Author: lillian

Ode to Mary Oliver

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I see her walking through peonies
waiting patiently for the strawberry moon.
She, the night traveler in my dreams.
She bids me walk slowly, eyes open in my sleep,
to explore her natural world.
Together we soar on the wings of a hawk
as goldfinches sing and wonder precedes us.
Approaching Provincetown,
we marvel at migrating wild geese
making their cacophonous way
to their winter’s resting place.
As I begin to drift near rising
she leads me past fields of goldenrod
to a small pond bedecked in floating flowers,
lily pads asleep and yet to bloom.
Cool winds ruffle my eyelids
like rustling leaves in a tree.
The lilies break open over the dark water
as my dream retreats into dawning sky.
I awaken to a certain sharpness in the morning air
ready to take up pen, inspired by this woman.
She, the night traveler in my dreams.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 25. Today we’re to write an aisling: to recount a dream or vision featuring a woman who represents the land/country on/in which the poet lives.

Mary Oliver moved to Provincetown in the 1960s and sets most of her poetry in and around this wonderful town. An avid walker, much of her poetry comes from her observances of the natural world. I’ve incorporated 9 titles of her poems in my Ode:
Peonies
Strawberry Moon
The Night Traveler
Hawk
Goldfinches
Wild Geese
Goldenrod
The Lilies Break Open Over the Dark Water
A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air

We’ve lived in Boston for the past twenty-five years and spend two weeks of every year in Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod. Photos from our visits to P’town.

Alone Not Lonely

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She lives her life as a barnacle would,
clinging tenaciously to existence
in the fast moving currents
of today’s world.
A recluse, without the vanities,
the banalities of every day life,
she escapes it all
living in the far reaches
of the dunes of Cape Cod.
She journals each day.
Pecking words into being
from an old Smith Corona,
sounding every bit like gulls
pecking again and again
at stubborn crustacean shells.
She writes of Victorian love,
placing herself in another world
with a lover of her design.
Her dreams inscribed on paper,
ream after ream after ream.
Like gossamer wings
too ethereal to touch,
to reach in any reality,
but delectable none-the-less.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 24. Today we’re asked to write in the style of Novelist Raymond Chandler who wrote hard-boiled detective novels known for their use of vivid similes. “Channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile. Feel free to use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes till it’s . . . as dense as bread baked by a plumber, as round as the eyes of a girl who wants you to think she’s never heard such language, and as easy to miss as a brass band in a cathedral.” Photo from Pixabay.com

We’re just going to look . . .

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Quick
wiggles
brought
giggles.
Kissing us
with
sloppy licks,
just one of her
silly tricks.
This peppy
puppy
stole our
hearts
in one short
hour.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 23. Today we are to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan: short, snappy, lots of rhyme and sound play. Our daughter’s family went to “just look” at a litter of new puppies at a friend’s house. . .they now have a new bundle of energy in their home!

In the Midst of a Current . . .

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time ebbs and flows
like sand sifting through a sieve
like advancing waves crashing,
rushing furiously to shore.

Emotions ebb and flow
as we journey through later years,
stopping to dally at sweet spots,
speeding through dangerous curves.

Humanity ebbs and flows around us.
People progressing forward,
while others try desperately to stall
and others slip backward to the way it was.

Much as we’d like to take control,
place wooden rulers across our lives
draw straight lines from point A to point B,
we all remain in a fluid path
as our lives continue to ebb and flow.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 22. Today we’re asked to write a poem that includes repetition.
Photo take some years ago when in Bermuda.

Spire from History

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I am blessed to tower above many,
as thousands sit below me every year.

I’ve been a long proponent of freedom,
pealing out my beliefs since 1750.

My fame is from my history,   
my role in a famous midnight ride.

Visit me on Patriots Day’s Eve
and you’ll see me glowing with pride.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Bjorn asks us to write a poem that is a riddle, using personification for abstract or innate objects.

The answer to my riddle?

The steeple of Old North Church in Boston. Established in 1723, the enduring fame of Old North began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton, Robert Newman, and Vestryman Capt. John Pulling, Jr. climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns aloft as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea across the Charles River and not by land. This fateful event ignited the American Revolution and was later etched into poetic history by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. We are members of Old North, humbled to sit in her box pews for services. We’ve climbed the very steep stairs to reach the heavy long ropes attached to her eight bells, which first rang in 1750. You’d have to climb up further, on ladders, to reach the bells! In his youth, Paul Revere was a bell ringer at Old North.

Also shared with NAPOWRIMO Day 21.

Photo is from the Eve of Patriots Day this past week. It is the one night every year, that lanterns light up the steeple again.

Ode to Okra

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My dear okra plant, you are absolutely divine.
Hibiscus cousin, slow to grow,
ultimately sprouting green tendrils
and yellow blossoms fine.

Soon ‘tis time to harvest and prepare
your lantern shaped, bright green pods.
First I wash, then gently pat dry.
Slice crosswise with considerable care.

I heat the olive oil until very hot,
then slide your delicate sections into pan.
‘Tis time to sauté, tossing and turning
until beautiful slime coats the pot.

Carefully removed from heat,
I carry you slowly across the kitchen floor.
Reach screen door to our outdoor porch,
out I slip, without missing a beat.

Then, mustering all my culinary style,
I heave you onto the compost pile.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 20. Today’s prompt is to anthropomorphize a food, perhaps one you feel conflicted about. Phots from Pixabay.com

And added to dVerse, Tuesday Poetics where Misky has asked us to write about food.

