays of rorquals / awash in nylon webs, their wails / unheard …”
Laura Lynn Brown says
So many strong words and pairings here. The chilled krill, the toothless chomp, the surprise of “seasoned / Styrofoam,” roundelays of rorquals … And to end, rather than begin, with the no longer innocent tub? Memorable.
Mary Van Denend says
Sandra–Your word choices, as others have mentioned, are so original and smart. Styrofoam, scrimshaw, krill, chill, baleen, bath bubbles. And the marvelous line: “to deter the roundelays of rorquals”. I’m not even sure what that means, but I love how it sounds. Whales are just amazing creatures. You managed to put humor into a serious poem about protecting their welfare, and their ocean habitat. Thanks for all the poems you shared this month. I’m most partial to the one about the abandoned house and the one about the night sky in Texas.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Mary, Laura, and Laurie, for the feedback on Jonah’s Revenge. I am thankful for National Poetry Month and this forum to share. Grateful for the opportunity to be awe-struck in reading everyone’s poems, all the stirring words merged so magically, sometimes fun, sometimes heartfelt.
Maria Sheena Celeste F. Diego says
0073
Rugged-misty cliffs I long to see,
Now it’s all gone devoured by the sea.
Hallowed scene too much to bear,
Everything is so unclear.
Memories slowly fading,
Picture perfect seemed missing.
How can change be so cruel,
My heart starting to boil.
Blame it on the climate change,
Of rapid progress and long-term gain.
Maybe too late to realize and blame,
Cherished scenery in flames.
My eyes are now in pain,
But great awakening remains.
Salvage each great place and stop the blame,
Change should begin with me.
L.L. Barkat says
Thanks for sharing, Maria. “Salvage each great place”… it really does begin with seeing the greatness of the special places we each have in our back yards and taking care. Wishing you the best on your journey of change.