It was difficult to judge the November poems - there were a number of excellent submissions. The two winners are both free verse, but written in very different styles. Congratulations to Mary Cohutt and Jean Waggoner! Mary took a scientific concept with which most people are familiar and lets us view some ways it plays out through the seasons. There may not be anything in the poem we did not already know, but her images help us see gravity in new ways. Jean's poem, on the other hand, may teach many of us something as we read about two related trees.
Gravity
Spring....
A single plump raindrop
Gathering its friends
As it travels the curve of an umbrella
Then hangs like a tear on a lash
Before its watery free-fall
Summer....
Late blooming tulips
Of red and yellow
Drop petals
One by one
Weaving a carpet of color
For daisies to come
Fall....
Mini-bomb acorns
And leaves of umber and gold
Travel to land
In their singular style
Coming to rest in fragrant beds of pine
Winter....
Crystals of white
In their slow silent dance
Drifting
From a steel-washed sky
Blanket the ground
With a casual grace
And I....?
I wander and witness
Each step firmly fixed
For earth calls each of us to her
~ Mary Cohutt
Two Fabaceae
Asia Minor’s acacia is praised in song,
Akasya Kolulu Sabahlarlinda,
“Acacia-Perfumed Mornings.”
Taller than Bosporus roofs, bristling
and swooshing in high summer winds,
It drinks modestly of autumn rains,
thriving in earth starved of nutrients,
yet graciously hosting the bulbul’s nest
amid a sweet pea scent
so redolent of green Byzantium.
Its cousin, Southwest mesquite,
so much smaller in leaf and twig,
sequesters debris from its windy terrain,
and savors a crush of agave at its roots.
A dusty vaquero of high chaparral,
it repels avian histrionics with a forbidding
scratch of thorns and cook-fire brush,
while the flavor it imparts to barbecue
insinuates a deadly carcinogen
into biped carnivores’ meals.
Both arbors are Fabaceae,
subfamily Mimosoideae --
Fabaceae, Mimosoideae,
Mimosoideae, Fabaceae --
and here’s the rub: while
both engender beans;
one is host to the nightingale,
the other a repellent shrub.
~ Jean Waggoner
Showing posts with label Jean Waggoner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jean Waggoner. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Friday, August 21, 2009
August Challenge Poems
This month, I have selected two poems on the theme of memory. Remember that the poets still own copyright on their poems, so these works of art cannot be used without permission of the writers. The September challenge will be posted on September 1.
Wilda
Mother in May
Amid forests of prescriptions she rests,
past knowing the purpose of any,
propped up by bed crank and pillows, and
wrapped in linens of estranged belonging.
On a rolling table a pitcher waits
water for thirst, and musak T.V.
Pink roses crowd her life’s haul of vases
with the bounty of her third daughter’s yard.
Awash in flotsam of photographs,
she sees faces and scenes lost to time.
All talking’s too late to reclaim “the boy,”
her ministering son, or to moor her.
At youth’s bloom she was Queen of the May
in an old crown-the-virgin church rite.
Dare we pray? Dear Mother of Mercy, recall
her the visions and sounds of that day.
-- Jean Waggoner c. 8/2/2009
Jean Waggoner speaks in the voice of a son or daughter (or perhaps, daughter-in-law) whose mother is aged, fragile physically, and “beyond knowing.” This mother, who was once the Queen of May, is again surrounded by flowers. Is it “too late” to reclaim “the boy,” because mentally she has gone backward in time, already passing through the years when she was a young mother and her son was a child? If so, maybe it isn’t yet too late to pray for her to have the pleasure of once again seeing herself as Queen of the May. This is a poignant end-of-life poem.
Perhaps You Forgot
When I was alone and the days were endless,
perhaps you forgot
the feverish, sleepless nights I held you close.
When you said you were coming that day but didn’t,
perhaps you forgot
how you scanned the bleachers ‘til you saw me always there.
When I needed a familiar voice and you screened calls,
perhaps you forgot
that I always answered and gave what I could.
When the day comes that I have forgotten everything,
perhaps you’ll help me remember.
--Judith Tullis
In this piece by Judith Tullis, the narrator speaks as parent (probably the mother) to her adult child who has grown distant. In this poem, it is the son or daughter who has forgotten – forgotten what the mother did for him or her over the years: cuddling on sleepless nights during childhood; showing up to cheer at her child's games; and always doing what she could to meet his or her needs. This mother, who is feeling neglected, wonders if, when her memory is gone, her child will finally remember all this. The conclusion to this poem is a bit of a surprise, however. She doesn't say, when I'm gone, you'll remember and be sorry you didn't take better care of me in my old age. Rather, she says, when I have forgotten, perhaps you will help me remember.
Tullis has made excellent use of repetition in this poem. Addressing the grown child as "you," instead of using a less personal format, gives this poem emotional punch.
(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris
Wilda
Mother in May
Amid forests of prescriptions she rests,
past knowing the purpose of any,
propped up by bed crank and pillows, and
wrapped in linens of estranged belonging.
On a rolling table a pitcher waits
water for thirst, and musak T.V.
Pink roses crowd her life’s haul of vases
with the bounty of her third daughter’s yard.
Awash in flotsam of photographs,
she sees faces and scenes lost to time.
All talking’s too late to reclaim “the boy,”
her ministering son, or to moor her.
At youth’s bloom she was Queen of the May
in an old crown-the-virgin church rite.
Dare we pray? Dear Mother of Mercy, recall
her the visions and sounds of that day.
-- Jean Waggoner c. 8/2/2009
Jean Waggoner speaks in the voice of a son or daughter (or perhaps, daughter-in-law) whose mother is aged, fragile physically, and “beyond knowing.” This mother, who was once the Queen of May, is again surrounded by flowers. Is it “too late” to reclaim “the boy,” because mentally she has gone backward in time, already passing through the years when she was a young mother and her son was a child? If so, maybe it isn’t yet too late to pray for her to have the pleasure of once again seeing herself as Queen of the May. This is a poignant end-of-life poem.
Perhaps You Forgot
When I was alone and the days were endless,
perhaps you forgot
the feverish, sleepless nights I held you close.
When you said you were coming that day but didn’t,
perhaps you forgot
how you scanned the bleachers ‘til you saw me always there.
When I needed a familiar voice and you screened calls,
perhaps you forgot
that I always answered and gave what I could.
When the day comes that I have forgotten everything,
perhaps you’ll help me remember.
--Judith Tullis
In this piece by Judith Tullis, the narrator speaks as parent (probably the mother) to her adult child who has grown distant. In this poem, it is the son or daughter who has forgotten – forgotten what the mother did for him or her over the years: cuddling on sleepless nights during childhood; showing up to cheer at her child's games; and always doing what she could to meet his or her needs. This mother, who is feeling neglected, wonders if, when her memory is gone, her child will finally remember all this. The conclusion to this poem is a bit of a surprise, however. She doesn't say, when I'm gone, you'll remember and be sorry you didn't take better care of me in my old age. Rather, she says, when I have forgotten, perhaps you will help me remember.
Tullis has made excellent use of repetition in this poem. Addressing the grown child as "you," instead of using a less personal format, gives this poem emotional punch.
(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris
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