Sing Thanks

Sing Thanks

Little creature on the tree,

Are you thinking thanks like me?

Sow and reap, cook and stow,

Washing dishes as I go,

Wondering when I see,

Feathered wonder on the tree,

If you remember, if you know 

Gratitude from long ago

For the good gifts God does bring?

Lift your throat and with me sing.

Peace Song

Peace Song

Someday, we sing of peace

as shadows sing,

as wind.

The cherry blossoms still;

yellow birds sit branches.

Heaven holds its breath.

Someday, we sing again

of peace,

as shadows sing. 

As wind.

This poem is written on the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. God help us.

Newness of the Year

NEWNESS OF THE YEAR

Your promises are small

And easy,

Golden sweet as honey,

Strong as tempered steel.

One I choose to follow:

Be still. Be still. Be still.

2013: A Morality Play

2013:

A Morality Play

If practice really does 

A perfect mastery make,

My wagon full of props

And I, mere mortal, win

Praises from the town.

Pride here on the straw

Sweeps his hat to take a bow.

Envy seethes deep inside the chest.

Even this is practice for the end:

Wipe the grease from my chin,

Mount the boards, proclaim aloud, 

Loud enough to wake

Sloth sleeping at the reins. 

Shout, "Final! Doom!"

Drive this one, clink and rattle

To the tomb.

Burning Leaf

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet and playwright, ardent feminist 

Burning Leaf

How simple and how hard is this:

To see the grass,

To only touch the flowers,

To feel the sun ,

To not bow under boulders,

To know which light is yours,

To follow it back home.

Poets United challenges us to write about a poet we adore...hence, meet Miss V. 

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum

I just noticed

how the  lighted screen

looks ripped across the top

like the mini yellow pads

that clutter and stack a desk --

to dos and dones, calls recorded

calls returned, hand-drawn charts,

the stuff of later talks,

pages ripped,  discarded

starts and stops.

The keys along the bottom

click away as if something really

is depressed and strikes.

How like a life this screen,

bright as the eyes can take,

yet cold and flat and final

as the hand that hits delete 

but does not think to save.

Passion

Passion


That whiteness --

There!

Slinking low to ground,
Trapped in a maze of

Things

What are you,
Running through my night

Vestige of a dream,
Divinity of fear --

Trip the light,
Pale shadow of my soul.

Find the gate and disappear.

Lady

Lady, last seen in the silent roar
of the vast good-bye --
indigo adaptation of night,
stealing the sun
to roar like a daisy
across the zig-zag sky --
Phaeton gone awry,
burning, stout-stemmed sapling,
thorn in the story of grasses:
sketch your tawdry meadow.
Twist your tawny, ivied arms;
shun the cloistered shadows.
Burn the skies with your strong fire.
Leave me blind and reeling.
Leave me smelling sulphur in the night.








Sometimes, even I don't know where they come from! (And, yes, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition and began this one with "and.")

I saw the Pre-Raphaelites at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, this week; Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads suggested some of these botanical words and phrases, and Poets United asked that we write about "woman" for International Women's Day. It all came together as this! Voila! Who knows?

Flame

Poets United's "The Thursday Think Tank" prompt is "Fire."

Today is also my husband's and my wedding anniversary. This is my love letter to him.











FLAME


Fires don't always die; sometimes, they smolder.
Embers glow beneath a cloak of ash.

Sometimes they blaze to red-robed conflagration,
immolate, incinerate -- then sear us to the bone.

Our love, this long-lived flame, is like that.

We have smoldered, we have smoked,
have sparked --and we have burned.

We have carried the red heart of fire in our cupped hands
and fanned the coals to heat the endless night.

We surprise ourselves by burning still,
a steady glow -- eternal flame of testament to love.