My poem, “How to Paddle Upstream,” is featured today at Silver Birch Press. Many thanks to Melanie for including my poem in this HOW TO Series.
Ken G.
Image: the Moreau River, in Missouri – one of the tamer waters where I paddle
~ In fact, I’ll be there later today ~
Alleging Contentment
Turning this way and that, heading
down a stream with no one direction,
leaves streaming by at a leisurely pace,
I arrive at my favorite spot on the river
beneath a limestone ledge that extends
twelve feet from a small bluff.
Caving without going underground,
I sit and enjoy the breeze that flows
beneath the rock ceiling shading me
and become one more rock in the river,
invisible to the world out there in the sun
as I watch a heron fishing on the shore
and turtles sunning themselves on a log.
Timing my stay long just long enough
to head home, I raise my paddle and push
myself out of the shade, startling the heron.
Winging its way downstream, it passes over
the turtles, each one splashing into the water.
Paddling out into the sun, I turn upstream,
kayaking my way back home.
This is my response to Meet the bar, verbing, the prompt from Björn that asks us
to write a poem that uses verbs we have made from nouns. While I have not
created any new verbs, I have used at least twelve words
that already exist as both noun and verb:
turning, heading, streaming, caving, shading, fishing, sunning,
timing, winging, paddling, splashing, & kayaking
(with a play on words in the title)
Making Their Own Breeze
The water of the Moreau River,
as motionless as the leaves of the giant sycamore
half-submerged with roots projecting skyward,
victim of spring’s high waters but determined
to send nourishment to branches willing
those leaves to life, and as still as the air
on this hot August day as my kayak sits
under a stone ledge, too high for me to reach
when volume and current are stolen by the recent
lack of rain, still feels cool to the touch in this shade
I have found, shared by the bank swallows darting
to their nests and back into the sunlight, no breeze
needed for their aerial antics as they skim the water
for a drink, then rocket up, only to turn abruptly
to feed in flights that would make any bat proud,
all of this reflected in that still water of the Moreau.
This poem is my response to Poetics: Flight of Fancy,
the prompt from Laura at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.
getting my outdoors
highs in the nineties, damn hot
in the sun, past two weeks
same for the next week
even 8am sees high seventies
reading the paper on the porch
at 7am the extent of my outdoors
damn humidity makes it no better
might as well be raining and it does
on and off, with rain tonight
enough is enough
if the rain stops
in the morning I’ll be on the water
hugging the bank
hugging the shade,
getting my outdoors
Image: The gar were splashing last month
(Video screenshot – click for larger view in new tab)
school of gar splashes
startled by passing kayak
a kingfisher dives
This haiku using the kigo of kingfisher is my response to Frank Tassone’s #Haikai
Challenge #143: Choose-your-own
Summer Kigo.
This actually occurred yesterday while I was kayaking.
Image source: Smithsonian/National Museum of Asian Art
Kingfisher, by Tsukioka Kōgyo
River Distancing
My kayak glides on the surface, the paddle
caressing the water in a smooth, easy rhythm,
while the sun glints off each ripple leaving the bow.
An oriole crosses the stream, is soon gone in the brush.
Woodpeckers and cardinals call out as crows
take flight. Turkey vultures circle lazily overhead.
Sunbathing turtles ignore my presence,
until my waves reach them, their plop into the water
one small part of the harmony surrounding me.
Closer to nature is my kind of social distancing.
Here’s my poem for the day, once more off prompt on Day 8
of National/Global Poetry Writing Month.
Shared at napowrimo.net.
Impermanence
Paddle paused, the kayak continues
drifting upstream, the mild current
offering little resistance. The wake
continues towards shore, calmer
in its own wake, until rippled
reflections become serene,
the kayak still, and the waves
only a memory.
This is my response to Poetics: Impermanence —
the prompt from Merril at dVerse Poets Pub.
Image: Moreau River, Missouri, June 2018
(click image for larger view in new tab)
Placid Waters
Wild only in its freedom,
there is no white water here,
just a paddle caressing
its surface, a stillness
marred only by ripples
of trees dancing as they reach
from the bow of a kayak
to the shore that holds
steadfast their stately canopy.
This is my response to Quadrille #96: Wild Monday — the prompt from Kim at dVerse, which is to use the word wild in a 44-word poem that does not require meter or rhyme.
Image: Ellicott Creek, Amherst New York
(click image for larger view in new tab)
Heartbeat on Wing
Floating on the river, tree-lined
stream, really, far shore just sixty feet away,
as bald eagle, far upstream, leaves its perch.
Each wing beat bringing it closer, regal profile
passing within fifty feet. Its graceful exit
over, held as a lasting impression.
The image, above, is the crop of a frame of video taken on the Moreau River, Missouri, October 4, 2019. My kayak was resting on an underwater ledge, immediately to the left of the angled rock (photo below). I was stable and partially shielded from view, but framing and focus at full zoom were hard to maintain, especially as I panned to track its approach and passing. The angled rock likely is broken from a nearby overhanging ledge that has numerous rocks lying in the water below. (These images also are cropped from frames of the same video.)
in filtered sunlight
I try to make sure that I have agreeable weather when I go kayaking, but sometimes the weather has other ideas. Yesterday, the sky was completely overcast, but showers weren’t predicted to arrive until late afternoon, with a thunderstorm expected at 10:00pm, so I launched at 10:00am.
I was on the water for five minutes when it started sprinkling, That lasted for just two minutes, and I continued on my way, planning to paddle almost two miles upstream before heading back. Rolling thunder in the far distance started about fifteen minutes into the paddle. Five minutes later, I got to my halfway point, which has a ten foot stone overhang six feet above the water, when it started to rain. Hard. I sat, protected, for twenty minutes, enjoying the sound of the rain on the water.
When it stopped raining, I continued on for three-quarters of a mile and was able to see a great blue heron, two green herons, and a deer. Pleased with the way things turned out, I turned back for the return to my launch point. That’s when the weather had it’s way, again, leaving me to paddle for twenty-five minutes in a light rain. If it was trying to ruin my day, it failed. It was a great day for a paddle.
This haibun is my response to
Open Link Night #247 at dVerse.
If you want to try magnetic poetry, you can do it online, here.
