Love of this World

20 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

Tags

Gratitude, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Thankfulness, world

Everyday, I would write a poem,
as if it’s my last poem,
a last letter to a world I love,
love, and hope it means something
to say so, even as I know
it means different to different–
what does it mean,
I hear the world asking,
imploring me to offer proof.
But you’ll have to take me at my word.
A poem a day, a song,
fingers along a rosary,
giving thanks at each bead,
and never running out
of things to be thankful for.
Bead, to bead, to bead:
the sun, the stars, the grass,
rain,
blessings and blessings,
love,
yes, love–
I don’t have to tell you,
or prove it;
you know what it is.
I hope
you know what it is.

A Memory of Wings

26 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Birds, Butterflies, Persevere, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Singing, Souls, Souls Singing, Survival, True Selves, Truth, Wings

Wings of butterflies,
a vague memory
of our wings.
Birdsong. We sing,
as we struggle to hear
the melody. Revive
and persevere.
Strive.
We hear it.
Some days,
it’s easy,
like today:
the journey,
the song,
the singing

Survivors Who Love

24 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Childhood, Children, Divorce, Forgiveness, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Surviving, Trauma, Violence

What is the opposite
of the violence
you witnessed,
hostages to our pain,
too young to know
what normal should be?
But tonight,
all three grown,
and at my side,
the peace
of survivors who love
and forgive–
because what else is there
except to love
and forgive.

A 52nd First Day of Summer

21 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

clouds, Death, embrace, Flowers, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Manito Park, Petunias, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spokane, summer

I’m writing today in response to a prompt about clouds that I found on the Manic Sylph’s blog.

My fifty-second first day of summer,

is cool and cloudy, the way I like my days,

a high of seventy, and I’ll stroll Manito Park,

while the flowers reprieve from scorchers,

and chaos; mild days are undervalued

in this world, everyone wants to run hot;

can I just sit here and dead-head my petunias

until I die of natural causes, hopefully,

in my sleep, when I’m past my eightieth

first day of summer, or ninetieth—

however old it is when I’m ready to go.

Are we ever ready to leave days like this?

There is always someone left to love,

to smile at, to hold in our just right embrace

while the sun comes up in their souls,

and they, too, long to celebrate

their first cloudy days of summer.

All These Years, Still Holding Hands

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

We sat,

chairs close together,

our favorite bistro,

next to the river park,

under shade of roses,

ancient oak, and maple,

admiring the older couples,

wondering,

Which will we be—

someday—

and hoping for the aged lovers

to our left,

still holding hands.

A Final Severance

18 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Death, Deer, Fear, Fear of Death, Loneliness, Poem, Poems, Poetry

Sentient soul, to sentient soul,
he realized her panic
when he came barreling
around the corner; sundown,
and their eyes met
for just that second,
she decided to run.
He’d forgot to honk his horn,
thought she’d made it,
then the thud,
like the snap of twig,
a broken limb,
the doe, three-legged,
ran down the ravine.
He was amazed at her speed,
dismayed by his deed,
that couldn’t be undone,
or lightened,
or made right.
In fact, he knew
there was nothing left
except she would die.
He wondered at that,
and how death arrives
when we least expect,
and then, the frantic,
lonesome search for a quiet place
to lay your broken body down,
and the terrible waiting:
last fear, last tight breath,
a final severance from this world
on what had been a beautiful night.

When She Was Young: Song of the Lotus

04 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Addiction, Daughters, Flowers, Healing, Hope, Loss, Lotus, Love, Mother Poems, Mothers, Odyssey, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Promises

“The lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them.”
The Odyssey Book IX

Promises, she heard them all,
the call of her mother’s voice,
she wanted to believe:
This won’t happen again, baby.
Maybe, it was okay to trust
for a while, and rise, like a lotus blossom,
above the mud of her addiction,
floating with petals stretched up to the sun.
Somewhere, she thought,
there is a story of a girl whose love could cure,
and pour itself out as an ethereal blanket,
so magical, together at last,
even their bones would long
to float away in the lotus’ song.

The Sweet Smell of Starting Over

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Bird Poetry, Birds, Death, Divorce, Eternity, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Longing, Love, Love Poems, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rain, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spring, spring poem, Starting Over, Survival, The Universe, Unity, Women's Poems, Yearning

Even the stars are made of this:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

What comes from above,

and we are made right,

our thirst, our life—

forgiveness,

after years of anger;

we finally feel love again.

The earth wreaks well of redemption,

grace permeates the dry ground.

And, the only sound we hear now,

birds,

who sing of starting over,

or, at least that’s what we hear,

like the smell of fresh water,

among grass, and clover:

sunshine & sweet petrichor.

A Refuge of Birds

17 Friday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Birch, Birds, Family, floods, Grass, nests, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Refugees, Starting Again, Starting Over, Survival

Flood warnings, became flooded streets,
a gathering of mud, and other debris,
while in our yard, a branch broke,
from the old birch tree,
and in it, the grass nest,
a family of birds, now refugees.

And, I imagine them searching,
for a place to start again,
free of broken, flotsam dreams,
their past life, falling from this tree,
as the birch continued to bud,
and the grass continued to green.

For Cowboy, Heart of my Heart

06 Monday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Centaur, Cowboy, Heart Horse, Horse, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, James T Slavin, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Trail Ride

*The horse that restored my strength, Cowboy. 2003-end of our reign.*

If waif means thrown away,
we were waifs—
he, an orphan,
me, afraid of the world;
yet together, we were a magical beast,
fleet of feet, pounding ground
with a rumbling beat,
breath joined,
as in lore,
we were centaur,
& maker of the stars,
& shiny things,
creator of our kingdom,
our safe place to run,
abreast of sand, loose rock,
and sun smiling down on it all–
a coronation of soul,
of spirit,
and what will remain,
from that first day,
to the end of our reign.