How Long is a Blue Moon?

lillian13 Comments

Do not concern yourself.
Only twice in a Blue Moon:
that’s what the sages say,
the peacekeepers, historians,
the literati and oracles too.

Only the Harbinger keeps watch,
collects viable bodies of evidence.
Tracks events pointing backwards
to repetition of historical eras,
measuring time needed for a Blue Moon.

Adolph Hitler’s evil ran rampant,
stacked skeletal remains in godless towers
as ashen clouds floated to the skies.
It was during the time of the Blood Moon,
a horrific sliver of time gone by.

Only the Harbinger understands
the Blood Moon is but the crescent stage
in the life time of a Blue Moon.
It is the beginning soon buried within the tides,
too often forgotten in the ebb and flow of time.

Completion of a Blue Moon is near.
The Harbinger has placed its warning voice
in the human of its choosing.
As sunflowers wilt and blood is spilled
that chosen voice bids you listen now.

The innocents lie dead in our streets
and still this evil invades our land.
A different man, but mark my word,
he is the evil we face today,
many of our people, fighting to their death.

Can you not hear me?
How can you not understand?
Twice in a Blue Moon is now.

Writing for two prompts today:

It’s Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Merril is hosting. She’s created a list of names of actual English country garden roses and asks us to use one or more of them either in the body of our poem or in its title. “Twice in a Blue Moon” is actually the name of an English country garden rose!

NAPOWRIMO, Day 19, asks us to write a poem that begins with a command.
Photo is from Pixabay.com

Spring Time on Butrick Street

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Rain drops glisten daffodil petals.
Forsythia blooms in Mrs. Jester’s yard.
Buttery yarn disappears from hank,
chain-stitched and double-crocheted
by arthritic fingers on blue-veined hands.
Children with yellow chalk-smudged cheeks
squat on sidewalk squares.
Round smiling sun in place,
they draw happy flowers below.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 18 and dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe: both prompts coincide nicely in this poem.

It’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse. The word to put in our poem of exactly 44 words (sans title) is “chalk” and the pub opens at 3 PM Boston time.

The NAPOWRIMO prompt is to “write a poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.” The question I’ve answered is “What are yellow things you might see in the spring? My answers are daffodils, forsythia, yarn, chalk-smudged cheeks, and the sun. Photo is from Pixabay.com

** I grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. The house I lived in from the time I was two until I went into third grade was at 144 South Butrick Street. Mrs. Jester was our elderly next door neighbor.

Zoey

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This twelve-week old puppy
melts my heart,
tickles my funny bone
and tests my aging knees.

On the floor to tug and pull
then up to retrieve that bouncing ball.
It rolled to a place unknown to you,
where only I can stretch and reach.

Then on the floor to redirect.
Chew this toy, or this one here.
No . . . no . . .
not that shoe.

Then up again to attach your leash,
and out the door to poop and pee.
Then on the floor to toss and fetch,
then up again for kibbles and treats.

Then squatting down I attach your leash
and out the door we go to pee.
Not now you say, then tug to run
to greet the robins and have some fun.

And when it’s time for you to nap
tired out from all that serious play,
you circle twice and then curl up
to sleep and dream inside your crate.

And I, my friend, so tired too,
need no circles to find the couch.
I sleep, one ear half-alert
until I hear you stir and bark.

Then we start all over again.

Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 17. Today the prompt is to “think about dogs and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.” Photo is of our new grandpuppy, Zoey!

A Voice from Ukraine

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I promise you, there is beauty somewhere.
Stand quietly outside to hear birdsong.
See stars shine in the ebony of night.
Hear the innocence of a small child’s prayer.
Marvel at harmony in evensong.
Your freedom as a right, shines ever bright.

In our war, even as lives are taken
there is pride, resolve, purpose in the fight.
One newborn who survives shines hope ‘ere long.
The world’s sense of justice shall awaken.

Help us.

First and foremost, the illustration is titled Freedom and is painted by Ukranian artist, Vika Muse. This past Tuesday, she gave permission for dVerse Poets to feature her artwork and write poems inspired by them.

Vika Muse wrote about another of her paintings, The Air of Freedom, “I wish I could have manta rays in the sky…instead of Russian bombs and military airplanes. I’ve noticed that my disturbing paintings didn’t make me happier. They cause even deeper depression. So I’ve tried to draw my future. It is bright and sunny. There are no bombs and war…Only beautiful landscapes and dreamlike sky. I hope I’ll meet such a future some day.”

Vika Muse says this about Freedom, the painting that inspired my poem today: “This artwork was made due to the hope, that we have the light at the end and the name of this light – is the Victory. That we will survive and rebuild our country.”

You can find artwork by Vika Muse at @get.muse and http://www.inprnt.com

And a thank-you to Mish at dVerse for discovering this artist so we can all see and marvel at her wonderful work.

Today’s post was specifically written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 16. We are asked to write a Curtal Sonnet, a poetry form invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

A Curtal Sonnet is 11 lines (actually 10.5) which is precisely 3/4 of the structure of a Petrachan sonnet which is 14 lines in length. That is, it is shrunk proportionally. The rhyme scheme is abcabc dcbdc The final line is a tail or half line. Another, what I call, sudoku prompt!
I’ve taken poetic license because of the intensity of the poem, to ignore the final line’s “c” rhyme requirement, but it is the requisite 2 syllables. The other lines are all the requisite 10 syllables.