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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Monthly Archives: March 2018

A Brew Of Buds

25 Sunday Mar 2018

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aspen, Aspen Buds, Aspen Trees, Balm of Gilead, Healing, Olive oil, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Poplar Buds, poplar trees, Spring, Toads

We acclimate to early spring,

Wind, rain, and fifty degrees,

Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor,

Because the world is opening to us,

Like the gentlest of heavens.

Poplar buds, sticky with resin,

Ready to be picked from their branches,

Mixed, and set aside to ferment in oil.

A balm for brokenness:

Stir together early spring toad-sound,

Coming to us from a darkened pasture

Where it overflowed with melted snow

And rain, a pair of killdeer nesting

Out by the north fence among the dry grasses,

And the aspen, still bare, but breaking in buds.

Riding Through a Grove of Aspens

24 Saturday Mar 2018

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aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Forgiveness, Horses, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry

The sweeping of our horses’ manes

Showed us the wind, and which way it blew,

But it was the aspens that gave it voice.

Swirling leaves,

Like erratic wings of butterflies,

Shimmered, shook, slapped,

Simultaneously clapping as we passed.

Grace in the grove, the ticking,

whispering clatter of the breeze,

Passing, back and forth, between worlds.

What We Don’t Own

23 Friday Mar 2018

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Tags

Freedom, Love, Mt Spokane, Nobility, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Strength

What a strange thing to own,

A view of Mt Spokane,

Windows, frame this home,

And look out toward its peak,

Covered in snow, and tinged

Orange by the sun rising in the East.

No wind, the sky is blue and brilliant,

With a few stray, stratus clouds

And a meandering sparrow.

It’s the kind of day that smiles,

Like I remember you smile,

And your eyes, always trying

To be kind, and painfully respectful,

Even when you should not be.

Fear

22 Thursday Mar 2018

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aspen, Brook, Chimes, Death, Early Spring, Fear, Night Terror, Nightmares, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Roses, Spring, spring poem, Unknown, Willow, Wind

I’ll describe early spring,

because it’s easier

than describing fear:

waking at one a.m.

in a terrible dream.

Where are you?

Why don’t you answer?

It’s forty degrees,

and the wind is rattling

the darkness and the chimes.

Everything is touched:

the willow, the aspen, and the roses

just beginning to break

into the tiniest buds.

Yet, still bare, still silent,

still waving their branches,

like I see you, waving your arms.

Canadian Geese

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Canada Geese, Canadian Geese, Flocks, Hope, Love, Loyalty, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Words

Suddenly out of the north came the sound I had been waiting for, a soft, melodious gabbling that swelled and died and increased in volume until all other sounds were engulfed by its clamor. Far in the blue I saw them, a long skein of dots undulating like a floating ribbon pulled toward the south by an invisible cord tied to the point of its V. Sigurd Olson

First, let me say, I couldn’t give a damn

The correct way to name them. Words

Spoken a thousand times, woven together

With emotion, standing with lifted arms

Underneath a flock of forty mighty wings.

Have you ever been so close, you could hear

The swish-swush of the air and feel its tremor?

The words they speak between them,

Their flight calls, their gabbling back and forth,

I swear, it’s all about second chances:

Those with cancer, might live,

Those with sins, might be forgiven,

Those who lost lovers, might be loved

Again, in the way of not letting go,

In the way of never letting

Even one,

Fall away.

The Aspen’s Happiness: First Day of Spring

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

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aspen, Aspen Trees, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Birds, First Day of Spring, Loneliness, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Robin, solstice, Spring, Winter, Winter poem

I think the aspen is happy today,

The way the robin perched

On its bare branches.

The skin of her feet,

The skin of that branch,

One warm body pulsing blood,

The other pulsing with spring sap.

To be touched after so long,

As your buds begin to break

The surface of what separates:

Your ability to drink of the sun,

And that long and naked loneliness.

3. Moss

18 Sunday Mar 2018

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Death, Life, Moss, Palisades Park, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Waterfalls, Youth

Nineteen and unbreakable,

Because there was always something

To catch onto when he fell,

Until yesterday.

I guess it’s true: Desperation reaches

For whatever it can, whatever

Presents itself a savior.

Could be a rock, a branch,

Anything, at the right time.

It’s not surprising,

He reached for the moss

As his foot began to slip

From the waterfall’s slick face.

The moss,

Only an arm’s reach away,

Easy to touch,

But unable to stop his fall.

2. Moss

16 Friday Mar 2018

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Grace, Love, Mercy, Moss, Palisades Park, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spokane, Waterfalls

I found one word,

As we hiked Palisades Park

To the waterfall.

This word coated everything:

Fallen logs, arched branches,

Boulders, and the paths

We slipped upon.

I was shocked. Really, floored,

When, at the end of our hike,

We came away with the same word.

