The last Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, to write about farms and farming (Conjuring Farmhouses), December 12, is covered quite broadly here with responses from Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Jen E. Goldie, Shiela Jacob, Frank McMahan, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar. These will provoke some thought and much pleasure, spiked as they are with memoir, questions, humor, and insight. Enjoy!
Wednesday Writing Prompt will return on January 16, 2019.
three cow salute
walking to my high school meant walking past three cows
just as 61st avenue came to its
senses and straightened up
south of bethany home road
and what was then
a bobwire fence held back these bored cows
who stood and chewed or didn’t
and slowly turned
their
heads
in
unison
as
you
passed
they were the stolid
they were the stupefied
the stunned
the milkbaggy trio
the watchers of boys and girls
they needed a date with a frisky bull
or maybe they needed nothing
but daily relief from udder strain
grass
and me tweaking their monotony
into near monotony
couldn’t tell you
don’t know why those bored
and boring cows still lease space
in a pasture in my head
just know
the smell of horseshit does nothing for me
but
the smell of cowshit
has more than once filled
my stupid stolid eyes
with nostalgic tears
droplets of blood from the tail
of last October’s sacrificed horse,
ashes of the stillborn calves,
the shells of beans.
We are sprinkled with water,
wash our hands
in spring-water,
drink milk mixed with must.
Towards evening after shepherds
fed their flocks,
laurel-branches
are used as brooms
to clean their stables,
water sprinkled through them,
then stables adorned
with laurel-boughs.
Shepherds burn sulphur,
rosemary, fir-wood, and incense,
usher the smoke through the stables
and the flocks to purify them.
cakes, millet, milk,
and other food
is offered.
Hay and straw bonfires lit
cymbals and flutes play
as sheep and shepherds
are run three times
through the fire.
At an open air feast
we sit or lay
on turf benches
and sup a lot.
who plough
who prepare the earth
who plough with a wide furrow to bring water from the river
who plant seeds
who trace the first ploughing, reploughing as first did not work
who harrow
who dg
who weed
who reap
who carry the grain
who store the grain
who share the grain
who share their good fortune with us, the dead
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
The blue sky smelled of manure. Even the allure of coffee and raw milk, homemade bread with rhubarb jam and omelets plucked from their mother just that morning couldn’t overcome the scent that distinctly said, “You’re on a working farm.”
The distinct sound of a tractor pulled up to the farmhouse door. The farmer offered us a hay ride around the farm and explained the difference between hay and straw, silo versus barn. The farmer named each machine and it’s purpose, but not the animals.
That night, I briefly wondered if the chicken that gave her life for our pot pie dinner also sacrificed her progeny for our breakfast. And if the rooster that would wake us in the morning, knew what happened to his family.
Plastic and foam trays
Deception and protection
Farmers eat the truth
Yes, that’s me on a tractor – picture courtesy of one of my sorority sisters who posted some “throwback pictures” of a reunion we had a bed and breakfast in the Pennsylvania countryside a few years after we graduated college. I don’t think the tractor was actually moving for the picture, but it was a first for this city girl!
Coincidentally, Jamie Dedes’ Wednesday Writing prompt requested: This week share poem/s out of your own nostalgia, experience, impressions, gratitude, concerns, or convictions about farms, farming, or farm policy. Despite now living in “farm country”, I still don’t know about farming although I do appreciate the numerous farmers markets in our area.
One thing I do know: I am very appreciative of the men and women who work on farms because I know I don’t have the constitution or inclination to grow things or kill things to eat. Maybe because living in cities, I was never exposed to that reality and thus my aversion to being close to the true source of what I/we eat. Food came in a package and didn’t have faces. Maybe if more people were aware of the reality of farming, there would be less food waste and a better understanding of the need to conserve and protect the environment/nature and animals as finite resources. But what do I know…I’m just a city girl…
When Dad barked
You hopped to it,
Let’s go! In the car!
