Another new year: two poems

Another new year

A SHORT WINTER POEM

Four bluebirds,

a sparrow,

balancing

in winter’s wind

on the thin

beautyberry

twigs, eating

what’s left

of the purple

frozen fruits.

~ ~ ~ ~

AND THEN I SAW IT WAS JANUARY

 (a Laurette sequence)

I looked around

some days beyond

December, found the year

had fled. Instead

the Janus month,

cold January’s here!

Oh, snow and ice

and bitter cold.

The north wind howls apace.

The schools are closed,

some churches, too,

but, oh! Bright winter’s face!

The old cat sleeps

 beside the fire,

 his paw above an eye.

 Before too long,

‘Mom Nature will

 blow January by.

~ ~ ~ ~

C 2018, PL, dba lovepat press

At the close of 2017: a Christmas Day poem

                                                              

A REFLECTION FOR THE END OF 2017

(an Octo Sequence)

In Advent, twenty-seventeen,

I’m doing what I love to do

at Ebenezer U. M. C.—

that’s play piano every week 

for worshippers and those who seek.

At Ebenezer U. M. C.,

I’m doing what I love to do

in Advent, twenty-seventeen.

Where needs and talents lie in sync,

I’ve always heard, a mission calls.

The Holy Spirit fingered me,

and I’ve been playing all this year,

selecting service music dear.

The Holy Spirit fingered me;

I’ve always heard a mission calls

where needs and talents lie in sync.

The church is fifteen miles away

with many curves and valleys, hills.

(My trusty Taurus runs just fine.)

At eighty-one, still sound of mind,

––my genes and angels have been kind––

 My trusty Taurus runs just fine

through many curves and valleys, hills.

(The church is fifteen miles away.)

As long as health and age allow,

I’d like to keep this music job

because I love the people here.

Unless the winter’s icy, wild

we’ll celebrate the Holy Child.

Because I love the people here,

I’d like to keep this music job

as long as health and age allow.

c 2017, PL

Third week of Advent: a poem

It’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now--
too many years since last I wrote.
I fill my time with hand bells, choir
--requiring diligence--and bills
and cats and house and med refills.
I fill my time with hand bells, choir.
Too many years since last I wrote,
it’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now.

I used to write an Advent verse
each year, till life got in the way--
especially after I retired.
I penned one novel, then one more.
Activities came to the fore,
especially after I retired.
Each year, till life got in the way,
I used to write an Advent verse.



I hereby vow to take more time
to celebrate the Advent Child,
to live expectantly each day
as if the second-coming’s near;
make ready, leave no room for fear.
To live expectantly each day,
to celebrate the Advent Child,
I hereby vow to take more time.

c 2017, PL

Second week of Advent: a poem

                                                          Advent

         I used to write

         a poem each year

         at this time, anticipating

         the Savior’s coming, but

         household chores,

         the yard, the holidays––

         I’ve made no time

         for meditation,

         writing, waiting,

.

         I hereby vow

         beginning now

         to take more time

         from this day on,

         to concentrate,

         to celebrate,

         prepare, like Mary,

         for the Blessed Child.

         Lord, help me live

         expectantly today

         and every day

         until the second-coming.

        I must make ready--

       again.

c 2017, PL

First week of Advent, 2017: a poem

                    An Advent wreath. Advent is the run-up to Christmas in liturgical churches

Years ago, I began what I hoped would be an annual happening: writing an Advent poem in the Octo Sequence pattern touted by Mary Harper Sowell, former president of Poets Roundtable of Arkansas. The online instructions are different from what Ms. Sowell used, that is, the fourth and fifth lines of the eight (octo) rhyme. Mine are rhymed. This poem described my life twenty-seven years ago in 1990.

ADVENT: THE COMING OF A CHILD

This Advent will be more serene
since I'm no longer organist--

no preludes, hymns or antiphons--

and time I spent in pressured haste

is now revered as private space.

No preludes, hymns or antiphons

since I'm no longer organist.

This Advent will be more serene.

The yuletide bustle will be less:

my school choir sang an autumn show,

releasing yet another night

for shopping with the family

or entertaining merrily.

Releasing yet another night,

my school choir sang an autumn show;

the yuletide bustle will be less.

Just when the season's simplified,

a grandson comes to live with me;

one curious, crawling eight-month-old.

