Poetry Friday Post – Page 3

Poetry Friday – A Newborn has Joined Us and Open Write

22/Aug/202426/Aug/2024 Denise Krebs11 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday. Rose Cappelli is hosting today and shares thoughts about line breaks and a lovely poem about the sun coming through the fog.

NEW-BORN

A breath of sleep waking,
Warm as rose-pink breaking
Over petals sunglown.
Folding and unfolding
Are the tiny fingers holding
The world unknown!

~”New-Born” by Lucy Eddy (1863-1931), an American poet. (Her work is in the public domain)

Yes, there’s a newborn in my life, a very pink little girl. She may have inspired some poetry this week. This past week was Open Write, and here are the poems I wrote:

Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Taking Time to Tell the T.I.M.E. with Anna J. Small Roseboro

Wednesday’s prompt had us honor the creativity of another poet. I chose to respond to a poem Patricia Franz wrote last Sunday for Open Write. It was a Clunker Exchange that Linda Mitchell had gifted us with. Her poem about aging touched me. Here is a link where you can read Patricia’s beauty.

Turns come at the end of our lives
Imagining mine as I read your poem
Making me tired, weathered, and worn–
Except for the brave sunlight and grace

Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Postcards from Places I’ve Never Been with Jeania White

Dear Childhood,

We are inseparable. Though I
grow in age, I hold onto
old childlike you
because you are the genius
we have made together. I never
cease to wonder, to grow,
to experience
play, thanks to you.

Love,
Your grown up self

A golden shovel with George Bernard Shaw’s “We grow old because we cease to play.”

Monday, August 19, 2024
Faring Monday Blues with a Lune with Leilya Pitre

sweet naivete
baby dreams
gentle blushing bloom

bunny nose pink
taste of berry cherub blossom
sunrise’s rosy glow

Sunday, August 18, 2024
Clunker Exchange with Linda Mitchell

Phoebe

Just like that, another being
has entered this world. It’s
you who have come to radiate
your light. You and I evolve
As we share this moment–
You listening, my face deep
in shadowed spaces,
reminded for a wistful blink
in this bright breath
that grandparents don’t
last a lifetime.

Saturday, August 17, 2024
Dadaist Poetry with Wendy Everard

Prayer

Reclaiming cathedral
Opponents united
Sowing next
Beloved discernment
Answered struggling
Treated America’s
Standing vanquish
Desires bitterness
Accordance wisdom
Civil words faced
Reality important
Faithfully found
Whose people pray

________________________________________
From “My prayer for Donald Trump — and the rest of us” by Colbert I. King at Washington Post. Gift article here.

Poetry Friday – Today’s Walk

08/Aug/202408/Aug/2024 Denise Krebs11 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday, and Molly Hogan is hosting the roundup. She speaks of joy in beautiful ways like “stir up the pot of joy with big, messy strokes!” See more here.

My sweet grandson and I took a walk to the coffee shop, playground, and community garden this morning. Some of the images that spoke to me today…

Litter left behind–
Wondering, did the person
get to the forest?

bees and flowers perked
up our walk through the gardens:
sweet community

abandoned bouquet
who would have received this gift,
and why, why didn’t they?

Poetry Friday – A Walk to the Park

01/Aug/202403/Aug/2024 Denise Krebs10 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday, and our host is Laura Purdie Salas, whose new book, Line Leads the Way, has a birthday today.

A Walk to the Park

At the edge of the narrow road
I push the stroller, edge by edge
through the pinecone-littered streets,
through you and me and on to the park.
We stop and watch the trash truck–
the driver empties barrel by barrel,
Then we walk backwards so we can
appreciate the work of the
driver-dumper-in-one:
drive-stop-get-out-dump
barrel by barrel.
We turn and continue.
Now we climb hill by hill.
You are heavier this year
and I am older, hill by hill by
hill by hill, and my head is sweating
under my sun hat. It’s nice to finally
feel warm in Seattle. Soon we’re at the park.