He loved the country.
One day, he said,
I’m moving to some
Small town,
Somewhere,
Someday.
Got my love of trees,
Wide expanses
And the smell of grass
From him
I guess.
Let’s go pick strawberries.
Get some fresh picked apples,
Some corn, if it’s ready,
Right from the field.
He always took the
Side roads
On our way to
Where he wanted
To be.
I marvel,
Now,
Where he was
Coming from,
Some secret desire,
Some past life,
Taking him home….
A tithed farm had flourished
since Queen Victoria’s reign.
Then the council needed acres
of land, built a housing estate
in the 1930’s for families like
us who couldn’t afford to buy.
Small, airy houses with an inside
toilet and coal shed, no running
hot water but spacious gardens
front and back.We made our home
here in the ’50’s and I walked past
apple trees to my first school.
Elderly neighbours recalled
the redbrick farmhouse, told
how they were sent there
as children and exchanged
a few pence for pats of golden
butter and hay-warmed eggs.
They felt the land’s closeness
despite shops and post office
and bus routes to the city centre.
Road names were echoes.
Farmcote Swancote
Old Farm Glebe Farm
And during the War,they dug
over their long back gardens.
Potatoes and turnips grew again.
Carrots were shaken free of soil,
peeled, grated and added to cake
mix instead of rationed sugar.
Hefting water out of the river to
feed the newly-planted.Long years since I
had to do the same on Uncle’s farm:enamel
white bucket hung from a windlass,sweet
water drawn from deep. I could lift but half
a pailful then. Brothers, neighbour’s girls,
rudimentary washes after endless
play; earth closet in the yard, potatoes,
their skins slowly curling in the cauldron
on the hearth.Somewhere a clock. Bored one day,
I stood beside the well and bawled for help.
Dad came running and rough chastisement
was love’s affirmation.
Brief check before I
swooshed down the hay bales in the barn, guiltless
until the straws in my hair betrayed me.
The years have added muscle, as I bend
and dip and lift from the grateful water,
remembering my boyhood’s guilty smile.
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
The dark cloud squats heavily on the horizon
Undecided whether to drift slowly
Over our dusty fields with its fat bladder
Full of drought quenching rains
Or to drift up the coast a ways
To quench the thirst of our enemy’s fields.
O Lord, I know it makes no difference
In the grand scheme of things,
But I can’t help the fact
It would make all the difference in the world
To me.
The dead don’t envy the living
Any more than the living envy the dead.
Who’s to say what’s the best state
For matter to be in
In the long run?
I would think the best,
For one above ground,
Is to make the most of what you are
And, for those below,
To make the least.
Farm and village
soul and spirit
a nation’s harvest giver,
agri-armor of defense ,
lived in one,never,
but loved one where
Grand Dad lived
near the Jhelum River
A place, Sarai Alamgir
with tilled fields
lush green yields,
lands fulfilling needs
wells run by cattle
in circles, bound
pulling out water
round and round
and we so freely….
