Poetry Friday round-up with Carol at Carol’s Corner.
I signed up years ago for the Poem a Day email from Poets.org. But my inbox gets full of them. I feel like I need a stretch of time to read them all. And then sometimes when I open the poem-of-the-day, I am inspired to write. I get distracted from what needs to be done. I am like an artist in “flow.” Borrow a line. Steal a pattern.
My bumper sticker should read, “I’d rather be writing a poem.”
This one is patterned from Rebecca Lehmann’s poem Natural History using anaphora (repetition) of “Here comes” and “Tell me.”
Here comes light
streaming down the bayou
like a surfer riding the waves.
Here comes wind,
in a stream of its own
wiggling those chimes.
Tell me bent cypress branches,
how year after year
you shed and redress
in brighter green.Here comes the sun
casting a shadow of the mother oak
I spread my arms wide
in tableau, statue of majesty.
Tell me the child swinging on your rope,
how she came to you when her mother cried,
finding another mother in your shade.Here comes the land
softened by hard rain
answering our prayer.
Tell me about wet,
how all at once you feel fat
and full like resurrection.Here comes grey cat
the one with no tail
flipping at my feet.
Tell me what you see
at night on the lonely road.
Whisper your wisdom.
Follow me home.–Margaret Simon
This is lovely, Margaret. I love that repetitive “Here comes. . .” and especially the one about your cat “flipping at your feet”. Enjoy the long weekend.
Such a lovely poem, full of wistful memory and hope.
Margaret,
This is a beautiful comforting poem. I love the images. Lovely I tire too.
BYW. I want one of those bumper stickers too.
I love, love this poem Magaret. Ever the teacher, you not only penned a beautiful poem, you shared your process. Glad you stopped and wrote.
I’m glad I had the time to sit and write. Too many days of rush, rush make me crave this time.
Great to see you last weekend, Margaret, and glad you had time to write. You chose a really powerful couple of phrases to recast in this one. My favorite part is about “finding another mother” in the tree.
Lovely, simply lovely.
Great poem, the anaphora really works. Your poem has the feel of an anthem, a song of the bayou. I’m happy to read your words after weeks of your students’ words. Sometimes as a mom, I encourage other’s voices so much, my own thoughts get lost. I suspect that happens to teachers as well. And you are both mom and teacher.
Thanks, Brenda. I hadn’t really made this realization until you said it. I do need to encourage my own voice as well as my students’.
Definitely! 😀
Oh, what a breath-taking form! But I think your words in it were the power. So beautiful! And I echo Brenda. I like hearing the students’ voices, but I so enjoy the depth you bring to your own.
Donna, your poetry blows me away, so this comment means so much. Thanks!
Brava, Margaret. Of course I like the cat verse, but, like Heidi, I was moved by “finding another mother in your shade.”
I love it Margaret! Thanks, too, for writing a little about your process. (And now I don’t feel so guilty about letting the poetry I subscribe to stack up, unread, in my in-box… I do eventually get to it too, most of the time.)