Hog Lake Falls

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

arrowleaf balsamroot, Bird Poems, Crows, Gratitude, Happiness, Hog Lake, Hog Lake Falls, Hope, Horse, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, Spirit, Spokane, spring poem, Waterfalls

The ground sounds hollow,

an echoing cadence of hoofbeats

follows among ponderosa, & a caw-caw

of wood raven, forest spies tattling

on our prattling happy chatter,

while hawks circle the pool

at the base of hog lake falls,

& balsamroot whispers

about the perfection of it all.

I Am, Reflecting on Easter

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Afterlife, Creator, Crocus, Crocus poem, Daffodils, Easter, Forgiveness, hyacinth, Lilac, Poem, Poems, Poetry

I am the peace of the creator
of love, breath, forgiveness, savior
rising like crocus, and hyacinth,
daffodils, and the fattening bloom
of lilac; imagine my perfume
in the waking hours of spring.
You will place me in mason jars,
and dream of fireflies, far-off
memories of those you loved
in the vast and moldering green.

Homes, Like Cathedrals

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Cathedral, Divorce, Family, Homes, Hope, Loss, NotreDame, Poem, Poetry, Survival

Loss, it leaves an open space,      
         a void
that can become a vacuum       
         or, it can heal.       

Loss, it can create chaos,     
        as homes, 
like cathedrals, 
        burn    
and we wonder 
        what will be left? 
to rebuild from the ashes.

New Soul

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Birth, Brook, Children, Courage, Fear of Death, First Born, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Mothers, New Soul, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Son, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Yearning

Some, come into the world as old souls,
like they’ve been here a hundred times,
a bit weary, wise, or jaded, made cautious
by pain & an understanding of human hearts.
But not my son, whose eyes saw the earth
as if he, and it, were just created.

Yes, from first breath he was a wanderer,
like his father in his lust for the world,
possibilities stretched out before him,
no person stranger, no place strange,
a modern day viking making his way
across an infinite, angry sea, with no map.

Unless, music is a map. Song after song,
his heart in waves of hard-plucked strings.
He sang loud, and I wondered how
he could pour himself out in front of crowds.
I see him, even now, upon the ocean,
his wooden ship, the waves, the sails.

Veterans of Dead Bones

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Death, Humanity, Letting Go, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Survival, Surviving

We are veterans of dead bones,
products of love, and its loss,
memorizers of last breaths,
and what letting go feels like.
The front line of memory gives way,
what we held in our hands,
dissolves, like water on clay–
muddy water, returning
to muddy ground, then dust;
it is a fate that awaits all of us:
empty arms, encircled of sacred air,
grasping at remnants
of what we valued there.

Things Poems Can’t Explain

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

aspen, Divorce, Hope, Loss, Love, Masochist, Metaphor, Pain, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Violence

I searched metaphors to describe you,
the aspen’s branches beating against themselves,
waving for help, like desperate arms,

but that was the work of the wind.

The coyote, who devoured all except the head,
and what appeared to be a shoulder
of our girl cat, and left her among the weeds,

but that was the work of hunger.

Then I thought, maybe the foal,
when they drove off with his mother,
her whinnying, more distant and more distant,
as he crushed his tender body against the rails,

but that was the work of love being torn away.

No, in the end, I came up empty explaining
your helplessness against self-loathing,
our loss of hope, and leaving,

but that, it seems now, was the work of surviving–
surviving the things even poems can’t explain.

The Verdict of Trees

07 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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I surrender myself

to the verdict of trees,

better judges;

the quaking aspen,

shaking its many leaves

at me, or standing quiet,

as I plead my case—

waiting, the hardest part.

Trees, tell me

the verdict

of my life,

the verdict

of my heart

poured out in living,

where wind rattles

the bending branches,

sways the very tops

of our souls,

sometimes, snapping them off

during the darkest storms.

You, Me, and the Spokane River

02 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Canada Geese, Cowboy, Freedom, Hope, Horse, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, River, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spokane, Spokane River, Spring, Survival

We rode dirt and mud,

through standing water,

like ponds, to verify

the sun, and life

of returning things:

Canada Geese, wood ravens,

mule deer, grazing at dusk,

and the river, surging

with the spring run off

of our souls, singing.

Dear Poet

31 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Dear Poet,

Make them listen, with words

that rumble their insides,

and turn them outside,

fearing poets, again,

like they fear truth:

a mirror, a reflection,

a solid witness to a crime.

When you say you’re a poet

make the whole world tremble

when they hear it.

Second Birth

29 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

aspen, Aspen Trees, Beauty, Courage, Death Poems, Dying, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning

early spring,

a cold aspen, clothed

in soft buds, robed in white,

like ash, born of snow;

to touch her is to quake

with the anticipation

of a thousand leaves

desperate to unfold;

a thousand leaves

desperate

to unfold you.

	Linda R Davis Poetry on A Low Barrier Between Life and…
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	Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
	Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
	Linda R Davis Poetry on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage

Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Category Archives: Poetry

Love of this World

A Memory of Wings

Survivors Who Love

A 52nd First Day of Summer

All These Years, Still Holding Hands

A Final Severance

When She Was Young: Song of the Lotus

The Sweet Smell of Starting Over

A Refuge of Birds

For Cowboy, Heart of my Heart

Hog Lake Falls

I Am, Reflecting on Easter

Homes, Like Cathedrals

New Soul

Veterans of Dead Bones

Things Poems Can’t Explain

The Verdict of Trees

You, Me, and the Spokane River

Dear Poet

Second Birth