running in the fields
touching the trees
shouting and singing
with the breeze
But
When land is threatened by famine ,when food is scarce
by waywardness and sins,
when fuel is short
and dry are the streams
the farmer with his horse
and plough
is back in the fields-
the backbone of the people
he is following his dreams
or so it seems-
going back in time
working coping hoping
amidst blasts and screams’
Farmer Farmer get some coal
if you want your crop
and reach your goal
Farmer farmer get your horse
for salvation of the loss
Farmer Farmer get your plough
Let us work and fulfill our vow’
کسان اور گاوؑں
روح رواں زندگی
زرہ بکتر زراع و دفاع
رہنا فارم پہ کبھی نا ھوا
دادا کے گھر سے پیار ھوا
سراےؑ عالم گیر جھلم دریا
گاوؑں تھا پیارا سا
لھلھاتے کھیت و باغ
ھر سو سبزا سبزا ھوا
کوؑیں سے جوتے بیل
کھیت میں پانی ڈالے
ڈبے پے ڈبا ٓاتا جاؑے
اور ھم کھلے میدان میں
بھاگتے دوڑتے ھنستے
درختوں کہ چھوتے رہتے
مگر جب
زمین خطرے میں پڑھنے لگے
قحت و قلت ھو جاےؑ زیادہ
ایندھن کم اور ندیاں خشک
پھر کساں اپنا سامان لیکر
کھیت میں واپس جاتا ھے
گھوڑا جوت کہ ہل چلاتا ھے
اپنی قوم کی فکر ھے لاحک
اپنے خواب ادھورے پا کر
محنت کرنے لگتا ھے
بم دھماکے اور چیخوں میں
بھایو ٓاو آوؑ کوؑلہ نیکالو
اپنا اپنا کھیت اپنا ہل بچاوؑ
صلیب کو دیکھو مسجد جاوؑ
اپنا وعدہ پورا، خوب نبھاوؑ
شاید نجات مل جاےؑ شاید بخشے جاوؑ
“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.” Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.” Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture [farming as a cultural and spiritual discipline – recommended]
farmhouses
still alive in memory,
sitting along country roads wild ~
unpaved
one home-place
with a view of the lake,
a sassy summer promise of trout
and, through the capacious winter,
hoary days of ice fishing,
afternoons of ice skating
with freezing fingers and toes,
nearly as inky blue
as the oncoming dusk
I’m a city girl but I know that farming is hard work. Honest I do. For years, I was in a mixed marriage with a country boy. He was from a multigenerational farm family. I learned a little of the truth about that business, just how persistent, smart and soulful a farmer has to be. Nonetheless, I seem to want to hold tight to idyllic visions of farm life, ones I imagined as we passed farms on drives through rural areas when I was a child.
I do have strong feelings about farms that are belied by the poem above, which harkens back to those youthful fantasies. I feel, for example, a sense of gratitude to the field hands and farm workers – including migrant workers – who ensure our sustenance. Their work is back-breaking – sometimes spirit-breaking – unremitting, insufficiently rewarded and unhealthy. Healthy, sustainable farming practices that are safe for these workers, for us, and for the Earth are being fought for the world over.
This week share poem/s out of your own nostalgia, experience, impressions, gratitude, concerns, or convictions about farms, farming, or farm policy.
Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them.
All poems on theme are published on the following Tuesday. Please do NOT email your poem to me or leave it on Facebook. If you do it’s likely I’ll miss it or not see it in time.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, December 17 by 8 p.m. Pacific.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
In addition to their words and illustrations, I’ve included links to blogs or websites where available. I hope you’ll visit these poets and get to know their work better. It is likely you can catch up with others via Facebook.
Enjoy! … and do come out to play tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are encouraged to participate: beginning, emerging and pro. You are also invited to submit poems in languages other than English if they include a translation into English. See you tomorrow! 🙂
up up and awry
when a man is hacked to pieces
while still alive and
the murder was suborned
by a royal
killer
and small fry are arrested
and the big shot walks
and another big shot says
in effect
attaboy
and the world takes five minutes’
notice
and shrugs–
decency has taken a powder
ethics is in A locked chest in the attic
and kindly is an uncomfortable party guest
who gets hints to leave
from the big boy host
My eyes were parched, yet I kept them open, watching you as I did when you walked to the school bus. It seemed like such a long way for you to walk with your little legs. I told you not to look back, that looking back would make it harder, and I wanted us to have a “peaceful goodbye”. Peace was the September “virtue of the month” and it helped those first days when being apart wasn’t normal.
My throat closed up, as if I could cry, choking the words I wanted to call out – I love you! I’m proud of you! But you didn’t need to hear that – your humility and compassion allowed you to understand more than your 4 year old self should.
