Even Song

green tent

Plop
Patter
Ping
Slow steady nocturnal rain
taps on the yellow-green ceiling
of my ancient canvas tent.
Comfort seeps in as I burrow deep
in my cocoon zippered bag,
crisp cold nose, just outside the seam.
Lids shutter slowly as ears perk to listen.
Thoughts float in a cool haze.
A hooting owl sits sheltered
by spring’s green-yellow canopy.
The drip, drop, patter
plops above its feathered head.
Dreaming now,
a moon sliver guides me
to a sleep moment of clarity.
These rain notes are nature’s evensong.
A prayer
for all who sleep in this forested place.

rain-233545_1280

Revised from one of my very first poems written in February, in my first class with Holly Wren Spaulding. Posted so early in March (as Rain Song) , I doubt but five people saw it!
UPDATE:  I am in Alaska, as you read this! Will be posting every other day for two weeks until I return.  Mostly new — poems that is — although I will be rejuvenated (love that word!) even more upon my return to Boston, our city by the sea.

Tankas* for Earth’s Children

Volcanoes fester
seethe and boil beneath earth’s skin
like red hot anger
held within, spews forth fury
assaults all within its grasp.

Watch how the clouds fly
sometimes dark and threatening
often soft and light
retreat in black moonlit sky
promise always to return.

Oceans between lands
offer pathways to friendship
teem with life for life.
Waves ebb and flow to all shores,
assure life’s cycle anew.

Sun of mother earth,
shines her perpetual light
nurtures all children,
no matter diversity
prejudice vanquished for all.

Listen my children,
the earth shudders in anguish
sees your refusal
to step lightly on her soil.
Embrace your sameness and love.

 

*My June Challenge Poetry Class assignment was to write a poem within constraints, and the next day’s assignment, to write a poem of instruction. This combined the two. A tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry that contains 31 syllables, typically in lines of 5-7-5-7-7.

Cattails

Tall brown spikes on green stalks.
Herd plants, unlike their namesake
stand together, day after day.

Under hot sun, wind and occasional hail
bake into velvet texture
slowly stretch until they burst.

Brown-flecked white fluff stands on end
like the cat, suddenly shocked
sensing threat nearby.

A thresher looms its blades
and they scatter in the wind
seeding their next generation.