Final Childhood

 Poem #09 for the year. The prompt was "moments." 

The child encounters life with joy!

The world, not yet reduced to inconsequence,

Looms as an immense mystery.

 

The wandering brook in the backyard

Needs no label;

It is as big as the Mississippi!

He fords it with daring and

Emerges a conqueror.

 

The dead willow nearby

Needs not be cleared away or disregarded.

It invites exploration.

He climbs,

Perches in the crook,

Surveys his kingdom below.

Finds a hole,

Secrets away his treasures.                                                                                                              

 

The child has no need for public acclaim.

He has the sky!

The masses, self-presenting and petty,

Conduct their insignificant business far below.

While he finds humble comfort and concord with nature.

 

Now growing old, I draw near to childhood again.

Outside my notice,

Public players, foolish and tedious,

Fill the world with discordant noise.

Empty souls boom, loud as kettle drums.

Strident sound by people who dread the silence.

 

Returning to childhood,

I learn to pray again.

I retire to the world God made,

To the memories of people who’ve gone before.

No longer attending the croak of the unnatural frog,

Fat and ugly and unmeaning.

I rest in the lapping of lake water on the shore

And the laughter of children.

 

 

Inspiration by:

Psalm 43:4

Anthony Esolen “The Final Childhood”

 

A Walk along the Ridge

 Poem number 8 of 2024 is due today in the Deadlines for Writers online group. I wrote free verse which began with the prompt "Nine Months," which morphed as I thought about it into "The Passage of Time."

A Walk along the Ridge

She strolls the wooded path in celebration of Fall.

Brilliant colored leaves swirl - yellow and red and gold -

Catching leaves in her hands and dividing them with her steps,

She spots a low-hanging tree branch and stops to rest.

 

The tree, having lost its youth, trembles in the Autumn wind,

And she knows,

Even as Autumn leaves swirl around her feet,

She knows that

Just a few steps around the bend,

Winter waits.

 

She watches as the late light plays on the fallen Autumn leaves.

Closing her eyes to better hear the melody on the breeze,

Sunny Spring and Summer seasons fill her memory.

 

Those were carefree days

Vibrant greens and blues danced in the sunspots along the forest path

Long into the tardy sunset.

Just minutes ago, it seems, the grass was green

And pregnant yellow-green buds,

Bursting with unborn life,

Filled the branches overhead,

The embodiment of wonder waiting to be discovered.

 

In those fruitful Spring and Summer days,

The Sun stayed high in the sky long and warm!

And children played late in the meadow!

 

She shifts her unsure seat on the sagging branch

Which seems somehow to signify her very being.

Seasons have come and gone!

Come and gone!

Come and gone!

Like fingers snapping.

Winter!

Spring!

Summer!

Fall!

 

The seasons have flowed

And flown.

Magic memories of Spring and Summer persist…

And their joy and beauty remain clear and pure.

Spring was hope and anticipation.

Summer was good and fulfilling!

And now the Fall of life is waning.

Winter is just around the bend.

 

Still she whispers, “Yes!”

“Winter can be beautiful,”

She reminds herself.

She rises from her Autumn resting bough

And walks into her Winter with Joy and an open heart.

(Inspired by "Seasons" by Deborah Malone. 

The Cowboy's Cowboy

 In 2014, my granddaughter, Natalie, had an assignment to write a poem related to "the Wild West" since her class was planning a field trip to Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, GA. Teachers from around the region would choose a few of the best poems from their students to enter in a contest. The winners from each school would read their poems at the museum on the day of the proposed field trip. 

Natalie had not previously written poetry and mentioned her anxiety over the assignment to me. When my grandchildren were in public school, I had made it a habit to read whatever literature they were assigned to read and keep up with their school progress in other ways, so one day I sat down to think about what could be written related to "the Wild West." I had in mind sending her a few ideas to help her get started.

I wrote a very rough first-draft light-verse poem about "'ol Hank." A couple of days before Natalie's poem was due, she told me she had not come up with anything, so I sent her that rough draft as a starting point to help her get started writing. That was probably not as good an idea as it sounded to us at the time. Instead of igniting a new idea in her, it seemed to confine her to just adapting the poem I had started. Deadline came too quickly, and she just turned in the poem that we had more-or-less cowritten. Of course, it won!

She was now locked into reading it aloud at the district Western Art assembly. It has bothered both of us ever since. She felt like she had cheated by turning in a poem she saw as mostly mine. I felt guilty because she felt like I helped her cheat and because she didn't see the final poem as truly hers. I also felt bad that I had apparently caused her to doubt her own ability and integrity. This incident became an embarrassment to both of us over the years, and the poem was mostly forgotten/unmentioned/hidden. 

I recently found an old copy. At this point neither of us is sure how much either of us had to do with this version or even it this is the final copy that was entered in the contest. Neither of us has felt comfortable claiming authorship. But I think it's a cute poem, so here is the, I guess, cowritten poem about 'ol Hank. 