My heart slowed, a molasses drip, wondering what you were thinking as your tiny feet plodded on. Perseverance and courage might as well be etched on your retreating back. But the little wrinkles on your forehead would spell curiosity – we had that common. I wanted to help you, but you respectfully said you would go alone and that I should stay. I would have held you back, you honestly said. You knew I wouldn’t want that. Oh, how wise you had become!
My breath hitched and I was afraid – afraid you wouldn’t find the joy that I knew you deserved. But you didn’t look back and when you started to run – that’s when I knew:
You were going to where you truly belonged.
This short story is in response to Hélène Viallant’s “What do you see?” Picture prompt. There were so many ways to respond to this picture that Hélène posted – it could be scary or exciting or sad. It could have elements of science fiction or fantasy. Or a metaphor. My story is a little bit of all that. The back story could be that the world is coming to an end, the mother left behind to perish watching the sole survivor, her child, walking towards the unknown. Is it hopeful? Or ominous?
While I’m not sure my story is one of values gone wrong, it does remind me of the saying “good guys finish last”. But do they really? If they believe their behavior, their sacrifice is for a noble cause, are they finishing last or being the first hero?
Please spell AWRY.
definition?
: not straight or neat
: not working correctly
: not happening in the expected way
: off the correct or expected course
: in a turned or twisted position or direction
AWRY:a sentence?
“If one or another part of this progression goes awry,
there are sufficient compensating processes
in the average social environment”.
“Because each assumption requires extra tests,
fewer assumptions mean a smaller probability
that the assumptions go awry.”
AWRY: A- W- R- I
WRONG! be seated.
Askew,
aslant,
atilt,
cockeyed,
oblique,
Off-kilter,
uneven.
Disordered,
distorted,
Contorted.
WRONG!
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
He asked, ‘What kind of man?
why of Mankind ‘ he said,
‘of patience bereft, of agitation disposed,
not so eloquent nor with knowledge
or apprehensive of consequences
No, he fears none but mosquitoes
No, he fears none, no one
what language, or words of wisdom ?
‘none,sire but a stare baleful, of rage
a chaos in cape carries he, chosen
but outcast, a clever archimage,
No, he fears none, no one
manufactured, of lustful desire,
embroidered with adventure
en-robed with possession
of dark deceit, half concealed
No he fears none, no one
mankind today, lost astray,
oblivious of truth, a symbol
of hate, a killer without motive,
a killer for cash and pay-
No he fears no one-
mankind today, siding with evil,
a terrorist, beguiler kidnapper
Oh, where is the mystagogue?
fettered in a dungeon, I may
I may write an apologue !
O mankind your spirit is good, turn,
a repentant forgiver grateful person,be
turn, turn, towards the right travelogue’
so that the Light of Truth ye may see
ٓاج کا انسان کچھ بھی در گزر کرتا نہین ھے
ٓاج کا انسان اللاہ سے نہین مچھروں سے ڈرتا ھے
استاد کی زباں پے وہ اقوال زرین نہین ھین
ٓاج کا استاد کیا لکھتا ھے کیا پرکھتا ھے
ٓاج کا انسان پیار کا بھوکا ھے
ھر نظر پر نظر ھر ھاتھ پر ھاتھ رکھتا ھے
ھر غریب بے کار ھر امیر دوست لگتا ھے
اج کا انسان کیا اپناتا ھے کیا پرکھتا ھے
دوستی نرمی صبر و برداشت کہاں
سب کو گرم غصے کا بخار چڑھتا ھے
ٓاج کا انسان طیش کا سامان
ٓٓاج کا انساں شیطان کی ھمدردی کرتا ھے
ٓاج کا انسان دھشت گرد
ٓاج کا انسان پیسے کے لیے مرتا ھے
اے لوگو دل و روح کے اچھے ھو زرا
سوچو سیدھی راہ تلاش کرو سیدھی راہ چلو
“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.” Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
These are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Zero At Bone and Marrow, November 28, in which I asked folks to write about their children. These poems bare in common the light of love and joy and underpinnings of wisdom, but some are marked by extraordinary pain and courage. It brings to mind one of my preferred reminder quotations from Lucille Clifton“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”
Kudos and thanks to Billy Antonio, Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Deb y Felio (Debbie Felio), Sheila Jacob, Mike Stone, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Anjum Wasim Dar.
