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Bits of Poetry

~ Linda R Davis, Raven of Peace & Poetry

Bits of Poetry

Tag Archives: Hope

Let Life Rhyme Again

13 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Chaos, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Healing, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, pandemic, Poem, Poems, Poetry, spike protein, Survival, vaccine

I lost my desire to rhyme

about the same time

plexiglass invaded our stores

and pimply clerks ordered

me to click the bleached pads

of dollars, exchanged for goods–

shoppers, too long locked up

and lonely, a kind of death usurped

a joy, usually reserved for spring,

and retuning things,

but the unknown lacks name,

and there’s no map through,

our hearts were confused

and there were no rhymes,

and no rhythm, because time

ceased to be the count count

of seconds, minutes, hours–

Remember, I said it,

it’s unknown, the future bits,

wrinkled, in those deep wrinkles

a hot iron can’t unwrinkle–

so we resigned ourselves

to the sloppiness of prose,

in uneven meter,

I mean, me,

I resigned myself to getting by,

and now I’m on the other side,

of a vaccine,

MRNA with a spike protein,

and I say inject it in these veins,

so I may return to living again,

a life, with enjambed rhymes,

with slant rhymes, NO, a life

with hard rhymes,

like strife,

and knife,

and happiness.

Promise of a New Start

15 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Afterlife, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Dying, Forgiveness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Survival

“There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.” Robert Frost

Yet, they do fall, and silent, rot

beneath the changing bow.

Birds gather to peck the flesh

making less of loss,

Or perhaps, no loss at all.

You see,

the Universe claims everything

we leave behind.

Our regrets, too,

like spoiled fruit,

eventually fall away

scavenged by the sun.

Seeds are revealed

inside what we took as dead.

Trust me, next spring

there will be a new start.

Hope We’ll Live Through It

12 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Alone, Chaos, CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Hope, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spokane, Survival, Yearning

“The hope is that if you live through it, there will be art on the other side.” (Louise Glück)

Two hundred and twenty days,

the sun and sky, still uncaged,

yet, our lives, like flotsam,

float further and further away

from what we knew:

The Fox Theatre sits empty.

And my friend,

how we’ve drifted apart,

you, on your wreckage,

me, on mine, further and further

from the place. Our lives hit

that large rock. The ship

is lost, lost, lost.

Will someone find us,

and salvage what is left?

What is left?

Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage

09 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Anger, Chaos, Civil War, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Division, Fear, Fighting, Hate, Hope, hopelessness, Life, Longing, Loss, Memory, Napa, normal, Poem, Poems, Poetry, politics, Smoke Taint, Sonoma, Survival, Wine, Yearning

What does fire taste like in the glass,

Our fear, red with hate, the flames

of civil war? The skin, and the smoke,

cannot be divided; they say

it tastes like ash, what is left

when the smoke clears.

We can see the devastation.

Remnants of a vineyard;

what was there, before tragedy

made our eyes cry with anger.

The tree and native grasses

are poured out, consumed together,

while the vine exists in water it stored,

but cannot save its fruit.

Its creation, aging in the hot fog

of dreams. Life was supposed to be

the taste of flowers, plums, currants,

and only hints of tobacco,

swirled in our glass.

Our Once Shared Existence of Earth, and How the Virus Undid Us

02 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Alone, Chaos, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Divorce, Dying, Fear, Forgiveness, Hate, Healing, Hope, Horses, Life, Loneliness, Longing, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, politics, Self, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spokane, Women's Poems, Yearning

In this season, of triple digit days,

Anger gives way. It withers.

I said, I’m argued out about living,

What it means to be free, and human.

She is right, after all, I’m not an expert.

What do I know about a virus,

Which isn’t informed by the trees,

or clouds, or the way a horse sounds

when it calls to me in the dark?

I can only speak of the heart,

and even that, with authority of one,

my own heart, and how it breaks

To see the growing cries for help. Hate,

A distant thrum, beating, what it means

To be hurt, and hurt back harder.

Is any of this new? Or unique?

But we sought each other anyway,

To stake our claim on our opinions;

The lost way, of friendship and loving,

Something which came easy to us, once,

When we valued living over living,

A life we could touch with our hands,

sending our fingers deep into the dark soil;

To be truly clean meant dirt under our nails,

For weeks, for months, dirt under our nails.

