dVerse

From a Meadow

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From a Meadow

edged with bay trees
and madrones, past mighty oaks.
Into the heart of the redwoods,

past stone outcroppings
covered in moss, on a carpet
of age-old needles.

Listen.

Who would speak above a whisper,
when The Land whispers
in a voice heard by poets?

Cazadero, that expansive house
of nature. Each meadow or glade
a room. The air of redwood

and fir a cathedral of contemplation.
Who could pass through here
and not become a poet?

This is my response to Poetics: Make some room, from Laura at dVerse Poets Pub, with the prompt to “conjure a room in the literal, functional, metaphorical, imaginary and/or fantastical sense.”

The poem is derived from one of my earliest poems here, at WordPress, Cazadero Whisper. Margaret Fabrizio has been the sole steward of The Cazadero Nature and Art Conservancy in Sonoma County since she acquired those 40 acres in 1986, retaining the natural setting while introducing art installations throughout the forest and meadows of The Land. My other Cazadero poems can be found here.

 

The Only Way ~ ekphrastic haibun

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The Only Way

This life, spent for so long in one place, was not a life spent at a standstill. The directions taken may not have been direct, but they’ve brought me to where I am, today. The shortest route is not always the quickest.

Knowing the streets in the towns around me like the back of my hand meant never getting lost while making deliveries when, and where, they were needed. There is a comfort in knowing a place so well, but other elements in life have a way of interceding.

So it happened, that my last time behind the wheel of a truck was on the direct, cross-country route that brought me here, following my heart to a new home.

falling leaf
taken by the wind
shifting scenes

This ekphrastic haibun is my response to Haibun Monday: Meet Piet,
from Kim at dVerse Poets Pub, with the prompt to write a haibun
inspired by “Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons – “Broadway Boogie Woogie”, by Piet Mondrian

everything is gray ~ tanka, kyoka, gogyohka

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The prompt for MTB: 5-Line Japanese Poetic Forms from Frank at dVerse Poets Pub is to write a tanka, kyoka, or gogyohka. Frank discusses each of the forms. I’ve tried to cover all three, in order.  This series was a hard one to write.

bird with broken wing
beneath broken cedar branch
saved by helping hands
must be returned to the wild
before wild nature returns

broken clouds
in coming storm
offer hope
only an illusion
everything is gray

a soul is troubled
looking for escape
safe haven offered
troubles multiply
everyone suffers

Image source: Wikimedia Commons (edited here)

 

walked through once – cross-out poem

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walked through once

I know how
to build doors

there’s a difference
between entrances
and exits

enough
to risk the sun

the damage of life
wants me vulnerable
cleaved to the spine

pulling back
to the end

the body read

a door of risk

This is my response to dVerse Poetics: About Portals, from Anmol at dVerse Poets Pub. My cross-out poem is derived from one shared by Anmol, What’s Left Behind After a Hawk Has Seized a Smaller Bird Midair, by Justin Miller Reed.

Image source: morguefile.com

 

Another Fine Fix ~ quadrille

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Another Fine Fix

What can fix this fouled up fix
we sadly find ourselves in?

Could it be a time to be
thankful that we’re trapped within?

Considering that everything
that’s out there is a danger,

the safest place, in any case,
is far away from strangers.

This is my response to Quadrille #104: Oh, We’re in a Fix! —
the prompt from De Jackson at dVersePoets Pub, which is to use the word fix
in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!)

The Dark Truth ~ prosery

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The Dark Truth

A boy walks down the middle of a Chicago street at night, until he doesn’t, his bullet riddled body lying on the line between law enforcement and civility. A Chicago woman is caged for contrived circumstances during a traffic stop in Texas, bars the last thing she sees before her life ends. A man jogging down the road, alone in a time when gatherings are discouraged, is confronted by two men in a pickup truck, three shotgun blasts their deliverance of Georgia justice for the crime of being black.

There is fiction in the belief that this will end anytime soon. For each, the one thing darker than their skin is the darkness of times that never seem to end. To see the truth, imagine any past leader of color and know that, with each of these, his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream.

Although far from fiction, this is my response to Prosery: Maya Angelou, presented by Björn at dVerse ~ Poets Pub. With Prosery, the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction with a 144-word limit. Included in the bit of prose is to be a complete line from a poem. For this prompt, the line to be included is “his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream” from Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird.” I didn’t feel I could write fiction worthy of the weight of Maya Angelou’s full poem, but this does meet the additional challenge of hitting the 144-word mark, exactly.

Momentary Silence

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Momentary Silence

Ears equalize on descent as the passing shoreline
recedes and the brightness of day succumbs
to filtered light, eyes adjusting to another world.
Breath calm and regulated, focus turns
to the passing terrain. Mindful of hazards,
eyes scan the river bottom for items of significance
only to the diver, any thought of value long lost
to those who lost them. In a silence broken
only by that rhythmic breathing, thoughts rise
from their compartments. The day’s events,
concerns, are processed, consideration given
to matters whose weight seems less, floating
away within the surrounding peacefulness.
As the constraints of time are felt, the world
above calls. Rising to the light of day, willing
to face its demands, that silence is left behind,
the moment of solitary existence now past.

While scuba diving during the 1980s and 1990s, more than a hundred
of my dives were done while drifting with the current in the Niagara River.
(With the arrival of zebra mussels in the 1990s, visibility was 20 – 40 feet.)

This is my response to Poetics – Solitude, from Björn at dVerse Poets Pub.