Ol’ Hank was a cowboy’s cowboy –

That feller knew how to live.

Any case that came along,

Hank had advice to give.

 

Now, he warn’t no shoddy blowhard;

He didn’t talk no bosh.

But when he’d meet a greenhorn,

He’d fill their ears, by gosh!

 

“Hey, Dude!  Hey, City Slicker,”

Ol’ Hank was known to shout.

“You’re all hat and no cattle -

That’s not what cowboyin’s all about!

 

Now, being a real true cowboy

Takes a bigger man than you.

If you don’t wanna get your plow cleaned,

Here’s what you gotta do.

 

Don’t never squat with your spurs on.

Don’t drive black cattle when it’s dark outside.

Don’t dig for water near the outhouse;

Don’t get in the saddle ‘less you’re ready to ride.”

2014 by Natalie Davis (Akins) (with Joan Turrentine)

Who?

I submitted this very incomplete poem to the Deadlines for Writers site this morning. The assignment was right in the middle of my wheelhouse and should have been a piece of cake for me - using rhyme, alliteration, and/or assonance; I just didn't work at it until the last minute. 

Which me am I today? I ask.

I really need to know.

If I’m the me that hates to cook,

How will dinner go?

 

If I’m the me who always does

More than I have to do,

We’ll feast on caviar and prawns

Like kings, and counts, and dukes.

 

The me who likes the finer things

Will wear an evening gown.

The me who lives for comfort will

Slouch unkempt into town.

The Estate Sale

 The 6th poem of the year (in the Deadlines for Writers group) is due today. The prompt is "tempted." I started there and ended up somewhere very different. Writers are commonly advised to "write what you know", and what I know right now is the settling of my parents' earthly estate. Here's the free verse poem I submitted. 

The Estate Sale

The long-empty driveway fills with cars and trucks.

The homeplace, alive again just for the day, braces for one last invasion.

Not the hordes of children whose excited voices once filled the yard with joy.

Not the recent lines of workers laboring to give the place a modern appeal,

The old house, instead, braces for one final invasion of strangers.

 

The front door, unalarmed, snubs the knocks of unknown visitors,

And they walk in as if visiting the corner store.

The back porch steps creak restlessly as the curious saunter up to the open doorway.

The opportunists, with darting eyes and careless hands, fill the hallway with the odor of greed.

The once-private bedroom grieves as a burly man in grease-stained jeans nonchalantly disassembles her bed.

Her pink robe, looking on from behind the door, cringes as the man discards the worn sheets with disdain and begins hauling her bed, in pieces, out the door.

 

Now without her cherished silverware and ubiquitous Blue Willow china,

The bereft dining room sets the table with silence and empty space.

Chairs are scattered and separated from their lifelong sisters.

Though once clustered together around the family table,

Each now stands alone – no longer part of the warmth of the family’s gathering place.

 

An interloper sits rocking in the 100-year-old rocking chair where Great Granny fed her babies.

Where Grandmother soothed the hurts of her toddlers.

The same rocking chair where she sat as neighbors comforted her all those years ago as the hearse bearing the body of her husband, pulled away.

Unknowing, unthinking, the squatter rocks and complains that the asking price for the old rocker is too high.

 

One by one, her things leave their cohorts and their home in alien arms.

A lifetime’s collection slowly reverses course and becomes uncollected.

In the quiet kitchen, where she used to gaze out the small window into the woods behind the house,

The half empty canister of tea stands in the corner and silently consoles the weeping sink,

And mourns too her absence.

Fancy Writes a Poem

 Deadline morning found me still totally blank on the prompt "underneath." I wrote and submitted this short nonsense rhyme this morning. 

Deadline day was here,

And words were still unbendable.

The month had been quite drear

And wifi  undependable;

 

Thus Fancy sent the mind away

“Let me do it; hit the road.”

So Thinking took a short vacay,

And Fancy bore May’s load.

 

She quickly dove under the bed

Wrote this poem no-one expected

As I read, I shook my head.

Hope Mia won’t reject it.

Flight

 Today is deadline day in the Deadlines for Writers poetry group. The 4th poem of 2024, a sonnet or a villanelle, is due. I wrote a sonnet. 

Flight

 

A lonely child, rejected by the herd,

Seeks solace on the swings, her head held high.

She rises through the air, a seeking bird,

With wings outstretched and longing in her eye,

 

The sunlight warms her heart with its embrace;

And whispers, “Let’s be friends, just you and me!”

The friendly breezes kiss her hopeful face;

And she looks down -- sees mere humanity.

 

She’s striven for this courage all her life -

Now dons her armor, readies for attack.

No callous ugly names can cause her strife.

No one can call her less or hold her back.

 

New strength and joy beam from the cobalt sky.

“I’m someone!” she exults. “Just watch me fly!”