Poem February 2023

Poem February 2023

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spring and some

the woman coming toward me

wears a red cape. she smiles

she likes my red hat and

she says so. the temperature

is dropping rapidly, the wind

is rising. they had predicted

rain and possibly snow; i

had not believed them. still

my red hat threatens to

blow away and her red cape

swirls about her. she says

i like your red hat, i smile

and say i like your red cape.

spring is coming by the

calendar, a red letter day,

but this day the temperature

drops, the wind blows up,

rain and possibly snow loom,

and we pass. red hat. red cape.

          — joel oppenheimer

Poem January 2023

Poem January 2023

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Tag Archives: Poem

New Year, New You

It’s a new year and the 

world keeps screaming 

that I need 

a new me. 

I respond with 

a quiet, calm: 

“I like the old me. 

I think I’ll keep her.”

— Erienne Jones

Almanac

Almanac January 2023

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Tag Archives: Poem

January is a creation story.

It begins with the wrinkled hands of a grandmother — perhaps your own grandmother — in the darkest hour of morning.

The wise woman knows the secrets of this barren season. She’s found warmth in the bone-chilling air; comfort in the aching silence; promise in the dwindling pulse of winter. When the frozen earth has nothing left to give, she reaches for the mother dough — the breath of life — then steadies herself for the tedious ritual.

The mother dough is a myth of its own: a wild yeast kept bubbling since the dawn of time. The grandmother feeds it once more — a bit of flour, a bit of water — then walks away. 

Breadmaking is a dance of time and space.

Tonight, she’ll make the leaven. Tomorrow, the dough. The rest is as crucial as the work.

At first light, a nuthatch sings its rhythmic song. Grandmother washes her ancient hands, folds the dough four times over, then lets it sit.

Two, three, four — sit.

Two, three, four — sit.

Again. And, again. And, again.

The hours tick by. The dough rises. The grandmother hums as she dusts the work surface. 

Creation is a process. After she shapes and scores the loaves, she bakes and cools them. Neither bread nor spring can be rushed. Such is the wisdom of this bitter season. Such is the wisdom of the grandmother.

 

Year of the Rabbit

The Lunar New Year begins on Sunday, Jan. 22. Goodbye, tiger. Hello, rabbit.

Considered the luckiest animal in the Chinese zodiac, the rabbit is a calm and gentle creature known for its grace, compassion and ability to take swift action. Those born in rabbit years are said to embody these desirable traits. Never mind their fickle nature and escapist tendencies.

But what does the Year of the Water Rabbit have in store for the whole fluffle (yes, that means bunch) of us? 

Some say peace. Some say hope. The rabbits in the yard suggest more rabbits.

 

Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year, for gardening begins in January with a dream.   — Josephine Nuese

 

The Blank Canvas

January is for dreaming. Every gardener knows that. Fetch the sketch pad. Reflect on last year’s highs and lows. Ask what your garden is missing.

This frosty month of seed catalogs and new beginnings, allow yourself to think outside the planter box. Or inside, if that’s your preference.

Is yours a kitchen garden? Butterfly garden? Purely ornamental?

Suppose you added more fragrance. Snowdrops in the springtime. Aromatic herbs in summer. Chrysanthemums in autumn. Honeysuckle and jasmine woven in between.

Color outside the lines. After all, nature does it all the time.   PS

Poem

Chime

We were birds then

at thirteen, a chime

of wrens chirping,

carbonated goddesses

blowing bubbles,

spilling secrets,

dancing the latest dances,

we did each others’ hair,

practiced kissing,

gossiped (a girl’s

first step toward insight),

we shook the magic eight ball,

could not imagine

a path toward our future —

 

we only knew we didn’t want

our mothers’ lives,

taking dictation,

cleaning up messes,

hiding tins of money,

 

we were angels falling,

wingless, trusting

the wind to lift

our bodies of light

far above the silver

water tower,

to let us down kindly

somewhere, anywhere

wild and broad and new.

— Debra Kaufman

Debra Kaufman’s latest collection of poetry is God Shattered.

Poem

On Disappearing

Yesterday, I found an empty turtle shell

On a leaf-littered trail by the ancient river.

Light flooded the inside

Like a tunnel through a yellow-painted mountain.

My eyes said, “No one is home”

And yet, a part of me was unconvinced.

Holding my breath, I bent down to pick it up

Hand and body ready to retract.

 

How often do I live this way —

Frightened to see what’s really here?

Scared to reach toward what I do not know?

Eager to hide from the truth?

 

Smooth and heavy in my cupped hand

The carapace was picked-clean

Vertebrae resembling some mystical symbol;

A rune, a spell, a skeleton key.

All I know is this:

There was movement within that vacant shell.

A gentle lifeforce.

A flowing river.

The bones of an unknown song.

 

Today, the shell sits on my bookshelf

And I shiver each time I walk by

Half-wondering when invisible legs

will carry it along. 