Today’s Stafford Challenge poem was inspired by Kevin Hodgson’s prompt for a Write Out warmup.

Poetry Friday – Classified Haiku and July Open Write

25/Jul/202426/Jul/2024 Denise Krebs7 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday. Marcie Flinchum Atkins is hosting today at her blog. Fun fact: I just got Marcie’s poem swap in today’s mail! So fun! Thanks, Marcie.

I created a small classified creation with the Poetry Sisters today. Thanks, Sisters. Read more about it here.

Needed:
Dystopia removal, for
Hope’s on the horizon

Contagious laughter
Joyful, honest, free to be
We’re not going back

It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it? (Recently I saw on Instagram, “July has been the longest year.”)

A couple of the Open Write poems I wrote this week reflected the news.

Saturday, July 20, Septercet with Denise Krebs

Pink sky dawn, chirping begins
Reptiles warm, newly alive
emerge from their winter cold

Hope in this new day will stay
fragile family bowknot–
ties up love like rose-tinged clouds

Queue up the next crescendo
dulcet and devout playing
on this blooming day in May

Life is a bouquet of kin
to fragrance and keep the soul

Sunday, July 21, They Paved Paradise with Jennifer Guyor Jowett

We Depend on Hope

Tiny, critically endangered Hope
has reached a 25-year high. This
number marks the highest spring
count for Hope in more than two
decades. Above-water surveys
carefully monitor Hope’s population.

Though Hope has fluctuated
dangerously in the past,
Hope is a marvel of adaptation.
Hope has evolved to withstand
the harsh conditions of its
desert habitat. Hope has a
unique metabolic rate
that allows Hope to survive
on minimal food resources. Hope
primarily feeds on the algae
that grow on the shallow rock shelf.

Despite recent success,
Hope remains threatened
by climate change impacts
on the delicate desert ecosystem.
Imperiling Hope further
is the growing human
demand for water. Hope
is an indicator of the health
of the larger ecosystem.

By protecting Hope,
we protect the
entire web of life
that depends on Hope.

I replaced the word pupfish for Hope in this poem, per Mo’s fun prompt. The facts started out to be about the Mojave Desert Devil’s Hole Pupfish; all the other words in my poem were found in the linked article. I wrote this poem on Sunday morning, after first deciding I wanted to use the word Hope and an endangered desert animal. I considered deleting that first fact, though; it just seemed a silly claim that Hope was at a 25-year high. However, that is the nature of Hope–we rejoice in Hope even when there isn’t anything to be hopeful about. By Sunday afternoon, President Biden had decided not to run for reelection, and V.P. Harris was making waves already. Over a hundred million dollars collected in a day and a half. Hope is climbing higher already!

Monday, July 22, X Marks the Spot with Mo Daley

Dear Dr. B,

Each moment
we were wondering,
what’s at stake?

We realize the
President exiting
is remarkably
brave and selfless
of him.

And you, did you know
when you posed for Vogue?
Was the possibility on your mind?
Or did it later become yours?

Thank you, Dr. Jill, for your
total commitment
to community.
You are a unique treasure.

With care,
We the people

———————————————————–
From an X drawn on page 65 of Vogue magazine, August 2024, in the article “Of the People, For the People” about Dr. Jill Biden, By Maya Singer. Words found on the X are in italics in the poem.

Tuesday, July 23, The Important Thing with Gayle Sands

The important thing
about a poem is
that it is healing.
A poem can lift
its voice and shout
for you to do that thing
or it can whisper life into you
in the fourth watch of the night.
A poem comes from
many places—your pen and
that scrap of paper
in your pocket
or from far-flung galaxies.
But the important thing
about a poem is
that it is healing.

