Poem: Sin's Story in the Leaves

 

Sin’s Story in the Leaves

Leaves in the rain fall from the tree

Paginated all over my lawn

Covering it like those first leaves

Covered Adam and Eve.

I collect them like the treasures

They are, bibliophile that I am,

And pile them in heaps

Upon my garden space

Where I will till every word

They evoke into the soil

So that in spring they will

Grow more words of joy

And sorrow in the fruits of harvest.

And the nakedness of my sinful

Lawn? It will be covered again

All too soon, not with the pages

Of the trees but the shroud 

Of the grave. And I will open

The book and recite the prayers

That are written there hiding

Like those Edenic leaves.

The nakedness of our shame

And humanity that is so cruelly

Collected in libraries guiding

Us to the original sin that we

Always forget even as we hold 

The book, copies upon copies

That tell us, yet we see it only

As a ruse, not a daintily sewn

Leaf paginating the daily reality

Of our lives to be raked up

In the autumn leaves.

November 2023

About This Poem

I like this poem in light of all the book banning that's going on these days in libraries across the country. In fact, that's what inspired it. I get tired of legislation that controls what others can see, in this case minors but in reality everyone. Of course you can't really ban anything because it is within our very selves. That's what this poem is about. I like the old way pages were called leaves, so I went with that in my metaphor for this poem. The picture is really a shot from my lawn. I realize this isn't the time of year for autumn poems, but it is the time of year that the legislature is in session in Idaho so the poem is absolutely relevant to January. 

Poem: The Eventual End

The Eventual End

I took a video while I was running

In the woods. It’s best without sound

Because if you listen it’s almost—well,

Terrifying. It’s as if whoever

Is running to escape something—

As if their life must depend on it.

Swishing grass, heavy footfalls,

Frantic breathing. You just forget to

Look at the sun setting through all the trees

And the crimson of the sky, beautiful

In it’s closing of the day. 

                                          But, if you

Turn off the sound it’s a steady stream of

Sunset in the forest, a smooth walk to

A relaxing evening sunset now,

Calm and beautiful, the ending silent.

With sound, it’s a terrifying jaunt

Ending in such uncertainty, even

When you know it was a terrifying

Death, blood spattered through the trees, 

Even skies mimicking his bloody death.

I watch it and I forget that it was

Me on one of my favorite calm runs

Where the visual is all that matters.

Not the terrifying sounds of murder.

I didn’t take the video to be 

A horror story, symbolizing cruel death

At the end of day, but a view of what

I saw—I see—when I run in evening.

I can’t decide if it’s a lesson in

Perspective for the viewer or lesson

For me in how to approach living and

The eventual end.

September 2023

About This Poem

This poem is about a video I took while running. That part is self-explanatory, but what it made me think of when I watched it was both humorous and sobering. That's what I tried to capture here in the poem. Of course, when I run I don't think about the fact that I can hear my own heavy breathing or quickened heartbeat but in the video it was all there as the brush was pushed aside. It seemed terrifying, so I wanted to capture in a poem that contrast and then it made me think more about the whole life death thing. The photo is one I took in the same place I took the video, but I can't find the video. Probably deleted it. 

 

Poem: Notes of Naught

 Notes of Naught

Within this notebook seemingly bare I

Find little notes randomly written here

And there. Somewhere past I took notes about 

Students and groupings and things I would teach.

Some of the handwriting is mine, I know,

But other scribblings to me now unknown.

Students’ names, I still remember them all,

Skip down the page every other line

Like a stone skipping across the smooth pond

Of my memories—those that are intact—

And I wonder why I have groups of kids

Listed as genius and idiot?

I was never inclined to be cruel

Or to pick favorites, let alone write

Such hidden thoughts in notes for all to see.

What, you suppose, was the matter with me?

Was I taken in such a fit of rage

As to record an emotion of mine

To later be seen by someone or

Was I grouping upon selections I 

Had pre-determined based upon my Muse,

Or the whim of one of my students near?

And that other handwriting with seven

Boys at the top and an extra line in

Between with four girls down at the bottom?

And then in groupings the idiots all

Boys and the genius groups two with mostly

Girls but one boy? How must that boy have felt

Separated from his mates, made genius

On his own or by his grouping with girls?

I suppose I read far too much into

Notes of naught from a teacher’s hand years past.