In addition to their words, I’ve included links to blogs or websites where available. I hope you’ll visit these poets and get to know their work better. It is likely you can catch up with others via Facebook.
Enjoy! … and do come out to play tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt.
3 Haiku and a Tanka
ordinary day
the slow unfolding
of butterfly wings
—
the nest
louder than usual
youngest child
—
11th birthday
the tenderness
of a sapling
—
unwrapping
the day
with laughter
my child
turns two
Billy Antonio
Laoac, Philippines
Why So So Hard
Mam?
– I were brung up with pillows
– Pillows are soft Mam.
– Not held over your mouth, love.
– I were given cake.
– Cake’s sweet, Mam.
– Not made of seasalt and road grit, love.
– I were cuddled.
– That’s what I like, Mam
– Till I couldn’t breathe, love.
– I were bring up reight.
– You’re bleeding me, Mam.
– How it should be, love.
Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.
Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.
“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.
“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…
A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…
I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
I have mentioned in the past about losing my twins, Larissa and Lucas, who were born too early at twenty-three weeks. This Quadrille and the next poem are dedicated to them. They are still and will always be children in my life – their song lives in my heart forever.
Moonlight Sonata: Quasi Una Fantasia
Sitting at the instrument
Of lament and longing
Listening to the moonlight
Touch my eyelids
Willing for this to be fantasy
For you to hear the harmony
Of safety and love
Bookmarking this time and place
So our stardust can, one night, embrace again
This poem is a companion to the Quadrille written for Hélène Vaillant’s and Jamie Dedes’prompts for this past week. It’s a beautiful gift when inspiration strikes twice.
This secondary title of this poem, Quasi Una Fantasia, means “almost a fantasy” and comes from this essay on Beethoven’s famous Moonlight Sonata. I do not listen to a lot of classical music, however this piece I am familiar with since I shed many tears listening to the First Movement after my twins died. That phrase, “almost a fantasy” describes the surreal feelings and thoughts I experienced after I got home from the hospital without my babies in my arms. It also describes the “what if’s”, “if only’s”, and “I should have’s” of the grief experience, as well as the hope that eventually leads to healing.
I carried him for nine months and strangers said
‘It will be over before you know it’-
the bulge that kept me slightly off
balance for the last trudging month
until labor started with the pangs and contractions –
but nothing short in that process even
as nurses assured
‘it will be over before you know it’.
Wrapped him in blankets of blue and pink stripes
and then the going home outfit of white and blue,
to begin real motherhood
of crying afternoons
and sleepless nights,
well meaning friends who assured
‘this will be over before you know it’.
Wet diapers, wet beds and my wet shirts,
and those who had been here ahead whispering
‘It will be over before you know it’.
Then rocking and hugging and sweet times
and grandmas saying ‘hold on to this,
it will be over before you know it’.
Crawling, climbing, chewing everything
walking, talking, playing,
toddler to young boy
preschool to kindergarten
‘Help me’ turns to ‘I can do it’
‘Pick me up’ to ‘Let me down’
‘Come with me’ to ‘You stay here’
‘Look at me’ to ‘Leave me alone’.
And he walks away with his backpack loaded
so self assured
and boards the bus
Turning to wave and happy to go
to first grade, then middle school, then
high school
Then driving himself off to college and a future.
I watch and wonder why someone
didn’t tell me
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
The moon slid down through my open window
On a slippery ramp of pale light
Strangely silent for a child
Falling toward his father’s arms
But then the moon was not a child,
The child had grown older,
And I am just an old man
Rocking in the moonlight.