I asked you, and you named it,

Then, I proved to you

I had already written a poem–

Now thrown out for this:

How lucky am I to see life

Like you do? The one I love,

Not wowed by the waterfall,

Or the burbling brook,

Not the caves,

Nor the down-trees,

But the moss that covered that world,

Like your love for me,

Softening it all.

 

Even One Word

15 Thursday Mar 2018

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Palisades Park, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Waterfalls, Wonder, Words

Today, I’ll hike to the waterfall

To look for a sentence

or, even one word–

One moment of wonder

Captured, and brought back

To this quiet house

With its walls and windows.

It’s out there, somewhere,

Waiting, like wonder does.

Hawaii Painter

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

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art, artist, Hawaii, ocean, Poem, Poems, Poetry

There you were again,

On the beach of Mauna Kea,

With your towels and brushes,

And your intense fascination

With red boats.

I took your photo,

Because it’s easier than painting,

And I’m writing this poem,

Because it’s also easier than painting

The way you searched the canvas

For perspective: stepping away,

Then closer, strokes from below,

Then from above. Okay, I’ll say it,

It was like you were dancing,

And taking liberties with the distance–

From the water’s curvaceous edge,

To the tip of that blood-red canoe.

Hawaii Cat

11 Sunday Mar 2018

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Tags

Cats, Feral Cats, Hawaii, Hawaii Cats, Missing, Poem, Poems, Poetry

You called out

beneath plumeria.

So like mainland tabbies,

But missing

The tip of your ear.

You laid out

On the concrete bench,

As I stroked your back,

With my full palm,

And said, Sweet Hawaii Cat,

You’re sweet, Hawaii Cat.

I called for you today,

But got no answer–

And I started to miss,

Not the waves, sand, sun,

pineapple and plumeria trees,

No, it’s you I miss, Hawaii Cat.

It’s you I miss.

Pele’s Curse

11 Sunday Mar 2018

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Cruelty, Forgiveness, Goddess, Hawaii, Legends, Pele, Pele’s Curse, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Revenge, Tourists, volcano

Even the T-shirts are tired of themselves,

But don’t take the lava rocks.

Pele’s curse is a real thing:

Cancer, heart-attacks, financial ruin.

Just ask Karen, who took coral and sand,

Then lost her dogs, her house, and her husband.

He gave me a heart-shaped rock,

And I got kidney stones; it’s true,

Pele has a bad temper.

Thousands of pounds of rock

sent home to the island each year:

Place this back from where it came,

They scribble out to some unknown.

Absolution, it’s that easy:

Your hollowed-out heart,

An envelope, a stranger,

And a cruel goddess

Who is supposed to forgive.

Poem Then and Now

09 Friday Mar 2018

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adventure, breakups, Divorce, Dreams, finding yourself, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poems About Kids, Poetry, sons

You always flew on wings

adrift of sky and dreams,

A journey to find–

What was it you said?

 

It’s not enough to be alive,

If you don’t feel alive.

 

Yes, that was it.

So we watched you leave,

As the sun struggled

To get clear of the clouds,

At least, those were the lines

In the poem I wrote then.

But all I remember now

Is your back–

And how you didn’t turn

To wave goodbye.

Death of a Butterfly

09 Friday Mar 2018

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Aging, Birch, Cats, Divorce, Hydrangea, Life, Neighbors, Poem, Poems, Poetry

1

There are people we meet

Who are old;

They get older.

Her green house,

our gray house,

separated by a few feet

And a porous shrub.

The black and white manx

Meandered between her yard,

with its ancient birch,

glorious hydrangeas,

And ours,

with its withering grass.

Island Fever

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Germany, Hawaii, Home, Island Fever, Loneliness, Longing, Mauna Lani, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Poland, Prague, Suffering, Travel

It’s a real thing, he says,

Musing of moving from Mauna Lani

To Austria, Poland, Prague, or Germany.

Haven’t been to the ocean

In three months, he says,

As he pecks out letters,

One by one, on the keyboard.

Of course, we later joke

About wanting island fever:

A life absent of snow, of the ice

We slipped upon, of gray days.

But to trade the aspen,

With its bare arms,

And its crystaling rime

And silence, the way it pleads,

The way it trembles

Among its roots, from start

To start to start–

That anticipation, that loneliness,

That incredible wonder—

Even in paradise, the heart

Has its hole. It has its terrible

Brokenness, and its frantic

Longing to be away.

 

Second Winter of Winter

01 Thursday Mar 2018

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Bird Poem, disappointment, Future, Hope, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Winter, Winter poem

The second Winter was the cruelest,

The way it buried our hopes.

Even the ground had opened its mouth,

Like a baby bird, waiting to be fed.

I swear the grass was starting to green,

And I’m sure I heard a frog that night–

We sat outside and said we smelled spring.

We were wrong, as we always are

When we try to divine the future.

The only animal who tries to divine the future—

The only one who knows disappointment

In buried grass, bare branches, and silence.

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