October 2023

About This Poem

I sometimes run across things from teaching that strike me as odd. This is an example in poetic form about an old notebook. I can't imagine why I would ever classify students as genius and idiot and I suppose there was something more behind it than some cruel labeling because that is not how I ever felt, even about the most brilliant or most misbehaved students. I played psychologist and always tried to figure out why kids behaved the way they did, sometimes (not very often) taking blame upon myself. It's odd that I taught for 35 years and find so little photographic evidence of my profession except in classroom displays. The photo is a rare example in my later years. I did have video evidence for my National Board Certification, but that has long since been trashed. During COVID there are plenty of pedantic videos I made, but they were mostly me reading something, not actually teaching. 

Poem: Who is This Him, Anyway?

 Who is This Him, Anyway?

This modern age seems to question 

Our very language plaguing us

With darkness and misunderstanding

Suggesting it’s a culture war,

But can the artist formerly 

Known as Prince stop the Tweets

Of a president who trumped 

Us all with his election deceit?

Can X save us from

Happy Holidays of Starbucks’

Black coffee that makes us woke

To the posts of the singular They

Who demands to be one

Of which no one can determine?

If we change the language 

While we sleep, will we awake

Without culture? And why,

Pray tell, in this day would any

Woman want to be anything 

But They so that their body

Is their own, not the object 

Of the Him? Who is this Him

Anyway?

August 2023

About This Poem

I wrote this a little over a year ago and it could use some tweaking, but you can see the politics of our time in it, the looming presence of "culture" wars, politics, and the corporate world. Most of it is fodder for the press and doesn't have great impact on our daily lives, unless you watch the news or read it. Then your blood pressure goes up. So I like to just play with it so that my blood pressure drops.

Poem: Just Water a Bit and Let Me Be

Just Water a Bit and Let Me Be

Each day the morning arrives a little

Later, a little cooler. The leaves are

Just a little off color, not much—

Edges of trees lose their green to tints of

Yellows, reds, oranges, and even some brown.

I find myself sweeping them off the steps

And patio every time I go

Out the door. Flower pots still

Need water and I oblige them but one

Morning I know they will be blackened

And I’ll be pulling them up and storing

Pots for spring somewhere in the mess from

Summer—hoses, pots, fertilizers, tools

That do me no good in drifts of snow.

I feel a little like those flowers these days

With all the doctor’s visits for my blood,

My heart, injections in my fading eyes.

They seem to be pruning me, a squeezing 

Out just a few more blossoms, knowing it

Won’t be long before the impending frost

Beckons to me, blackens me to where I 

Bloom no more. 

                           But just because I have less

Time, I know that my green’s fading and

I don’t have any problems letting my 

Colors show—oranges tinged with aches, yellows

Curling at the edges of my moods and

Sometimes bright red outbursts that drive the greens

Away. But they’re just tinges now, nothing 

Much to show I’m anything less than green

In my prime having plenty of summer

Left and plenty of flowers to spare you.

So, just water a bit and let me be.

September 2023

About This Poem

This poem is entirely about myself. I used the early autumn as backdrop to the reality of my aging. I love gardening and, like the plants in my gardening, I need a little tending. But, also like the plants in my garden, I'm not going to last forever and I feel it more now than I ever have before. The photo is of me sitting on a platform from an old building while waiting for the cross country race to begin. I no longer coach, but I volunteer. The monochrome is because I was just fiddling with my phone camera.

 

 

Poem: The Thirst For Poetry

The Thirst for Poetry

At times I have immersed myself in poetry

As if I were diving into a lake

Fully cognizant of my existence

In the pools of beauty

But unconcerned about anything

Except the waters of soothing calm.

Each day I try to capture a drop 

Of that lake—to just take a sweet taste—

And let the romance overtake me.

For the most part these days

It’s just a glimpse into a droplet

Of a much larger body so fluid,

Not stiff and clumsy like my aging body.

Sometimes the reality of my day to day

Eclipses that great body of water

So that I hardly see the Frosts,

The Cummings, the Hughes, the Plaths,

The me that longs to drink forever 

From the lake—no, sea—of poetry

So that I’m left with the musty scent

Of used books and the scribblings

Of troubled minds, adventurous minds,

Just human minds moldering

In a dried out bed shrunken to cracked mud

Empty of metaphor, meaning, even the lists

Of a Whitman singing America.

But even Homer’s unfaithful Odysseus

Adventured across the seas

Only to find, after all those years,

His ever faithful Penelope.

So I will continue to pray for rain

To use again in a poetic refrain.

September 2023

About This Poem

I honestly don't remember what caused me to write this poem, except the fact that I feel like I never get enough poetry. I love it and, in spite of feeling I don't get enough, read and write it every day. But there is just so much. And maybe I'm just being like Odysseus, adrift on the sea looking to find my faithfulness in a single poem? I don't know.