Words when they have no ears waiting for them
When they are not the words that wanted to be heard
Are swallowed by the vast silence
Like drowned sailors
But your words would have had my ears
And the world I’d have given to hear them.
My suitcase is in the trunk of the cab
You hug me hard
I kiss your forehead and tell you to write
But you’re too young to know the value of words,
You only know the value of grace and loveliness.
Don’t have much history,
I’m only four days old.
To most of you my name’s a mystery.
I’m the promise of the Promised Land,
I’m the crown on top the tree
Whose roots embrace the sea and sand.
I’m the fullness which you’ll never faze,
There’s nothing you can add or yearn,
These are all the things my name conveys
In a tongue I’ve yet to learn.
My face will launch a thousand rhymes
And maybe I’ll write some of them myself.
My future’s bright-eyed, ‘tween the lines.
If my riddle makes you kneel
Don’t lose heart,
My name is Klil.
He felt ambiguated
Yes, he thought, that might be the word.
His unbounded happiness had saddened him.
After all, it was bounded
By the foreshortening of his life
From his perspective.
His wide unwieldy wings ached
To enfold his young granddaughter
Whose hair smelt of fresh wheat on a summer hillock.
He wanted to take her in his arms,
His heavy wings thrumping the air
Until slowly rising above the treetops
One with the cobalt sky
They’d soar and swoop
Over quilted fields and shadowed valleys,
Then back for tea and hoops
And lessons.
Back at home
Sometime during the night,
Or was it when he woke?
His wings were gone
But the ache remained
Like phantom limbs.
You sit on my shoulders
And I hold your chubby legs
In my calloused hands.
“Look, Saba, a flag!”
“Take care, Oriki, the branches are low,”
I say. He ducks his head
And I duck my knees.
“Look, Saba, the moon!”
And I think my light is weightless
On my shoulders
Like walking on the moon.
Notes: 1. “Saba” means “Grampa” in Hebrew. 2. “Ori” is a name meaning “my light” in Hebrew and “Oriki” is a diminutive of “Ori”.
I cupped my hands around your little flame
Protecting it from susurrating air
So finite against the infinity of night
Until you rise above the eastern mountains
And light the skies with your burnished rays.
Just five days old such big hopes
Rest on such tiny shoulders,
Little Ellah, are you a goddess
Or a terebinth tree?
Your name means both these things.
Maybe you’re the goddess of the terebinth,
The holy seed foretold in Isaiah’s prophecy:
No matter what befalls us,
Like a terebinth that has been felled
Above its grounded roots
We shall grow back,
Stronger
Taller
Sweeter.
I never felt the distance before
Nor sensed the silence in the room,
I never missed the familiar footstep
Nor the clutching click of the door;
Now often I think I hear
The soft burr of your bike
Rolling, whirring in the lane
The lifting flick of the gate way latch
And the ‘tick tick’ on the window pane;
At times I see you on the prayer mat
Or in your writing chair;
Where you would sit for hours on end
To read and write and note and plan,
And from time to time
Would turn around, to exchange
A friendly chat;
And now I know why God made sons
Why faith and peace is strong,
When love is true and distances long,
No absence can ever break the bond;
And now I know
How one so close, can be so far away,
No one can show, no one can wait
To stop and pat and wipe your tears away;
My son my dear, in distant land
You are with me, each day
As when I first held your hand
You first opened your eyes,
And tried to say….”Aye”
Time moved on and time moves on
Time is just fair
My son My dear, in another land,
You are not here ….
You left the footsteps in the sand;
I know… I wake up with a start,
You are forever in my heart;
Your helmet heavy in your hand,
I see you, standing there.
“Let us all strive for peace on Earth for all. Let us make a better world. Write to make peace prevail.” Anjum Wasim Dar, Pakistani poet, writer, artist, educator, and parent.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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