Advent

ADVENT


It's a season of waiting, as we do tonight
when the forecasters herald a coming storm.
All day long, a  warning crawls across the screen,
"Prepare, prepare!"

This morning, we started putting things in order.

We've grocered and moved the cars
to the top of the hill.
We even replaced the old shovel
with a more ergonomic model.
Soup is bubbling on the stove,
and candles are on the counter,
ready in case the trees bow down
and break the lines that light the dark.

Of course, the power of this night, really,
is in the promise of things to come;
A perfect storm started far away
and is blanketing the world already.

Meanwhile we've wrapped ourselves
in purple robes while we wait
for the coming force in the snug little house
that we've tried to put in order.

No Words

NO WORDS



Blank Page,
     white and bare
          as winter.

Scant Words,
     black birds
          on crusted snow.

Poor Hearts
     beat wings
          in bony cages.

No Song
   to measure
          what the heart can hold.


I owe much of this poem to Zelda Fitzgerald, who said, "No one, not even a poet, can measure how much the heart can hold."  Pairing her quotation with the pictured quote from a Victorian poet might seem strange, but it makes perfect sense to me in light of the poem's subject. Thank you both, fair ladies.

Sing With Me

Sing with me, sweet bird of summer,
warm winds for the icy grass;

call with me, canicule dreamer,
noses from their earthen homes;

sing with me, hope in feathers,
slitherers to the sun scorched rocks;

call with me, canorous spirit,
blooms aloft from seeds and pods;

sing with me the scent of summer,
sing with me the dreams of sun,

call with me,  persistent warbler;
sing our song till winter's  done.

still dark morning drive

still dark morning drive

There's something about the feel
of a still dark morning drive
when the houses sleep
and the moon travels beside you
on the black and golden river.
There's something about the journey
when the yellow and sharp blue
circles and slashes of the dash
reflect like cockpit lights
in the window by your shoulder
and on your own dark face, co-pilot
in the windshield straight ahead.
There's something about the solitary lights
of some fellow morning traveler
for whom you feel a sudden warmth,
two explorers setting out before the rest.
It can be two hundred miles or twenty, no matter.
It is the feel of going somewhere,
humming through the still dark morning,
sailing on the ribbon of road,
fueled by anticipation, thinking about nothing
except your travels toward a brand new, bright new day.

UNSEEN

The Poetry Bus rolls again, and this week it's an enchanted trip with Chris Alba of Enchanted Oak at the wheel. Chris gives us the challenge of writing something about our lives. I don't even know where this stuff comes from, but this is what came to me:

UNSEEN


The surface of the pond is calm;
     the deep green pool
          reflects the trees that overhang it.

Beneath the surface
     where sunlight barely reaches,
          staying still among the reeds,

sifting breath through slits
      that flap in time with the small
          slick and pulsing heart,

a shiny thing among the weeds
     watchful, waiting
          unknown and unseen

by those who view
     their own reflections
          when they peer into the water.

MUSICA SACRA

MUSICA SACRA

notice how they rise
   in concert
     from the bare branches

black frocked choirboys
   whose wings sing
     sacred songs to Heaven

On The Road Again

And we're off! But before we hop aboard, you just have to join Willy while he wails about our trip! Take a look at this American icon if only to get a gander at Porter Wagonner's sparkly suit! Then ride with us on these bumpy roads less traveled.



Here we go...

The Bug

Poetikat

Muse Swings

Jeanne Iris

Dave King

altar ego

Jinksy

Helen

Rachel Fox

swiss

Stafford Ray

120 Socks

Liz 

Carolina Linthead 

Peter Goulding
 
Enchanted Oak

Totalfeckineejit (our fearless leader)

Weaver of Grass 

Various 

annell 

Titus 

Dick Jones

And here's my ticket. Don't even ask...

LAZARUS

Did you pull the cloths around you,
holding on for all you had?

Did you try to stop your ears
against the swarming in your head?

Did your bending knees creak
when they hit the cold stone slab?

Did your papery feet quell
when they stood upon that  floor?

Did your eyes regret the light
that poured in through the vacant door?

Did you hide your irritation
at arising from your bed, or

Did your parched throat croak a plea
to simply let the dead be dead?

Which Way Do We Go? Here Comes the Bus!

I'm driving the bus on November 15, and even using a trusty map, a GPS, and my innate sense of direction, I'm still idling here where two roads diverge. Which way do we go? Robert Frost says it makes all the difference.

The challenge for passengers this week will be to write about one of the following:
(1) a time you had to choose between two clearly divergent paths; (2) a time you were called to walk a  path you didn't choose for yourself; or (3) a time you refused to travel the path you were called to follow.  If these won't work for you, write anything about a choice you made. Drop me a note here when your poem is ready, and I'll link in the post above.

In the words of that great word person Yogi Berra, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."


...or in the words of Robert Frost...

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

this pearl

This week marks the first birthday of my sweet granddaughter,  and today was the day of her baptism.  For Juliet:

this day

this pearl
of water
and word
our blessing and our hope
the closest we can come
on earth
to heaven's
treasure



 

Matt 13:45,46  says, "Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,  who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
 

about a sunflower

ABOUT A SUNFLOWER


I am  sitting tonight in front of the window
staring at the blackness staring back. A cozy scene:
a woman, seated at a worn wooden table, a bowl
of oranges and lemons in front of her, an arrangement
of cheerful plates on the wall behind, pen in hand,
her arm lying across a paper angled just so, big dark eyes
like holes in her face looking back from the glass.
All summer, I watched from this same seat
a sunflower, a tall hairy stem, pointy sepal arms,
hundreds of bumpy brown seeds, bursting
little teeth, little rows hoed in circles, a plinking
stone in a still brown pond,
bonneted, beribboned, turning this way
and that, reaching up a round child's face,
angling for her father, a heavy earthen mother,
finally falling beneath her weighty thoughts, beaten
by the rain, become a blinded skull, her eyes pecked out.
Examined from the ground up, imagined
from the sky down -- the worm's view, the crow's view,
in memory, the poet's view -- a blind reflection
in the glass tonight while the words can't find
where the woman fits in the scheme
of all these things.