Walden 2.0

On our Labor Day weekend we visited Walden Pond. Thoreau met us outside his cabin to show us how much simpler things are now that he can simply write his blog using his smartphone. 

We even got to take this selfie together!

low 40s

Night drizzle in early February,
the damp cloud cover keeps it warm enough
that a soggy gray morning sees mist in the air
instead of frost on the ground.

And on the third floor
around 1 a.m.
a tear-sodden pillow kept
a heart from freezing over.

Sounds (Poetry Month 2012: Day 17)

sirens scream up the road
horns shout each other down
tires strafe the asphalt

Into this melee,
Full-throated,
A dull-feathered soloist warbles,
Claiming the day.

A Shoulder (Poetry Month 2012: Day 2)

A shoulder where I lay my head to sleep
secure beneath the stars that stir the sky.
A shoulder on which it is safe to cry
surrounded by the scent of kindly pines.
A shoulder strong enough to shrug away
the careless burdens that I daily make.
A shoulder is the truest kind of friend.
Living on the shoulder of the mountain.

Lovely Trees (Poetry Month 2012: Day 1)

I thought that I would never see
a poem lovely as a tree...
but for any tree you care to name
there is a poem much the same.

A bud that glows a verdant hue:
a simile you've heard anew.
Discarded leaves upon the ground:
a thousand words piled all around.
Rough bark that rasps against your skin:
off-rhymes worse than cliches worn thin.
Graceful, sweeping, arching boughs:
the poem that you're reading now.

And then there's that arboreal trait--
poems, too, cross-pollinate.
The weedy form will allergize,
hence runny nose and scratchy eyes,
but these same symptoms can proceed
from thoughts you inhale as you read.
So e're composing verse again,
consider taking Claritin.

Inspired (on April Fools day) by Joyce Kilmer's famous "Trees"

Decay

You can see it in the rusting of the trees,
in the ever-slower shuffling of the streams.
You can feel it in the way we stay abed,
wrapped against the early morning cold.
You can hear it in the forest's creaking limbs
and ever-trembling, sighing, palsied leaves.

The world is getting old.

We fight it off with pungent scents,
with cinnamon and nutmeg and pine,
but autumn rain puddles into wet mildew.
We ignore it with talk of spring, pretending
that our memories of summer are unfaded.
We push it back with rich tastes,
with sharp cranberries and crisp apples,
but we cannot stop it, this falling apart,
this final heavy turning of the year.

The world is getting old.

Do not hide from her, here, inside.
Please do not let her age alone.
Let us walk long, walk slow,
talk soft, and thank her for her time.
We will show her young hope
and younger life, and smile together.

The world is getting old.



Note: This is a poetic form called the bop. I discovered it with this example bop by Robert Brewer. It's excellent, and I suggest you take a look! 
A bop involves 3 stanzas of 6-8-6 lines and a 1-line refrain. Meter and rhyme scheme are up to you.

Songbird Shadorma (National Poetry Month: Day 26)

breathing blue,
lungs bursting with sky
and new dawn,
brown thrush sings--
so thirsty for the morning
he might drink it all.

~~~

The shadorma is a six-lined poems with the syllable counts of 3/5/3/3/7/5. Do you want to read more shadorma? My favorites from that page are The Peculiar Mosquito by K. Thomas Slesarik and Shadorma by Heidi Mordhorst. When you're done reading, go ahead and explore the rest of the site. It is an excellent poetry blog called The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Courage (National Poetry Month: Day 10)

Spring gives me hope, for spring is courage.

Spring is not joy and warmth.
Spring is not beauty and color.
Spring is not tenderness and singing birds.
Spring is not weekend picnics and falling in love.
Spring is not blossoming flowers and lengthening sunlight.

What is spring?
Spring is new leaves.
Not a few leaves, or even hundreds,
but thousands upon thousands.
Leaves adorning every tip
of every twig of every stem of every branch.
Leaves growing beside twisted knots,
beside scarred wood, beside wrinkled bark, beside broken limbs.

These are wrinkled trees, older than memory,
than generations, than buildings, than nations.
Knotted trees that have seen enough years to know
that summer is short, that autumn will come,
that their leaves will always fall
dry and lifeless and brown.
Broken trees that know winter is cold,
is dark, is long, is inevitable.
Scarred trees that know their branches will be left bare,
left empty, left bereaved, left once again alone.
And yet in spring these trees sprout leaves,
sprout leaves, sprout leaves, sprout leaves.
And yet these trees sprout leaves!

Spring gives me hope, for spring is courage.

a time for gifts (National Poetry Month: Day 9)

Spring is a time for gifts, a time
when seeds lift high their tender sprouting leaves
in selfless offering to the wide sky
and say, this is my best, my all;
fed from the strength i stored
all winter long

The wind is laden thick with gifts of song
from birds that other times keep still
but now reveal a hidden purse of notes.
it is not much, they say,
but here. you need this more than i

Between your house and mine you've planted bulbs
and flagstones in the soil.
The stones, perhaps, are gifts for careful feet,
or else for flowers trying hard to grow.
Your home is full of laughter, friends,
and children who bring gifts they wrap
so carefully in ten small fingers.
There's little left to give.
And so I carry two small chairs outside
and hang a feeder for the hummingbirds.
thank you, I hear you say.
this place that you have made - 
it is good

~~~


This is a companion poem to a time for truth from November.

A Storm Breaks (National Poetry Month: Day 8)

Lightning pillars crack.
Thunder crumbles, skylines shudder,
trestles crumple. Sheets of wind
rip free of raindrop riveting,
and clouds come crashing down.

