Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Poems for the waning year


ANIMALS HAVE IT RIGHT
Sleeping
winter away
not a bad idea--
even for older folks in cold
houses.
~ ~ ~ 12. 20. '16

PRE-CHRISTMAS DILEMMA
No room
at the table
to eat my evening meal:
wrapping paper, gift boxes, stamps
and cards.
~ ~ ~ 12. 22. '16

MIRACLE? MAGIC? HAPPENSTANCE?
I swear,
around bedtime
on Christmas, I heard strains
of "Silent Night" from the largest
wind chime.
~ ~ ~ 12. 26. '16

70 degrees
on an early winter day
a mockingbird bathes
~ ~ ~ 12. 26. '16

in the bare oak tree
one leafy branch still hangs
moving in the wind
~ ~ ~ 12. 26. '16

summer-like Christmas --
a juvenile squirrel climbing
the wet-barked oak tree
~ ~ ~ 12. 26. '16


Friday, December 16, 2016

Other poets on frost and snow

JACK FROST HIEROGLYPHICS
by the late Verna Lee Hinegardner
(from I Own One Star, 2005)

This morning every window in my house
was twinkling like a sky-borne melody
crisscrossing words that stir a memory
and I recall how icy panes around
the child in me. My fingernail snow-plows

initials in cold frost; and instantly
I need my Mommy's arms to comfort me
with tales of Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse.

I'm older now but still love Jack Frost Art
and search for hieroglyphics each cold day.
Folks claim that I'm naïve; can't understand.
My own grandkids think maybe it's the start
of Alzheimer's. Someday, like I, they'll say,
"My Lord can etch glass windows, hearts and sand."
~ ~ ~
SPLINTER
by Carl Sandburg
(from Arrow Book of Poetry, 1965)

The voice of the last cricket
across the first frost
is one kind of good-by.
It is so thin a splinter of singing.
~ ~ ~
III THE HUNTERS IN THE SNOW
by William Carlos Williams
(from a longer poem, "Pictures from Brueghel"
in Selected Poems, 1969)

The over-all picture is winter
icy mountains
in the background the return

from the hunt it is toward evening
from the left
sturdy hunters lead in

their pack the inn-sign
hanging from a
broken hinge is a stag a crucifix

between his antlers the cold
in yard is
deserted but for a huge bonfire

that flares wind-driven tended by
women who cluster
about it to the right beyond

the hill is a pattern of skaters
Brueghel the painter
concerned with it all has chosen

a winter-struck bush for his
foreground to
complete the picture   .    .
~ ~ ~

Saturday, December 10, 2016

CINQUAINS FOR THE SEASON

ROOSEVELT & CHURCHILL LIGHTING THE NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE IN 1941
"Under
a rind of moon
in a time of war, they
gazed up & were bathed in Christmas"
grandeur.
--Leonard Pitts Jr. 12. 11. '11

BAPTISM
After
posting the mail
I stop, notice oak leaves
furling down. And then one lands on
my head.

GOTTA BE OVER 18, SIR
Grandpa--
Christmas shopping
with a clerk for his 5
grandchildren--has to sign for a
movie.

MID-DECEMBER
After
this week, the Pope
will be as old as I
am. Lo! the discrepancy in
careers.

LAST BIO
"Known by
many, liked by
some, disliked by others,
gone to a better place." (Dick O.
Poyen)

FOR A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD
What is
more powerful
than TV, DVDs,
Harry Potter on computer?
It's SNOW!!

~~~
~~~