(Did Mary want to rail and  rant

when Jesus tumped her favorite plant?)

One curious, crawling eight-month-old,

a grandson comes to live with me

just when the season's simplified.    

Published in variations, 1994

c 2017, PL

                                              The grandson, a few years later. He's now 27.

Run-up to December - HAIKU

                                                                autumn-bare crape myrtle

AN OAK LEAF FALLS

INTO THE MINI-ROSE BUSH

WINDCHIMES' TUNE

~~~~

one month later

finding

my Halloween shirt

~~~

flying

into the birdbath

leaves and shadows

~~~

CAT JUMPS TO THE RIM

OF THE BIRDBATH . . . PERKS HIS EARS

AT A FLOATING LEAF

~~~

skimming

in the lake water

trees and clouds

(photo, S. Breidenthal, AD-G)

~~~

late November

beyond the bare tree, a flock

of blackbirds fly by

~~~

A THUNDERSTORM

INTERRUPTING

MY RAKING

~~~

grandson in a crape myrtle at The Wharf

c 2017 PL dba lovepat press

"Improv on 4 lines of Frost" - poem

IMPROV ON FOUR LINES OF FROST

It would take me forever to recite
all that’s not new in where we find ourselves,
to live once more on family’s old home place
now that my mother, your great-granny’s gone.
The house is mine, as eldest, to maintain,
and ours, my grandson, since you’re mine to rear.
Let’s walk around the grounds where I once played:
the chinaberry here, persimmon there.
Mulberry leaves outside my bedroom swayed
in wind, threw ghostly shadows on the wall.
That yard, which neighbors keep immaculate,
grew our potatoes, limas, purple hulls.
When I was six like you, this grassy patch
played host to jimpsonweed and cockle burr.
Back there, the woods, which some years Grandpa set
on fire by accident, sit tamed in streets
like suburbs. Muscadines, blackberry vines,
plum thickets, black-eyed Susans—all are gone.
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.

c 2017,  Pat Laster dba as lovepat press

published in:
Lucidity Poetry Journal II, 2012
Grist (MSPS Anthology), 2013
Hiding Myself into Safety: Short Stories & Long Poems, 2016

Rain and other subjects - poems

HAIKU

rain

running along the roof line

away from the storm

~~~

CINQUAINS

Last night,

a thunderstorm.

This morning, pine needles

carpet streets and roadways like brown

velvet.

~~~

THE SAFARI ROOM-I

Couldn't

tell if it was

thunder or the traffic

this early Sunday evening in

Piggott.

HEAR ME ROAR - II

Thirty

minutes later,

thunder rumbled around

this building as if to say, "I'm

thunder!"

~~~

SHOO! (FLICK)

The rim

of my coffee

cup close to the fireplace

sports an Asian beetle nosing

around.

POST-RETREAT

Sleeping
around the clock
after a week away
with no op for my usual
naptime.

c 2017 PL, dba lovepat press

Autumn photos and poems

Wary/ like a guard dog/ or the secret service/ Greye checks the yard with feline eyes/ then sits.

a flock of blackbirds

flying down to the cotton

no scarecrow around

Lady/bug lights on my/ puzzle page. Sans even/ a hello! I quickly flick it/ away.

A squirrel/ under the car/ forages for acorns/ abundant from the wind in the/ oak tree.

sunset

adding its colors

to autumn foliage

--Dorothy McLaughlin, from our calendar,

CONNECTING OUR HOUSES

c 2017 PL & DMcL, co-author's of Connecting Our Houses, a perpetual haiku calendar, out of print

Deep into Autumn: POEMS

# 315
While I
make coffee, Greye
sits apace staring at
his food dish--patiently--still as
marble.
~~~

#317
I watch
as a goldfinch
takes a long bath in fresh
water. Nearby, yellow maples
drop leaves.
~~~

#320
No birds
singing; so still,
the far-off highway drone
is audible--till a pickup
passes.
~~~

#323
Spider
webs everywhere
there're two objects to start
and end with. In one, two perfect
circles.
Builders
spun while I slept,
designed webs CD-sized
or old 45s--too fine to
capture
photos;
too sunny to
get close. What industry!
Examples of Mother Nature's
beauty.
~~~

c 2017 PL dba lovepat press

Mockingbird and falling leaves: poems

HAIKU
mockingbird
sips the water
before its bath
~~~

Brown leaves
fly by the droves
into the holly tree
for good seats at the mockingbird
concert.
~~~

