This week, I’ve been enjoying Natalie Merchant’s CD, LEAVE YOUR SLEEP. One of the song-poems that have been going through my head is “Equestrienne” by Rachel Field.

“See, they are clearing the sawdust course
For the girl in pink on the milk-white horse…”

Find the rest of the poem here.

Equestrienne: Poem by Rachel Field, Sung by Natalie Merchant (Leave Your Sleep).

photo credit: Muffet

It’s Poetry Friday!

A line from this poem cropped up in my memory this week.  Something about the rhythm, not the words, came back.

Poetry has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?  The memory of the sound of it can linger in some far dark corner of our minds.

So I went searching to find which of the poems I’d written once upon a time had that piece of a line/sound I was remembering.  It took a while, but I found it.

Amaryllis

Yesterday:

coral candy-striped

bright-white

blooms.

Tonight:

folded wrinkles

tired

brown

skin

wet-paper

thin

as Monarch wings.

Amaryllis,

you wither today

while I,

not yet

ready

to see you

die

learn to say

good

bye.

I had no idea when I chose my selection for Poetry Friday that the round-up was being hosted by PaperTigers.  It seems providential somehow, that the poem I chose to post (with permission) is one my good friend, Nancy Bo Flood, shared in an email early this morning. By pure coincidence, Nancy was a guest on PaperTigers just yesterday.  Here’s her beautiful poem.  Enjoy.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Dean’s Tree

This lone tree

In our backyard of red sand

Last year was dark boughs, bare, brittle.

Not even the birds visited.

Dead, dying?  I did not know.

Buckets of water

It drank, buckets.

Branches sometimes shivered, rattled with each gust of cold wind.

Listen, listen.

Snow fell.  Slept.  Melted.

What is this?

Blossoms!

Boughs of blossoms laugh

With the touch of bird toes.

Blossoms!

My niece is getting married tomorrow and spring is in the air. The family has flown in from various places, with more arriving later today. Most of us are staying in a beautiful house on a small canal off Okanagan Lake.

Family members are chipping in to make sure the day is special. Yesterday, we worked on flower arrangements.  While one of the family trimmed and began to collect vases, I sat in the kitchen with rolls of ribbon, beads, small silvery decorations, and a glue gun, assigned with the task of decorating the mason jars my niece had chosen to hold arrangements that would be scattered around the house.

It’s cloudy in Kelowna today, but with beautiful bouquets scattered throughout the house, birds darting above the canal, a wedding and Easter just a day or more away, it’s spring.

In the spirit of new birth and new beginnings, my offering for Poetry Friday is Robert Frost’s poem, “A Prayer in Spring.”

Here’s how it begins:

A Prayer in Spring Robert Frost (1915)
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Enjoy the rest of the poem here.

On the floor beside my computer is a favorite book/poem of childhood, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” by Eugene W. Field.

I have vague recollections of someone – my mother, probably – reading it to me.  And another memory of the shoe-shaped sailing ship, and other small wooden ornaments from the poem, hanging on the wall above my sister’s bed. 

David McPhail’s illustrations take me back to the bedroom my sister and I shared, the bunnies, a shoe boat, and the stars “in that beautiful sea.

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe –

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

Another book, Warriors in the Crossfire, also shares a prominent place in my office at the moment.  Nancy Bo Flood’s poem titled, “Friend” puts the star-filled sky in a different light.

Friend

I miss the one

Who stares at the stars

And reaches

For the moon.

photo credit: atomicjeep

photo credit: Randy Son Of Rober

Last week, on Poetry Friday, Carol posted “A Thanksgiving Blessing.” I’m reposting here, as I  love the sentiments expressed, especially -  the “warmth of hope rising,” “May we … speak… of our healings and blessings,” and “May we be with each other… in the light of the present.”

A THANKSGIVING BLESSING

May we be aware not of the things we lack,

but of all that we have.

May we feel not the absence of those we love,

but the presence of those who love us.

May we see not just the harshness of our world,

but the gentleness of its mystery.

May we know not the cold of despair,

but the warmth of hope rising.

May we speak not of our hurts and losses,

but of our healings and blessings.

May we be with each other not in the shadows of the past,

but in the light of the present.

May we bring to our table not judgment, resentment, or anger,

but acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness.

May we remember to feed our spirit by living out of thankfulness.

Anonymous

One Book: The Tree that Time Built: a celebration of nature, science and imagination – a beautiful new collection of poems selected by Mary Ann Hoberman (U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate) and Linda Winston.

Three Poems:

**One Old Elm: I began a mini-unit this week on poet, Kristine O’Connell George.  Her poem, “Old Elm Speaks,” was not only *in* the book, The Tree that Time Built, but was one of the poems included on the audio track. Before her reading, Kris shared a bit about how, even as a 5 year-old, staring out the window of her kindergarten classroom, she was in love with trees.  Writing the poems for her book, Old Elm Speaks, gave her an excuse to visit tree nurseries and arboretums, where she spent hours under the leafy branches of her favorite trees. It was a great way for my students to hear a poet read and talk about her work.

**Old Bones: Another of the poems included in this collection (and on the audio!) is “Dinosaur Bone,” by Alice Schertle.  There’s something wonderful about hearing Alice read all those long “o” words – bones, old as stone, alone, alone…

**A Question: Yesterday, at the end of the day, I took my class outside.  We weren’t there long, but for a short short while, we sat under the trees, closed our eyes, and listened. The cool wind blew across our faces. The sun warmed our backs.  We listened.  We waited.  We were “wide-awake.” Attentive. In our own small way, we were trying to follow the advice Eve Merriam offers in her poem (another from Hoberman’s delightful anthology,) “Reply to the Question: “How Can you Become a Poet?”

photo credit: Alex Kehr

CAMERAVISION

See life through my eye.
A mother.
A boy.

I don’t miss a thing.

Her face.
His smile.
Salt breeze.
Spray of sea.
On the count of
three.

One
memorized
moment.

Family.

Speaking of which, Tricia’s Friday poetry post about sunflowers reminded me of a summer, several years ago, when my family and I spent a week in a Tuscan farmhouse. Sunflowers were in bloom everywhere.  It was lovely.

My contribution to Poetry Friday doesn’t come close to doing justice to that special place or those memories, but it *does* bring me back to that summer in Poppi, Italy.

Tuscan Sun

The rich dark earth has given birth to leafy stems of green,
to golden blossoms bursting sun as far as eye can see.

A field of yellow faces betweeen the earth and sky…
a gift,
a dream,
a wave of sun,
a summer lullaby.

This week’s Poetry Roundup is  hosted by Kelly Herold at Crossover.