It’s air-tight, this insulation
house silent except
the wicker crackle
of my chair-seat, periodic
ping of the furnace. Outside
before the sun, before even
the start of a down-street engine
swinging headlights, distant dog-bark
if I open the door (if)
a wealth of opening
joyflood birdsong, after-rain
dirt-scent, green
purelife welling a balm
worth its wait
Thank you, Jane, for the blackbird gold.
I beg a word on winter.
Enter
Snow and cold are fine, but something’s missing—
Sing
the rustle-song of breeze and piercing blackbird’s call,
All
green-leaf ground and walls of trees,
Ease
early sun and evening alight—
Light
will spring come soon, fair and bright?
(Right)
Something lighter: an echo poem for Jane’s weekly challenge, with special-order blackbird. I was thinking that Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad had an echo story, but maybe I was remembering something from Winnie the Pooh?
1.
crash—
not the cat, not
the glasses, only
my heart begging
another whiff of roses
crushed untasted
unsung under
snow-melt
—smash
2.
broken night
flight of forgotten words
birds faltering, slow
snow-weighted
freighted with fear
here comes their cry
why do I wake
ache for dreams unspoken
broken night
Playing with two prompts today. First part inspired by Quickly, second part inspired by Jane’s circular poetry.
Our flights all grounded
we wait for snow-
whirled howling cold
Front-porch chimes clashing
morning kids rushed by rain-
swirled leaves, hatless
long hair flying
For PAD Chapbook Challenge Day 17 prompt: (blank) is for the birds.
Dark—though all the world sleeps, long
I strain to hear blackbird song
Your wings winter-folded, soft-
swept snow, river-fog blurred song
Locked into memory, green-
forest days spinning word-song
By berry bramble, your wings
covered all desire, spurred song
Unsung, for better or worse
by this cold hearth, unstirred song
Now dawn-white shadow gathers
plaintive dream-note—unheard song
My first attempt at the ghazal form.
bring me canna lilies
red and gold, leaves bold
unfurling palm-like, shading
striped, streaked, splotched
great reedy canes
buds ruffled, spiraling
inflorescent
throats blushed
to bring bees, birds, bats
and if we can’t live on
through frost and dark
we’ll make paper, dye, beads
and music from the seeds
Playing with this prompt from Margo Roby: Wordgathering, also inspired by a gift of canna lily rhizomes from my son’s horticulture class.
evening purples
coneflowers, prairie clover
stirred by unhushed wings–
evening purples
asters, feathered grasses, pond-
held wary stillness
coneflowers, prairie clover,
rabbits quick-whisper
sun in slow descent
stirred by unhushed wings
sky quickens, blunt-crying geese
fade purple, southward
Written in the form of Troiku, inspired by this post at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie.
from rigors of nesting, these dry
dusting feathers drifting down
through the night-trees—
Have I changed? Can you see it
as ugly duckling flared to phoenix?
Or what tale can describe that
freeing flight earth-up, sky-down
through forests reclaiming all
the bones of empire?
wings spread and settle, fledgling
soul curled small, moss-soft
beneath the fallen log (discarded
feathers caught in the grain);
practiced eye of greenway wanderer
will see it’s forever new
For Meg, the greenway wanderer at Pigspittle, Ohio, who shared her beautiful photo of Feathers on a Log and pointed me to this article on molting.
I am the child of root and air, the song
of limpid river, tumbled rocks;
my father feathered black, my mother brown
and pocket-faded, full of words.
I sing and shape the stumbles into spells
of love for Crone to honey-fill her jars,
for Wizard’s far-fetched flings at sun and moon.
Inspired by A Prompt Each Day’s midweek wordle, which sent me back to my Hiraeth-world.
Remember when we hid in the caves
late dust swirling in red sun and talked
of home, imagined roses blooming
thorn-berries yet green and sour, river
foam-cold? We had the king within reach
but were too fearful—proud—young—to grasp
the hem of his robe. Remember how
the cedars howled with the storm of it
wind rushing like undammed water through
the desert valley heaped with his dead
and ours, and you lay huddled, fevered
by the fire? I went out long before
the cliffs should have echoed new birdsong
to watch the armies march clacking, bone-
white, on and on into morning
Graceful Press Poetry 