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~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

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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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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.

If Snow Could Form Into Tree

24 Saturday Feb 2018

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aspen, Aspen Colonies, Aspen Trees, Dreams, God, Mothers, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Shades of White, Spirits, The Perception of White, White, Winter poem

If snow could form into tree,

It would be the aspen.

Snow, one of a thousand

shades of white,

The perception of light and brightness–

And Spirits, rising up like like colonies,

Covered in it. The snow. This aspen.

Our hopes. Our dreams. The good dreams,

That is. The ones where fairy god mothers

Float down and save us.

Did you know, aspen bark heals?

They say it takes away pain–

Like a friend, a lover, my mother

rubbing my back until it burns.

And, like a child, that’s what I want it to be.

Yet, its naked trunk rises like winter–

So unafraid, so unalone,

So rigid, intractable and distant.

Yes, if snow could form into tree,

It would be the aspen,

And the cold, white stillness of what seems

A winter that won’t go away.

Winter Hurt

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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The aspen is still again,

Its arms are bare again.

Yet, the small sound of chimes,

betrays a slight breeze–

As a coyote makes its way,

Through the snow, to our barn.

The wolfhounds pick up her smell

And there is barking,

And the crunching sound of paws

Lunging over hard pack.

This is the season

When coyotes mate–

They are hungry,

They are cold,

They are desperate.

And I wonder,

Is the aspen desperate, too–

Roots trembling, like hands

Held together for comfort–

Saying, It hurts to be this still.

It hurts to be this bare.

It hurts to be this hungry.

Winter Rime

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

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Aspen Trees, frost, hoar frost, Poems, Poetry, Rime, Winter, Winter poem

The consolation of cold:

Rime on the branches,

Aspen lifting their arms

To worship the day.

The Passing of Billy Graham

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

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Billy Graham, frost, Hell, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rime, Winter

The aspen is clothed,

Its limbs reach toward heaven

Alight with rime and worship:

A great one has passed

At ninety nine years–

The lives that are touched

At ninety nine years–

Mine, my grandfather’s,

The time overlaps,

spreads over the landscape

So that all are touched,

All are clothed.

It is zero today,

And I wanted to write

That hell is cold–

Until I saw the aspen

Clothed in hoar frost.

All the world has become

The aspen, outlined in ice.

Will I Wake In Spring?

20 Tuesday Feb 2018

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Aging, aspen, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spring, vulnerability

I said the aspen was naked,

But maybe it’s me that’s naked.

The older I get,

The more naked I feel,

Like the aspen stripped by winter.

Its bare limbs standing still

In the fog, are they my limbs?

How terrifying!

How vulnerable!

How lonely!

Will it wake in spring?

Will I wake in spring?

The Consolation of Cold Days

19 Monday Feb 2018

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The consolation of cold days

Are the morning skies

Awash in Fire.

The naked aspen,

Outlined in blue,

And white, and gray,

Has found some solace

In its own beauty.

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

17 Saturday Feb 2018

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“In the bleak mid-winter

  Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

  Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

  Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

  Long ago.”

The return of winter,

During Winter:

As we slept

It snowed eight inches.

Eight inches.

Enough to obliterate

The grass, starting to green.

I dreamt

Of being abandoned–

And woke to find

you’d been up since 4 am.

The House was warm,

As if the furnace

Had suddenly become efficient.

Too efficient, I thought,

As I watched the light

Gradually increase outside.

You see, there was no sun.

Not in this bleak mid-winter.

You’d say it was white,

But I’d say it was gray–

A tinge of darkness–

The unknown, like a fog

Near the barn.

The aspen,

Its white body–

elegant and erotic–

Naked in the snow,

Stripped completely bare

And framed by the fog–

Was so still.

Yes, it was still as death.

A corpse,

And, if it had started to dream,

It dreamt no more–

Unless, it too dreamt of being abandoned.

The Wind Speaks Winter

16 Friday Feb 2018

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The aspen’s branches are bare,

The wind speaks through chimes:

Winter, winter, winter, it says,

As if it knows no other word.

Did it forget the crocus,

Its alien spathe piercing the ground,

petals struggling

To escape the cocoon?

Did it forget the wild irises,

Dotting the pasture,

Tall, elegant, blushed in plum?

Or, the branches

Heavy with apple blossoms,

And the apples,

The gelding ate from her hands:

Open hands, the juice of the fruit?

Today, it plays dumb.

The bare tree waves

Its empty arms,

While snow shifts and drifts,

And the outside chandelier

Swings like a crystal pendulum

Trying to divine,

Will the cold ever end?

While the wind speaks,

Saying, Winter,

Winter,

Winter.

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