GOSSIP?
Early,
a mockingbird
gabbles to its world
from the dogwood tree, changing up
its tunes.
~~~

WITHIN SIX FEET!
Testing
my hearing, are
you, mockingbird, like she
did in real life with recorded
voices?
~~~

SEAT AT THE OPERA
High-wire
recitatives
and arias from le
oiseau moqueur amuse me on
the porch.
~~~

c 2017, PL dba lovepat press

Time for reunions - a poem

Kathy, Roxie, Janis, Bettye

REUNIONS

R  eunions--whether in families or for friends

E  voke ebullient anticipation or edgy dread.

U  nderlying our attendance is a vulnerability

N  atural to those who've grown apart. What if

I  'm too big, too bald, too bold, too shy? Will

O  thers accept what I've become? Alas,

N  o one is responsible for me but me.

S  ympathize, empathize. Life c

                                                   o

                                                     n

                                                       t

                                                         i

                                                           n

                                                             u

                                                               e

                                                                 s.

Linda, Carolyn, Kaki.

c 2017, PL dba lovepat press, from variations, 1994

Autumn creatures & plants - poems

Dogwood at Dairy Hollow

ON TUESDAY

Monday's

spider not there.

Without going closer,

I strain my eyes for a look-see:

nothing.

~~~

PERSISTENCE

I douse

one large ant hill

in the stone-filled sidewalk.

The next week, an even larger

one's built!

~~~

TOO TINY TO SEE

Web from

holly to Norfolk

pine, but no sign of its

maker on this cool September

morning.

~~~

SAVED BY THE OLD WOMAN

Cat tries

to go inside

with a squirming lizard

in his mouth . . . "No, no, no you don't!"

I said.

~~~

MAKING THEMSELVES VISIBLE

Juvy

redbird, robin

fly into my vision--

one in the purple shrub; one in

the grass.

~~~

ALONE

Scruffy

fledgling redbird

has the "pool" to himself

after his sister abandons

her bath.

~~~

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN

Maple

leaves--five of them--

fall, one at a time; one

after the other, nestle in

the grass.

~~~

AUTUMN'S HERE!

A long

blooming season--

those Encore azaleas

that welcome the sunny first day

of Fall.

~~~

~~~

                                          Spider webs are everywhere these days

c 2017 PL, dba lovepat press

Mid-September: poems

#299 'TIS THE SEASON
Drier
than at any
time this summer--yellow-
bell and wild coleus both are
drooping.
~~

#297 WHIRRING
I hear
a hummingbird
behind me . . . in a bit,
it pauses within view, then flies
away.
~~

#298 HIDING
Redbird--
its 'chit' constant
but undiscovered. Now,
it's moved from the dogwood to the
maple.
~~

#300 ON THE PORCH AT DUSK
Night bugs
providing me
with stereophonic
music--some from the east, some from
the west.
~~

#301 A FORUM
Goldfinch,
tufted titmouse
and a sparrow all bathe.
Why so many birds all of a
sudden?
~~

#302 INTERPRETATION
"I think
he (the Prez) means..."
Why does his staff always
feel they have to explain the things
he says?
~~

#303 LOSS OF A FRIEND
Spacecraft
Cassini burned
up as planned in Saturn's
ringed atmosphere after twenty
years' work.
~~

c 2017, PL, dba lovepat press - hummingbird photo by Thurman Couch

Tiny creatures lurking about: poems

Tiny
hummingbird rests
on a beautyberry
limb close to the feeder. Next look,
it's gone.

Next look,
it's back again.
Third look, there's TWO of them.
How much longer will they stay, I
wonder.
~~~
PL, 9/10/17

At dusk,
week-eating grass
around the roses, I
look up: nose to nose with a black
spider!
~~~
PL, 9/9/17

The squirrel
forages in
the wagon full of grass
clippings and irises' brown tips.
Surely,

with all
the pear leavings
thrown into the hedge row,
it's not hungry. It scampered off,
mouth full.
~~~
PL, 9/9/17

Juvy
redbird, robin
visit Couchwood today--
one in the purple shrub, one in
the grass.
~~~
PL,  9/9/17

Pears, pears, pears, pears, working up the pears

 Second wagonload of wind-fall pears, August '17

pear petals
drifted
against the fence

--by Susan Delphine Delaney

from Facebook. Used with permission
~~~

a buzz

from the pail of pears

that need “working up”

--sycamore’s mottled bark, October monthly, 2012
~~~

bountiful harvest
one leaf and one pear still hang
on the ancient tree

-- in front of the moon (2010)

CINQUAIN

After

the pear harvest,

the south wind wrestles one

recalcitrant fruit to the ground.

