Category Archives: Poetry

TAMING A ROBIN

Ten, and half in love
With a boy in a book.
He had the gift
The gentle way to tame
A bird or timid creature.
Like him, I fancied I could
Win the confidence of a bird.

Common or garden,
The robin did me no favors
His curiosity, age-old
Had him poking his beak
In gardeners’ business
Long before my time.
Still, I flattered myself
He liked the lilt in my voice
And the soft whistle through half grown teeth.

With the patience of a heron
I stood unmoving
In blackberry scented air,
Hand outstretched with
Crumbs for a peace offering.

Cocking his head on one side

He hopped

And hopped

Tossed aside a fallen leaf

Pretending business

One beady black eye on me
All the while.
He came so close
I could see
The fluttering of his red breast—
And no closer.

He sought me out
The next day and the next.
Down at the beech tree
We grew quite chatty
The pair of us . . . never understanding a word the other said.
I wonder if he boasted
In the hedgerow
Of the strange human child
He’d managed to beguile
With his soft chirps and bright eyes.

SUNDAY MORNING, WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

20 Replies

Two rings sit
On warm black granite
Bathed in Sunday morning sunlight.
What drama played out
Under cover of darkness—
A broken heart,
A broken dream?
And why not toss those rings
Into the fountain
To symbolize
The end,
A new beginning?

Such curiosity
Would not be
Provoked
By a pair of sneakers,
Or a scarf,
There would be
No need
To recreate the story.
But the ghost
Of Saturday night
Lingers in the air
Like perfume.

THIS IS WHAT THE CRICKET TELLS ME

29 Replies

Low slow trill
Fainter by the day

This is what the cricket tells me . . .
Earth is tilting away from the sun,
The cold breeze raising goosebumps
Whispers, winter.
Leaves are moldering on the lawn,
The goldfinch has shed his sunflower vest
And donned a coat of mourning.
Oak is the last man standing,
Thatched in stiff brown.

This is what the cricket tells me . . .
The cornfields are stubble-ribbed,
Fine stopovers for flocks of geese
That drift down in squawking hordes
To feast on farmers’ leftovers.
Stalks have withered in pumpkin fields
Leaving squat orange Jack-o-lanterns
Ripe for carving.

This is what cricket tells me . . .
Frost is on the way.
That row of late-sown lettuce—
Waste of time—
Pick the Swiss chard now
Before it freezes.
Pull the rattling bean husks off the vine;
Next year’s seeds are dry.

This is what cricket tells me . . .
The Red-Tailed Hawk
Has caught a mouse,
One of this summer’s brood,
And devoured it in one gulp.
She knows, too
The season is gathering up her skirts
To take one last curtsey.

This is what the cricket tells me.

SILVER BIRCH

25 Replies

Silver birch
No more,
Scrolls of papery bark
Sloughed off like dead skin.Roots so deep
They cradle half the hilltop
Can’t hold you there forever.

Already you are worm meat,
A buffet for woodborers and fungi
A footstool for moss and lichen.
Yet you will linger
In my memories.

Two decades of family photos
Have graced your low-slung bough—
Seasons changing,
Inexorable growth and decline.
Like a beloved grandparent
You share with us
The passage of time.

AUTUMN GRAVEYARD

20 Replies

Autumn graveyard
Creeping brambles
Tawny grasses
Half obscuring
Weathered tombstones
Scudding cumulus
Burst of sunshine
Lighting death dates
Year, month, and dayHilltop graveyard
One room schoolhouse
Inn and churchyard
Hamlet spread out
Down below
Settlers’ green bones
Slowly seeping
Through the soil
They called their ownOld-world graveyard
Back to nature
All must follow
Feeding roots of
Oak and maple
Sinking softly
Joined in union
Spirits rising
Salt of the earth

There is an old graveyard near my home. It sits atop a hill surrounded by a hamlet dating back to the 18^th century. The one room schoolhouse and church are a stone’s throw away. The parsonage, inn, and farmhouses are spread out at the foot of the hill. A dull school child could watch the gravedigger at work across the road. The journey from farmhouse, to church, to graveyard—a small triangle.

Many of the tombstones have been wiped clean by wind and rain. Those that are legible show a curiosity: Death dates meticulously recorded to the month and day, but no birth dates. The school mistress would only have to lead her pupils in a straggly line across the road and up the hill to impart a math lesson: If Mr. Walling died on March 30th, 1860, aged seventy-five years, eight months and fifteen days, on what day was he born?

I AM A CHILD OF THIS EARTH

18 Replies

The essence of nature
Is balance
There is no void
Nature rushes in
All feathers and leaves
Sharp teeth and bones
A richly woven tapestry
To fill the senses.
And what part do I play
In this landscape?
A witness—
Just that.
I am a child of this earth.

TRACTOR

9 Replies

Staunch workhorse
Solid, dependable
Never glamorous or racy
Trundling through seasons
Year after year.

Drawing the plough
Harrowing the furrow
Dragging the hay rake
Combustion engine
Pumping away.

Red Farmall
Green John Deere
Loyalties, generations deep
Billowing exhaust
Into thin morning air.

Slow-moving beast
Taking on earthy hues
Sinking into the acreage
Overcome by time
Finally idled.

SMALL BLACK CAT

25 Replies

New arrival
On the doorstep
Small black cat.

Wheezing, runny eyes
Ear mites and worms
Small black cat

Vet looks gloomy
Hope not proffered
Small black cat

Hand-fed, caressed
Cradled in laps
Small black cat

Feisty young ‘un
Up and at it
Small black cat

Pouncing lessons
Hearts won, much fun
Small black cat.

ODE TO ONIONS

24 Replies

No smell announces the preparation of a meal better than the rich, sweet aroma of sautéing onions. It’s a humble staple of my pantry that I couldn’t do without. Luckily, I live in an area famous for its onions. I keep a special pair of blue swim goggles in my kitchen drawer for chopping the extremely pungent variety that grow in our region of New York State. Known as the Black Dirt, the fertile soil—a result of an ancient glacial lake—is rich in organic matter and sulfur. The latter gives our local onions their intense flavor and earns them a spot in farmer’s markets and supermarkets all over the Northeast.

Starting in April armies of bright green shoots march across the black dirt. By July, they’re standing tall. And in August the stalks wilt, their purpose served. In September the heady scent of onions pervades the air and the onion crates are stacked high in the fields, waiting to be stored or transported to market.

Ode To The Onion by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

BEACH PICNIC, WEST OF IRELAND

3 Replies

Cardboard box lunch on the beach:
Limp sandwiches, bruised apples, melted chocolate bars.
Fine grit lodged between our teeth at every bite,
Seagulls swooping in for the crusts.
A backdrop of frenzied whitecaps,
Larksong tossed skyward,
And a ripe aroma
Of dead crab and fermenting seaweed
Wafted our way.
The culprit?
Tugging at our shirts,
Slapping strands of hair against our cheeks,
Raising goose bumps on our legs,
Hurling sand in our eyes,
Encrusting us with a film of sea salt,
Wind—ever present picnic friend.

Melissa Shaw-Smith

Writer