That Day the World Promised to Heal Me

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Division, Grace, Gratitude, Healing, Hope, Huckleberries, Life, Loneliness, Love, Mercy, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Souls, Strength, Survival, Wilderness

And then the world said,

I will heal you

In ferns, unfurling again,

berries, growing ripe

On the bows of yesterday,

the ones your hands touched,

As you harvested the wild fruit.

This is my great forest of chatter,

it says, in a smattering of late flowers,

a fragrant, maskless breeze,

and trees you can touch with bare hands.

Speak to the sky, it cajoles,

And the sky will answer you back,

With its bold booms, and its wet clouds,

none of this needs viewed

from behind the doom of plexiglass.

The young clerk, who looked down,

and down, and down, faceless,

behind the many layers of protection.

He was humankind, afraid to look up,

afraid to touch, or speak,

or even see one another.

But the world said,

I remain the same, fully open to you.

See me, and I will heal you.

All the Bright Things

16 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Hope, Horse Poems, Horses, Life, Memory, Morning, Mt Spokane, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, Sun, Survival

The sun wakes through a morning window,

stretches itself over the horizon, smiles,

says, it will be a good day,

for horses to lay down and dream,

and I walk into its warmth,

almost able to hope, almost.

The sun persists to midday,

wakes the mountain, still white with snow,

and transforms its peak into a picture,

and if I could paint–

but I will, instead, think it,

in memory of last summer’s huckleberries,

picked there, there, half way up–

the sun smiles again

imagining the sweet boughs,

dark blue berries.

That’s what hope is, it says,

all the things you can see,

like memory,

made bright again.

This Pendant World: Passover

09 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

CoronaVirus, Courage, Covid19, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear, Fear of Death, Freedom, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, The Universe, This Pendant World

Wasn’t everyone born

thinking

they belong

here forever,

even death,

we hide

behind closed doors

praying it will passover

us,

the ones we love,

cling to,

this earth,

how it swings

on its chain,

from cold days,

to warm—our lives,

like seasons,

which go on and on;

how can it go on

without us?

This Pendant World: Super Moon

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Confusion, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Moon, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Stars, Super Moon, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

3

Some nights

wearing your shoes

on the wrong feet

feels right

The stars

haven’t changed

the moon is bright

Maybe tomorrow

it’ll be full again

big enough

to swing this chain

rock us back and forth

along this painful tether

to which we cling

Photo credit: NASA / Bill Dunford

This Pendant World

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Bird Poems, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Dying, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Sacred, Soul, Soul Poetry, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, This Pendant World, Yearning

2.

Today, I trusted you,

straddled your wide,

bare back,

sweet mare,

doe-eyed, and healthy.

We breathed together

what good there is

of this April day,

and offered thanks

to a world,

mostly untouched:

the mountain, still there,

the grass, still starting to green,

the birds, still returning,

singing their songs

into the dark hours

of the night.

This Pendant World

05 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Alone, CoronaVirus, Covid19, Death, Fear of Death, Grace, Hope, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, This Pendant World, Winter, Yearning

1.

Grace,

where are you now,

embraced in loneliness,

poetry was a kiss,

now it’s this:

today, a fog—

from doorstep

to trees,

to sky—

all blended in white,

our world reduced

to blindness.

What They Said About Love

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Courage, Death, Divorce, Forgiveness, Happiness, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Love Poems, Marriage, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Survival, Vows

New eyes, your eyes,

not their eyes, you see

yourself anew, beginning

to love again. How can that be

a bad thing? Love is not bad,

ever. Make it worth it,

she said, and she’s dead now.

If she’s right, you thought,

could it save us? A love—

worth it, worthy of—

holding past what we thought

it was, what they thought

it was, to what love is:

mostly forgiveness,

he said it, I’m sure,

in the vows. Forgiveness,

he went on & on

about grace, & letting go.

What Darkness Have You Known?

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

Aging, Courage, Death, Dying, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Loss, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Snow, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Strength, Survival, Winter, Winter poem

Imagine

if someone covered you

in ice;

how would you feel

in a chill

blanket of snow?

What darkness have

you

known, the kind

that can kill you,

your voice

silenced

in wind-drifts,

the hissing whisper

of winter’s kiss?

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.

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.

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.

Homes, Like Cathedrals

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Linda R Davis Poetry in Poetry

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Tags

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.

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.

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Recent Posts

  • Let Life Rhyme Again
  • Promise of a New Start
  • Hope We’ll Live Through It
  • Remind Me
  • Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage

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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
my valiant soul on Smoke Taint: 2020 Vintage
Linda R Davis Poetry on All the Bright Things

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

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