April Evening (National Poetry Month: Day 7)

Windows

open, screenless,

let in on warm night air

the ceaseless sound of cicadas

singing

~~~

This form of poetry, the cinquain, was developed by Adelaide Crapsey in the early 1900s. Cinquain.org has a collection of her poems, and links to more by her and other poets. My favorites on that page are November Night and Amaze.

Crescendo (National Poetry Month: Day 5)

Stars mill about in subdued conversation
pausing to wink as they speak over drinks.
Glasses and laughter comingle together
and glittering light twinkles in their champagne.
The great luminary they wait for delays,
preparing his august appearance tonight.
A hush stills the crowd in advance of his coming
and all watch the carpeted stair he will climb.
Announced by his glowing attendants, he's seen!
A crescent of smile slowly rises to view.
Then, stately advancing, he enters the hall
and graces it with his full presence at last.
So noble he stands! So great and so grand!
The stars join in bright, meteoric applause,
and usher him into the welcoming throng
'mid the coattails of comets and spiraling gowns.

Winding (National Poetry Month: Day 4)

Out west the roads shoot straight and true
like sunlight through the day.
The land's as smooth as evening sky,
wide as the milky way.

The roads in Georgia twist and swerve

'round hills and over bends.

You never see past that next curve,

much less your journey's end.

But what I once thought limiting-

those hundred thousand trees-

I've now seen dressed in shades of Spring,

in variegated greens!

Such wonder! when at every turn
a forest comes in view
that with each winding, weaving step
seems to be birthed anew.

A desert road is beautiful

with stunning, open space.

Its grandeur is of sunsets, stars, 

horizons to be chased.

But life is lived much closer here
with beauty all around;
a path too straight can't find the things
close by that should be found.

Were I a road in Georgia's hills
I too would twine about
to see the trees' green tapestry
link hills and streams and clouds.

Thunderstorm (National Poetry Month: Day 2)

Gray tour buses pause,
   swing wide their doors.
Their passengers crowd out,
   pour down the steps,
   press past each other,
   murmur in the dark.
Flashbulbs pop,
   illuminate the night,
and everybody cheers.

~~~


Two more links for your #poemaday benefit:

• Robert Brewer at Poetic Asides is posting daily poetry prompts along with his poem. Submit your 5 best at the end of the month to his contest.
• Big Tent Poetry posts poetry prompts every Monday and provides a place to share your works.

Why I'm Smiling Today

 Through morning rain a wakeful light expands
diffuse and gentle as the soft'ning gray
that furrows rich and pregnant oe'r the day,
so confident in sure, capable hands.

The air alive with smells that dance and sway,
with sounds washed clean of dust and healed of scars,
contains the strength of seeds, of unseen stars,
the wealth of wind that breath alone can weigh.

There's music in the mist no tune can mar
and calls to mind the power of the sea
endowing with a calm fertility
each motion, thought, and moment that is ours.

Suffused with this same light, this air, this song
I can't but smile, and breathe, and hum along.

Winter Wind

The song she sings is beautiful, an aria of the soul.
Majestic music moves the skies with the sadness of a world.
Beneath a cold and muted sun she tends an empty land
unhelped, alone, and yet she sings through every space she can.

Standing there to hear her sighs is chill, and cleansing, too.
Tears unnoticed frost my cheek, a silent frozen dew
that knows somehow her tragedy and can't but stop to hear,
but to me the weight of grief is much too cold to bear.

Ashamed then of the shivering that drives me back indoors,
I guiltily cocoon my home in levity and warmth
and only listen from afar through panes of frosted glass
to wisps and strands, e'en though she sings as long as winter lasts.

I'm yet too young, but hope someday to have a heart that's deep
enough to hear the winter wind, the grandeur of her grief.

a time for truth

Winter is a time for truth, a time
for trees to shiver from their golden robes
and step forth bare before the dawn,
as if to say, here, this is what i am;
even when no leaves are left,
yet am i beautiful

Snowdrifts fall to muffle all the noise;
one crunches underfoot to warn
us not to break the silent smiling
of a meditative world.
hush, it says, and listen to her breathe

The crisp near-frozen air outside is clear,
and I can see across the shoveled walk
on which each footstep tells whence it has been.
Your windows glow with warmth and home,
with gathering in people to your hearth:
an invitation, and an echo of
the stories, laughter, love, and truth
you gather 'round your heart.
We open our homes
and warm our hands with rich, slow-rising bread,
comfortably sharing recipes.
smell this, I feel to say.
this place that you have made -
it is good

Tree Show

Ah, hedgerows!
Poodles of the arboretum!
Sculpted, trimmed, and pampered into
shapely likenesses.
But prickly:
snappish if you get too close.

The solemn oaks, great danes, stand attentive;
redwood mastiffs glower intimidation
at everyone smaller than them;
and the playful aspen collies
frisk about, dancing, never still.

Elm trees catch kites like frisbees.
They are still learning the second half of "fetch"
and are confused at our discontent. Why
can we never find a golden retriever
to play with instead?

Puggish rose bushes and ornamental dogwoods
scatter yipping through the park,
and lazy bougainvillea spaniels drape themselves
on the edges of everything.

Setter, dachsund, beagle,
terrier and pomeranian;
cherry, olive, myrtle,
dwarf willow and piñon pine.
A bewildering variety
surrounds us,
each of them man's best friend.

Autumn Wind

I wish I knew what Autumn Wind
said when he came last night.
I heard him come and stay awhile,
grass whispering with delight.
It must have been something he said,
or else it was his touch
so cool and gentle on their skin
that caused the trees to blush.

Birds

A crane announces, East to West,
a thousand years of happiness--
 wise men know.

*   *   *

Geese on the river, summer waning soon;
  Doves in the garden, beauty to my home.
Geese flying nightly, autumn coming fast;
  Doves on the rooftop, fortune to my friends.

Spring, 2009