My treat!
--posted on Facebook, 11.13.'14

~~~

leaving plenty

of the windfall pears

to gleaner bees

--a patch of yellow, 2005

ping of sealing lids—

thought of winter preserves

eases today’s work

--Connecting Our Houses, 1997

c 2017, Pat Laster dba lovepat press

Pear-motif poems

From my January Gimcracks, January 30, 2003,

drizzly morning

a lone yellow pear

in the blackness

~~PL

From Dim Sum, 2005/II, p. 23:

apple orchard--

could I have

the pear tree

~~Yu Chang

From day breaks, February 20, 2000:

pear tree

white explosion on

the blue day

~~(the late) Dion O'Donnol

LOVE POEM II

I just finished breakfast

--cheese omelet

with picante sauce,

coffee, milk,

and a ripe

(the best kind)

pear.

I thought of you

and your buckets

of blown-off-the-tree

pears,

not to mention those

that resisted the wind.

It does not take much

to call you to mind--

maybe nothing at all--

but the pear served

admirably.

I hope you harvested

as much good from them

as I did.

~~Reformed from a note or email sent by L.T. sometime during 2012.

A poem by Wendell Berry

DARK WITH POWER
Dark with power, we remain
the invaders of our land, leaving
deserts where forests were,
scars where there were hills.

On the mountains, on the rivers,
on the cities, on the farmlands
we lay weighted hands, our breath
potent with the death of all things.

Pray to us, farmers and villagers
of Vietnam. Pray to us, mothers
and children of helpless countries.
Ask for nothing.

We are carried in the belly
of what we have become
toward the shambles of our triumph,
far from the quiet houses.

Fed with dying, we gaze
on our might's monuments of fire.
The world dangles from us
while we gaze.

--from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, page 28,
originally in the book Openings (1968) 

MID-SUMMER RAINS (poems)

AUGUST, 2017
T-storms
forecast daily
this week. Eek! New Orleans
is flooded. Are we next in line?
Not yet.
~~~
DELUGE
Blowing
rain--hard--pooling
in the grass; grays the street
and air. But--as if in a one-up
contest,

vicious-
sounding pickups
roar past angrily toward
somewhere. I sit under the roof
and swing.
~~~
AUGUST 1, 2012
Raining
just long enough
for me to walk around
the side of the house and turn off
the tap.
~~~

AUGUST 31, 2012
"Speed bump
ahead" sign just
above the floodwaters.
Boaters using other street signs
as oars.
      *
Remnants
of Isaac make
it to our state, with wind
and downpours, somewhat relieving
the drought.
~~~
~~~
c 2017 PL dba lovepat press    





















`

Several Etheree poems

PROBLEM

A

hummer

trapped inside

the screened-in porch--

it wouldn't be shooed,

hov'ring above door frame

bumping 'gainst transparent walls.

No butterfly net handy. But

an open wire hanger just might work:

hook red feeder on open door. Voila!

1997 ~~~

FRUGALITY

I

go through

coupons clipped

four months ago

from papers' inserts,

note expiration dates--

some 3 months old, some three days

past, which I separate and trash,

add current ones, still full of the hope

that I might save a dime or two next trip.

1998~~

THE SWIM SUIT AD

You

see this

bathing suit?

Now, do you see

the model pictured?

Is she a size 16

in women's, for heaven's sake?

More like a 6, but hey, her top

enhances her like mine: it smashes;

the waist minimizer feature doesn't!

2000~~

DR. JOHNNY WINK, OBU

His

satchel

in one hand,

a paper scrap

in the other, the

English professor walks

to class on the city's bike

trail and memorizes poems.

Once, I offered him a found pencil.

"Thanks. Some student always comes without one."

2001~~

c 2017 PL, dba lovepat press