Wednesday, July 24, Dodoitsu with Mo Daley

Company came for dinner–
Limeade, green salad, pesto
pasta, broccoli. Surprise
St. Patrick’s green meal

Poetry Friday “The First Tree I Loved”

18/Jul/202419/Jul/2024 Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday. Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche is hosting, where she shares gratitude for her beautiful summer.

Glenda Funk is one of my poetic inspirations for keeping up with the Stafford Challenge, where we write one poem a day for a year. She always publishes hers on photos and posts them weekly on her blog. One of her poems last week was “Old Trees.” She explained she wrote it in response to the ageism around President Biden. Every time I read her poem, I appreciate it more. (The photo is one she took at Muir Woods.)

Old Trees
By Glenda Funk

The first tree I loved
rose skyward in our
yard. Its thick oak canopy
provided shade on sticky
show me state summer days.
I didn’t know then trees
need company, other trees to
reach their viney roots to,
clasp rhizome to rhizome
in an arboreal family. Years
later I planted three crimson
spiraling oaks in our yar &
watched them grow from
saplings into adult trees. I
grieved when one died,
leaving only a dwarfed
stump, a reminder of its
past. Since European
settlers arrived on this
continent white men have
killed 90% of virgin forests.
I mourn the trees’ death–
Standing among the trees
I am simultaneously small &
significant, able to climb
only the old trees’ branches,
the young being too weak to
hold the essence of who
I am.

(Shared with permission from Glenda.)

Glenda’s poem made me look back at the first tree I loved, so I was inspired to write this poem using her first line.

Trees

By Denise Krebs

The first tree I loved
had limbs like an old friend–
sturdy and true,
shaped just right to
hold all of me.

She was there when
I needed a getaway,
a special reading spot,
a comfy hideaway.

She was a fruitless mulberry,
barren of the lip-
and foot-staining berries
I would have missed terribly
had I known about mulberries then.

She held tightly to the sharp branch
that cut my brother’s eyelid
as he fell out of the tree–this family
tale would give sober support
to all later warnings: “Be careful
or you’ll poke your eye out!”

Sixty years after I first fell for her,
there have been many more tree loves–
the storybook eucalyptus grove
I ran to play in at every recess,
the delicious tree where Keith and I
sat in the midst of his avocado ranch,
the mysterious and ancient ginkgo–
Father’s Day photo background,
the sweetest delicate frangipani
in a Bahrain neighbor’s garden hideaway,
the patient and tenacious Joshua tree
that watches over our dining room table.
Now, my first tree love has gone
to meet her Maker, but my love lives on.

Thanks to Margaret for sharing this apropos prompt from Write Out–it includes Ida Limón, Mary Oliver, trees and a chance to be part of a brainstorming session to prepare for October’s Write Out in your context.

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 20, I’ll be hosting at Ethical ELA. Will you come and write a septercet with us?

What do you do about the “I Don’t Knows”?

09/Jul/202412/Jul/2024 Denise Krebs19 Comments

A couple weeks ago I shared Alice Walker’s poem “I Will Keep Broken Things” with my wabi-sabi poem for Poetry Friday. If you haven’t heard Alice Walker read her poem, I hope you will take time to listen to it today. Or listen again. I find it so comforting.

In one of the essays in Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott talks about doors and the power of hinges: “A hinge both fixes something in place and helps it open. It’s ingenious.” Later in the chapter, she describes the suffering of her son’s addiction, the healing of self-love, and the serendipity of falling in love. “I don’t know how that happened…” she writes. Then she quotes her husband saying, “‘I don’t know’ is a portal. ‘I don’t know’ is also a hinge.” Such a lovely healthy view of “I don’t know.” There are many things we don’t know these days. Sometimes the not knowing feels overwhelming. Today I will choose to embrace the I don’t knows–each a portal and hinge to our spiritual and mental health.

