Poetry Friday is with sweet Irene from Birmingham.
I was letting this Poetry Friday go, but this morning (Saturday) I received the Full Moon Alert from my friend Jim. Jim has missed two FMAs. When I saw him out dancing at La Poussiere a few weekends ago, I felt I conjured him out of the dust. (La Poussiere means “the dust” in Cajun French.) Turns out, Jim and his wife Paula are fine, just busy. That’s my excuse, too. Well, isn’t it everyone’s?
The thing I love about Jim, in addition to his attention to nature and moons, is his love of poetry. I am reposting the two poems he sent. The first is from David Lee. I have taken in the hummingbird feeder, but I still have such a fond image of them at the feeder this summer.
Hummingbird at the feeder in my backyard. Taken August 30th. Photo by Margaret Simon
Ode Beneath a Hummingbird Feeder
1
Greenflash of lightning
and memory of a red scar
etched on the golden throat
of a still afternoon.2
Whirr of tiny wings
like a small thunder
across the redwood porch.3
Oh, arrogant little warrior,
if I had a naked weapon
I could brandish like yours,
I, too, would suffer
no foolish rival suitors
sipping at my ruby fount.
The second poem Jim sent was by Mary Oliver. The sentiment she expresses of hurricanes and the resurrection after is familiar to me. I send this out to my Poetry Friday friends who recently endured Hurricane Matthew.
HURRICANE
It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the Earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
Everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
But they couldn’t stop. They
Looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
There are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.
Reflections on the Teche 