(With thanks to the Battenkill Writing Group)
A full moon
lights the landscape.
A field of white,
ringed by trees and hills.
A bonfire softens the chill;
Friends’ voices break the still.
Cold, clean, clear night air
distilled into a feeling.
Can I capture with words
what I hold in my heart?
January 27, 2022
A field of white,
A sunken bowl
ringed by trees and hills.
A full moon
reflects off the snow
lighting the landscape.
A fire softens the chill.
Cold, clean;
Clear head,
Clear view.
Can you capture it in words
As you hold it in your heart?
January 19, 2022
(inspired by the Battenkill Writing Group)
Is sadness more beautiful than joy?
We feel the intimacy created by distance,
by what is unsaid;
Even as we hear a poem.
Mary Oliver wrote:
“You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.”
How odd that words can touch like this.
Listen to the poetry of life.
Embrace those who share it with you.
January 12, 2022
(Here’s a beauty by my friend Caroline Donnola)
The fog plays on memory,
dispersing my sense of time
like a momentary lapse of judgment.
My mother’s cousin
now deceased,
her phone no longer answered
when I call to wish her Happy New Year.
It’s day three of resting
and I can’t remember the last time
I just kept still—
not working, producing, accomplishing.
Reading books for hours on end
listening to my favorite Beethoven
taking walks by the water
fixing collard greens and black-eyed peas
for the sheer pleasure
of the chopping, the stirring
the smells.
No rushing from place to place
No crossing things off my list.
It’s weird, relaxing, calm.
When I stroll down
to the Narrows
I see that the fog is shifting
and the bridge is playing tricks on me—
Both here and gone,
like Cousin Elizabeth
who was always my mother’s favorite,
and comforted me
when my mother passed.
The sound of the horns
as boats slip by and under the crossing,
the softness of the air,
wet from a long day’s rain.
I don’t know what
this year will bring.
The sheer bigness
of all that’s gone wrong
too great to let in.
So I try to focus
on what is possible
and what is sweet.
This.
All of this.
poems for friends 