I Don’t Know

I will keep the
uncertainty,
the unknowing,
for all of Life is
unsure–
full of either love
or suffering.
Both are proof
we are living;
so, I will keep
it all, learn
during the
suffering,
and wait.
When I am
confounded,
I will rejoice
amid the
I don’t knows
because
tiny miracles
abound
in all of it–
like the lily
and sparrow
know without
worrying,
even in
the nameless,
the uncharted,
the strange.
These all add up
to an unabridged life.
I will keep it all–
the life,
the love,
the suffering:
the Love.

_________________________________________________________

Since I’m on the road this week, this post will be for TwoWritingTeacher’s Slice of Life, Spiritual Journey Thursday, and Poetry Friday posts. Thursday’s host is Ruth Hersey at there is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Friday’s host is Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday – We Need More Poetry

04/Jul/202404/Jul/2024 Denise Krebs7 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday and Jan at Bookseedstudio is hosting with a delicious slice of watermelon for you.

This has been a tough week in America, and here we are celebrating 248 years of this experiment in democracy. This morning I read an appropriate poem for this age, which I believe testifies to why we need more and more poetry. It’s simply called “Poetry,” from Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford, page 33.

Wholeness

I find myself dismayed in these grave times–
can’t imagine how history books will record them. They
eat away at our resolve to bring the wholeness
that this universe graciously casts. Resist. Let Wholeness be the
bread of our existence and our hope for tomorrow.

A golden shovel with William Stafford’s last line: “I can’t eat that bread.”

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Poetry Friday – Our Wabi-Sabi Home

27/Jun/202428/Jun/2024 Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is Poetry Friday and Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting today with an interesting poetry form and some valuable wabi-sabi questions.

At the June Guest Poet presentation for the Stafford Challenge, I heard Jessica Jacobs read her poem “Primer.”

PRIMER

A Florida child knows the safest part

of a lake is the middle. That gators

and moccasins shade in the lilies, hunker

at the shoreline in the muck right past

the trucked-in sand. Knows a baby snake

means a mother’s nearby, angry.

That to kill her, you must bring a shovel

down just behind her skull—leave

too much tail and the headed half will

keep coming at you. To run zigzag if a gator…

read the rest here on Rattle

Thank you, Poetry Sisters, for the invitation to join you in this month’s wabi-sabi poetry writing. Jessica’s form loosely inspired my wabi-sabi poem today. As I learned about wabi-sabi, it kept reminding me of the place I call home, a home we have gradually and frugally made into a place we love (in no small part, thanks to my talented sister who lives next door).

Wabi-Sabi

Our home knows the hands of the Martin brothers who skillfully built her seventy years ago. Knows the power of quiet living, even when the wind is so strong she thinks she’ll blow away. Knows the heavy work of being moved from her first foundation a hundred yards across the desert. Knows how it feels to grow to the north, west, and south with room additions to make her a home. Knows the most-of-the-year-snow-capped San Gorgonio will be there long after she’s gone. Knows the 40-year-old tiled living room floor is as sturdy as it needs to be. Knows the cottontails, the jackrabbits, and the coyotes of home. Knows each of the hundreds of generations of quail that have skittered and scattered, communicated, and raised ever more babies around her place. Knows, inside and out, the wooden cabinets that the brothers built. Knows how we lovingly extended the kitchen by building more cabinets from the wood the brothers left in the shed.

Knows imperfection.
Knows impermanence.
Knows incompleteness.

Our home has new tile floors in the kitchen and bathrooms puzzled together with tiles respectfully gathered from here and there. Has sweet basil hanging in the front, enough for us and the occasional critters who nibble it. Has yard sale treasures to make her comfortable. Has a counter made from a dying Jeffrey pine tree, with bark beetle history prominently displayed through its lifelines, now suspended in time. Has a bar that serves up smiling sunshine from the skylight overhead, bandage on an archaic evaporative cooler wound. Has chipping paint, cracks, and weathered boards. Our home has had poems written in her honor.

Our home has imperfection.
Our home has impermanence.
Our home has incompleteness.