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~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Monthly Archives: September 2014

Dare To Get Wet

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Authenticity, Belief, Courage, Death, Fear, God, Infinite, Life, Nature, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rain

there is a reason

being in nature

makes us healthy

we find the infinite

under trees and clouds and sun

the rain wetting our skin

in that moment we don’t worry

about getting wet

belief is found

courage is found

The Worst Thing About Dying

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Death, Dying, Finite, Horses, Infinite, Irish Wolfhound, Stars, Why Death Scares Us

What’s the worst thing, she asked,

About dying?

The stars, I said, As I leave the barn,

My horses, buried nose-deep in Timothy.

The pounding dirt, I said,

The Irish Wolfhound’s lope,

And the dust of her joy.

My children, I said, Their hate of me,

Then, their love of me.

I will miss all of that.

 

What’s the scariest thing, she asked,

About dying?

It ends in dust, I said,

That upon my death, 

I really die. 

That I am finite, and not

Like the stars, 

That all I am, all I know,

All I feel, is less than the dust

Of the stars, I said.

Room 19, Code Blue

25 Thursday Sep 2014

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Code Blue, Death, Emergency Room, Fear of Death, Hospitals, Miracles, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Surgery

Immediate resuscitation required.
Sorrow begins in the pharynx,
Descends to the heart and lungs,
Or so you think, because it hurts,
Then, you’re bawling.
You’re sure they announced,
Room nineteen, Code Blue,
Watched enough ER to know
He must be dead or dying.
But then you think,
Because you can’t believe,
Really, such tragedies happen to yours,
Maybe Code Blue means something else,
Like, Get here fast and help,
And, as you start to console yourself,
Convince yourself you were wrong,
The nurse returns to where you sit,
Tells you it was a different Room 19,
A different person in Code Blue,
And you’re relieved,
Utterly relieved, and free.
Until today,
When you begin to wonder
If someday, someone will be relieved
You’re the one in Room 19, Code Blue,
Rather than their own,
Precious, little boy.

The First Day of Autumn

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Autumn, Beauty, Beginnings, Chaos, Fall, Imperfection, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Seasons

Even as the Willow’s leaves begin

To yellow, we think of a fresh start,

What life would be,

If we expected life to be imperfect

And, therefore, more beautiful.

Letting Go

21 Sunday Sep 2014

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control, luck, Poem, Poems, Poetry

Control is an illusion

Propped up by luck,

But it’s over fast enough.

What We’ll Remember

15 Monday Sep 2014

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Death, Horse, Horses, Klaus Hempfling, Life, Path of the Horse, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Stormy May

These
Are the things you’ll remember,
Not the big things.

****

Small, small things:

One leaf touched by the sun,

One small smell.

When we are dying,

I promise you,

The memories you will have,

In your last seconds,

Are about these small things

Touching our skin:

One leaf,

One moment with your child.

Not the big things.

We will remember the small things.

These small things are added

To a fulfilled life,

Or not.

Not the big things.

From “The Path of the Horse” Documentary

Klaus Hempfling

Tammany Creek Road

11 Thursday Sep 2014

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Tags

Calves, Cows, Horse Poems, Horses, Idaho, Lewiston, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Tammany Creek, Tammany Creek Road, Women's Poems

One sorrel horse. Gelding. 

Twenty-two years old.  Grade.

Twelve hundred fifty dollars.

 

Tammany Creek Road, it winds

Through hills as soft as breasts,

Dotted with cows and calves–

Spring days, you see them born,

Dropped to the ground in glistening sacks,

Mama’s licking too calmly, you think,

As their eyes try to focus on a new world.

 

She pulled a rusty 2-horse straight load

Along the road that winds through hills

As soft as breasts, pulled onto the gravel drive,

As steady, and slow, as resolve.

 

Resolve:

I’ve never seen a woman cry so unashamed,

Over a horse, in front of strangers.

I’ve never seen a horse look so long

Up a road, for a woman to return.

 

Understanding Eliot

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Four Quartets, Mind, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, T.S. Eliot, The Universe, Time

Only through time is time conquered,
The continual drip and tick,
Of the universe, our souls, our minds,
It ends, like this–

John Steinbeck Inspired: Potato Harvest Northern Maine

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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Air Force Brats, Aroostook County, John Steinbeck, Limestone Maine, Loring Air Force Base, Maine, Maine Potato Harvest, Maine Traditions, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Potato Harvest, Potato Picking Maine, Travels with Charley

potatobb

“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”

John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

 

Assignments, Orders,
New places and bases
Every two or three years.

Our birth certificates read like travelogues:
Washington, Alaska, California, Idaho
and Maine.
We were from everywhere,
For a little while.

Place.

Loring Air Force Base.
Nineteen eighty one.
Fall Break.
Potato Harvest.
Aroostook County.

Rickety re-purposed buses
Arrive in five am fog,
Loading groggy kids in flannel shirts,
Blue jeans, stiff leather boots,
Mismatched hats and gloves,
Too large for our hands.

Tradition.

Squat farms in provincial towns:
Caribou, Limestone, New Sweden,
The landscape of Northern Maine,
Ripe with French Canadians,
Large Catholic families,
Working hard to keep their homes.

This is what I remember:
Scrambled eggs in bacon grease.

Legend:

A man
Picked over two hundred barrels,
In one day.

Wicker baskets
Placed between our legs,
We were faceless kids
Picking and tossing
Newly flushed-out spuds,
Some tight and ripe,
Others half gone with rot.

Instructions:

Dump them into barrels,
Tag them with your number,
Wait for the tractor
To plough another row.

Twelve: my number.
Thirty: the number of barrels I filled.
Fifty cents: the pay per barrel.

Legend:

A kid, a picker, fell asleep in a dirt row.
He was run over by a tractor.
He died.

Maybe that wasn’t legend.

Memory.

Without lies,
There’s no poetry.
Without lies,
There’s no hope.

River Gods

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Courage, Dry Salvages, Four Quartets, God, Horses, Lonliness, Osprey, Poem, Poems, Poetry, River, Rivers, Spokane, Spokane River, T.S. Eliot

     I do not know much about gods;  

     but I think that the river

     Is a strong brown god –

     sullen, untamed and intractable.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: Dry Salvages

 

Nothing makes you feel more alone–

Yesterday’s twenty miles of river

Calculated today, a lifetime.

The hunting bird, you said eagle,

Then, you said Osprey,

It was an Osprey.

Great beautiful white-winged thing

Hunting the Spokane River

For the one that jumps too high,

Makes itself too known,

Dares to release itself

From the swelling under-swell.

 

Listen to T.S. Eliot read Four Quartets.

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Death Death Poems Dying Hope Horses Life Loss Love Poem Poems Poetry Soul Souls Spirit Survival Yearning

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