Poetry


29
Nov 12

Signs ~ Bethany Bowman

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29
Nov 12

Blues in the Key of March ~ Jim Daniels

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29
Nov 12

Landscape ~ Robin Chapman

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29
Nov 12

Haying ~ Sharon Chmielarz

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29
Nov 12

Crossing The Lagoon ~ John Drury

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27
Aug 12

Watershed Burns With Lightning ~ Elizabeth Dodd

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27
Aug 12

At the Chippewa Nature Reserve ~ Jeffrey Bean

 

By the front desk at the visitor center

encased in glass there is a river otter,

stuffed, that my one-year-old daughter

knows how to talk to.  She kneels there,

hands pressed to the glass, and the otter

listens to her handful of syllables.  I want her

to be asking the otter, “who brought your

face back to life, how do you look forever

up at lights like that?”  But she can’t say “er”

or any sound with “r,” and she doesn’t wonder

what I like to think she wonders.  The otter

and she understand each other,

they both look up as I say their names, their

mouths opening, right on the verge of words.


27
Aug 12

Biography ~ Nathan E. White

drawn for Carrie

Impatient in the room where they slept,

waiting for him to retire, her eyes open

to the dark, she followed the right angle

of wall and ceiling. They had years

between them.

 

A couple takes a box (we must fill and fill

with endless longing). She could hear

herself engaging those words with him,

long after the proposition lost its appeal.

 

Upon first meeting, he looked at her

practically. Hers was an unusual thirst

he explained willingly, effectively. Together

they excelled. They surprised each other

with stories, sketches of the people

around them, people walking in the park

and through the museum and restaurants.

 

In his study down the hall, Sundays especially

he belonged to the biography unfinished

at work, refusing supper. To her his dedication

seemed one-sided, unreasonably withheld,

like a psalm sung under one’s breath.

 

She pictured them in Phrygia, aging

husband and wife hosting discreet gods,

incapable of outliving each other…wary

of that joint sting: bluff and abandonment.

 

He had shown her how to be circumspect

and critical. His version. Told her how

to invent a past irrefutable to most anyone.

He confirmed each significant anniversary

of his subject—between the two of them

only she could detail their first afternoon

as lovers.

 

He came in late. She wanted to touch him

where he had no choice, but he turned away,

preoccupied. She whispered, History’s more

an iceberg: stark, cyclopean. The dark mass

of his shirt, pressed for the morning, hanging

on a chair, startled her for a second.


27
Aug 12

Play With Matches ~ Lilah Clay

 

I woke up this morning

to Spanish moss hanging from the chandelier.

While I’d been asleep

pepper vines had snuck in the back window

headed for the library,

and scarlet larkspur gathered around

to mourn your old shoes

in the closet.

 

The outside became curious of the inside.

What do humans do in these houses?

 

Downstairs, bushes of coyote mint

found the light switch,

and terrorized circuitry

like a club in Dublin.

 

Hummingbird sage guarded the fire place

while a cluster of trembling poppies

tried to strike a match

like a skinny lot of librarians

having a go at a criminal record.

 

And there I was scolding plants

in my pajamas before 8 a.m.

or a proper cup of coffee.

Is this what happens to me without a dog

or children?

 

The wilderness invites itself in

to play with matches,

while I frantically decide which

item of furniture I don’t mind

having covered in foliage, flowers,

roots, shoots, and dirt

and renamed as the Time Out Chair.


24
Aug 12

Hocket ~ Wendy Battin

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