Winning poem in PRA Anthology contest, 2016

from Google Images

Travesty

The walking trail through Wyndham Park, with oaks
and willows, maples, sycamores and gums:
a splashy autumn show for city folks
in step with robin songs, cicada hums.
One day, sweet woodsmoke in the air, they came:
a droning, giant buzz, like screaming knives
with swishing crashes following. The lame
excuse: obliterate what threatens lives.
They cut two hundred-plus: the young, the old,
the stately, vivid trees. Mimosas spared,
their listless beanpods left to hang like cold
and desiccated tears; but trailside’s bared.
The robins, mockingbirds have taken wing
but I am safe amidst this awful thing.

When one of the state papers published poetry: a Rosa Z. Marinoni "Poem of the Week" in 1960

 

 

Yellowed, brittle fragile, the lone page from November 6, 1960 Arkansas Democrat Magazine (We didn't take the Democrat; I don't know which of my forebears saved this originallly, or even how it ended up in my collection of photos and other memorabilia.)

 

As I was "thinning" stuff so MY descendants wouldn't have to decide what to keep, I found this. Looking it over, I discovered that one of the features was "The Best in Poetry." The subhead read, "All Arkansas writers are invited to submit poems to this column. Membership in a literary organization is not requisite."

Many of today's poets will instantly recognize what I recognized. Here, let me reprint what I saw under the heading "Poem of the Week:"

 

THE GOLDEN FOOTPRINT

Give us a small and peaceful world, dear Lord,

Without detours that lead to a dead end.

A world so small that at each corner turn,

A man can find along his path a friend.

A world where women only live to love,

And man, contented with his simple lot,

Learns knowledge from his heart and not from books,

With no desire to be what he is not.

 

And then, perhaps, along the sands of Time,

Some moonlit night a traveler might see,

Instead of traffic ruts and rusted wings,

The footprint left by One from Galilee.

 

--Rosa Z. Marinoni of Fayetteville

 

She is the poet responsible for the present-day National Poetry Day celebration in Arkansas.

How appropriate this "find" is for April's celebration of National Poetry Month.

An Ogden Nash poem for spring

photo by sister Carolyn Hoggard

 

THE HAT'S GOT MY TONGUE

 

A girl, oh a girl is a wonderful thing,

And so I am happy to say is spring,

And a girl in spring is the absolute works

But for one conspicuous item that irks:

That hat.

 

A girl in spring is a skylark's hymn,

An evenson in a cloister dim,

A moon in June and a dove in love,

 But why the discordant detail above:

That hat?

 

The crocuses put their best feet foremost,

The softest, tenderest raindrops pour most,

Nature walks forth in a robe of dawn,

And you, my love, what do you put on?

That hat.

 

Purple the lilac and green the oaks,

Is spring the time for a milliner's hoax?

Your taste, methought, simply hibernated;

But what did I get when for spring I waited?

That hat.

 

A girl, of a girl is a wonderful thing,

And so I am happy to say is spring,

And you are what I adore the sight of;

That hat is what I adore you in spite of--

Take it off and let's jump on it!

from Good Intentions, p.39                                                                                       (Google Image)