There were several
interesting poems submitted this month. If you haven’t tried the prompt of
writing about what you “wish” you were, or writing as if you are something
other than the person you are, you might want to give it a try. One writer
wishes she were a queen (beware if you don’t treat her right); another would
like to be a griffin or a unicorn. The winner, though, says she is the wind.
I am the wind
The weary sailor
looks out to sea
A solitary figure
Battered hull
And lifeless sail
Mirrored in the glassy
stillness of the water
Raising his rope
scarred fist to the sky
He curses and rails
Then pleads and
prays
I consider
A dot of red
Dancing against a
summer-blue sky
Tethered to the
small hand
Of a laughing child
I lift
I pull
I watch the joy of
the tiny figure
I could leave; I
could steal
Instead, I play
An old woman, some
say a crone
Bent with her years
Tends to her roses
in the simmering sun
Veined hands
pressing a damp hankie to her face
Just one more
shrub, maybe two
The white heat
beats down
I gather some
shaded air; pine tree cool
and blow softly,
blow sweetly,
caressing the nape
of her neck
I feel her smile
Gale force
Cars tumbled
Roofs gone
Trees uprooted and
tossed like playthings
Sobbing folks fold
to the ground in rag doll style
Their life’s work
gone
A wake of devastation
Then silence
Sometimes my force
cannot be contained
and the sailor?
His ocean gray eyes
brighten
His body alert
As he senses the
smallest stirring of air
His sail flutters
As does his heart
Then fills
As does his heart
He is laughing; he
is flying; cutting through the choppy sea
He travels with my
blessing
I am the wind
Mary Cohutt
This poem has a
series of interesting images, beginning and ending with the sailor. The wind
hold control over the fate of the sailor. But between the first and last
stanzas, we see other places the wind is at work, and other people who feel its
impact.
Mary Cohutt is a
Leasing Consultant from Western Massachusetts. She also has her own business,
"The Good Daughter," which provides business assistance to older
people. She has two adult children and two grandchildren. She has
been a winner in the Poetry Challenge before.
The poems this month
were judged by two members of the Poetic Lights group of which I am a member,
Marilyn Huntman Giese and Linda Wallin.
© Wilda Morris