 

This subtle haunting will continue for weeks

Until, one day, the song becomes clear:

Death is not real.

We’re all just learning how

To lay down our armor

Embody the current

Disappear into the light.

— Ashley Walshe

Poem

Crow at Dawn

Find me in the fold,

the crease between light and darkness,

where the silver sliver of a crescent fades

and the first hint of daylight approaches,

where I can still slip into the shadows,

and playfully balance between

morning and night.

 

Find me in the branches of the moonlit trees,

among the silken threads of webs,

as if I’ve just woken,

as if I haven’t been larking about all night,

basking in the freedom

that only comes

when the weary world sleeps.

 

Find me, sprightly greeting the day,

as the sun starts to lay its golden rays

upon my silky black wings,

and I must swallow the darkness

of the night,

keeping it as a part of me,

honoring who I am

even in the brightest of sunlight.

— Cassie Bustamante

Poem

Cardinal

Like a spot of blood against the blue sky,

a Cardinal perches on the shepherd’s hook

where I hang suet and a cylinder of seed-feeders

I gave Sylvia for her last Mother’s Day.

The birds are a gift to me now. Her beautiful

ashes fill a marble blue urn and rest

near one of her crazy quilts in the foyer to welcome visitors.

Buddha is there on a table and guards her keepsakes,

a cleaned-out bookshelf holds her high school portrait,

a cross-stitch she made for me. Every little corner

has its memory of how short a sweet life can be.

— Marty Silverthorne

From Collected Poems of Marty Silverthorne

Poem

Cardinal

Like a spot of blood against the blue sky,

a Cardinal perches on the shepherd’s hook

where I hang suet and a cylinder of seed-feeders

I gave Sylvia for her last Mother’s Day.

The birds are a gift to me now. Her beautiful

ashes fill a marble blue urn and rest

near one of her crazy quilts in the foyer to welcome visitors.

Buddha is there on a table and guards her keepsakes,

a cleaned-out bookshelf holds her high school portrait,

a cross-stitch she made for me. Every little corner

has its memory of how short a sweet life can be.

— Marty Silverthorne

From Collected Poems of Marty Silverthorne

Poem

Evensong

At opposite ends of the feeder,

dangling from the buckeye

by a sliver of jute,

a cardinal and indigo bunting

feed, seemingly oblivious

to the blue and scarlet other,

their self-absorption

an ongoing evolutionary tick

completed this very instant.

Birdseed falls into the tall grass

under the tree.

The cardinal flies off,

upsetting the feeder’s ballast.

It sways, wildly

at first, then less

and then less until less,

like a hypnotist’s gold watch,

while the bunting,

fading by degrees

into the falling blue spell

of evening remains

perfectly still.

— Joseph Bathanti

Joseph Bathanti served as North Carolina’s poet laureate 2012-2014. His most recent book is Light at the Seam.

Poem

Diving for the Anchor

When you were my living father, I thought of you as you,

alone. Now that you’re long dead, I think of you and me

as us, together, not that we were closer than most

fathers and sons who can’t say what should be said,

the unspoken words between them a great gauzy silence

ever after, as on the moonless night we fished the

Miles River, a tributary of the Chesapeake, skidding our

johnboat into an early autumn’s slacking, our fishing

rods angled on the gunnels. Nettles billowed the pilings,

cottonwood and locust sapped the brackish air as

the lulling water swirled us into an outgoing tide,

tugging us midstream where you tossed the anchor

overboard and heard it splash, no chain securing

it to the boat, the lead shank long gone in deep water.

 

“We’ve lost the damn anchor!” you swore to high

heaven, and as the outwash eddied us bayward you

stripped off your shirt, shoes, and shorts and dove in,

roiling the dark water to gulp you under into perfect oblivion,

leaving the child I was alone with night sounds — a screaky

covert of moorhens, cicada crescendos, the coo and stutter

of a cormorant — and I knew, at that moment, you were

the bravest man who ever lived. I could feel your fingers

probing the busted soda bottles, tangled tackle, and rusting

beer cans, groping amid the grass eels, hogfish, and bristle

worms. I held the longest breath I’d ever held and prayed,

prayed, for your deliverance, and mine. And sure enough

the surface riffled, the waters parted, and you burst

foaming into still air, anchor in hand, and clacked it

onto the sloshing deck, pulling yourself free of the current,

your body slick with river slime, and grasping the oarlock,

rolled into the rocking boat.

 

I sighed my only true sigh, longing for the wisdom

you’d dredged from the foulest netherworld, testimony

that life is more than the taking in and letting out

of breath by a father and son adrift beneath a thin haze

of stars. Having plumbed dead bottom, you’d been

resurrected to impart a consoling truth, a glistening

coin I could tuck in the pocket of memory. You obliged:

“Wish I had a nickel,” you said, “for every kid who’s

pissed in this river.”

— Stephen E. Smith

Stephen E. Smith’s most recent book is A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths.