Na/GloPoWriMo Day 17 Poem Responding to a Favorite Poem

"The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster."

                            Elizabeth Bishop

I saw the movie of your tragic love affair

with Lota, and my friend said I look

like the actress who played her but

more than resemblance I wished

for a lover-patroness like her who would build

me a little house on a Brazilian hillside

because she loved my poems and by proxy

me and, like you, I'd be swept off my

feet but would soon be chafing against

ag   all trappings (see how that works) of

       love, how I always do, all these years making a

    t  trick of my heart, or stance perhaps to keep

       me at a loss when it comes to love's trappings

of 

I

I

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 16 Nature as Teacher

 

Bosque

green breath 

rooted and reaching 

small mammals burrowed by day

bowered creatures aloft

beetles and bees

moths and

salamanders

and creek water

sunlight sometimes

starlight sometimes

a slice of moon

the deepest forest speaks

satisfaction

itself

complete

Na/Glo/PoWriMo Day 15 A Different Kind of Love Poem

 

More Love, This Loss

you in your part of this story write the scene

inside family inside grief's space

we don't ask but feel the question

where to put the love that went there now?

a melody in the key of loss

disappears into thin air like a wish

and still the circle holds

more love

pouring in

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 14 Poetry and Technology

 

With My Eyes Closed

the horses appear just before sleep

i turn from the model-t, let the crank dangle

make a poem make a poem make a poem

but all the driving has left me dumb

so i stand among the mares

who whicker and nuzzle my face and neck

i know i will never drive

again

Na/Glo/PoWri/Mo Day 13 A Fanciful/Mythic/Real Landscape

Summer Poem

I set out to dream the thing

to call it back, to fold that memory

up like a picnic blanket

& carry it home full 

of sand, cracker crumbs & sticky

with red Hi-C. Summer days

sun-stunned lake lovers we

waited dutifully 30 minutes

after eating -- salami sandwiches

crinkled chips, two dark purple

little plums each -- to charge back 

into chill flat water gleaming like

a tarnished tea service tray

this dream of those days slathered

in CopperTone come what may.

Na/Glo/PoWriMo Day 12 Memory of a Relative

My Aunt Refused to Cook It

one of my girl cousins took me 

out back to look

at the dead fawn in the shed

rigored and spotted

on its back

legs bent in

the air as if

striding as if about

to leap

no bigger

than their irish setter

her dad my uncle

had shot 

that baby

an accident

and brought 

it home

on purpose

why?

didn't want

to waste

the meat

cousin said

i made that week

for uncle

seven mouths

to feed but

fawn meat

we girls vowed

not to eat

and went to sleep

on hunger strike

that left him

livid

Na/GloPoWriMo Day 11 Blackout Poem

A Covenant People

so we became

Image by Marthalsermon Art

 a covenant people
people of the scorching wind
struck by the sun people who
cut through mountains
come from afar
beside springs of water
or not

yea
an amnesiac people
can a mother
forget her infant? 
be without
the child of her
womb? 

i will never forget you

people 
become story

word aloud
become scrolls
become 
sung from

Inspired by and snipped from Isaiah 49:8-15