Tag Archives: Abundance/Diminishment

Headlines

Headlines. They make us so worried, so anxious, so scared. That was true when I was a child, in 1968; it’s true today. The poem below, which appears in Abundance/Diminishment, is one I wrote eight years ago. It remains relevant. And it is an April poem.

~

At a Birdfeeder

Woodpecker works at sunflower seeds
intent on his hunger
deaf to blackbirds’ territorial ambitions,
wooing robins, chickadee’s agitated perch & dip
at feeder’s edge.
Woodpecker makes of his head
a bright gimlet, his claws anchored on an eyebolt.

I watch a redwing drift
on the last morning breeze of April,
a spider’s line trimming the porch rail.
Woodpecker revels in the easy meal
we’ve provided, doesn’t know
about the sack of seed in our garage,
the price of bulk feed, acres of sunflowers
blooming in Iowa, Kansas, Mexico
chaff at the processing plants
allusions to van Gogh, pollen-packed bees
in their yellow jodhpurs.

That’s human knowledge: mine, 
yet I’d rather dwell on turkey calls
vibrating the nearby woods, the labor
of wild cherry petals landing on dew,
grass, and feeder where the woodpecker—
still famished—writes the morning news
in bold headlines amid hickories,
that being all the news that matters
in this moment.

~

Toad night

Because April is National Poetry Month, here’s an April poem from my latest book:

~

Toad Night

Soft rain, or
humid fog—mild
and after sundown

when the driveway’s
puddled or
the blacktop’s slick
they emerge.

It must be warm
enough to stir
their dormant
blood, speed
the small hearts &
waken senses in
the porous skin.
In the headlights

they can be
mistaken for
last year’s leaves

tumbling over road
but there is
no breeze.
Their eyes gleam.

Give them time. 

You do not need
to rush tonight

with the small
beings of the world
awakening
around you.


Abundance!

In all my born days, I’ve never had a Poetry Month start off with such an abundance of publications–and, as it will probably never happen again, I’m going to post the links here.

https://kelsaybooks.com/products/abundance-diminishment/

“Siren for Somebody Else” offers a mother’s perspective on waiting, unable to get to sleep, for a child who is out late on his own. It appears in RockPaperPoem.

“Interpreting the Conversation from Another Room” shows up in Stick Figure Poetry #13. The poem originated during the years our son lived with us and played online multiplayer games in his room, but it morphed into something a little more sinister.

“Fevered” came almost out of nowhere but resonated with some early readers who contend with mental and emotional challenges. It’s also a poem about love and compassion, I suppose. The journal Philadelphia Stories published it in the latest issue.

Gyroscope Review is a print journal that also offers a Kindle and a PDF version, the last of which is free to download, though the paper book is lovely and only $12 on Amazon. My poem “Bach and Birdsong” starts the issue off…a meditation on springtime.

Whew! This post goes with my “Gratitude” post of last week!

~ The poem below appears in my chapbook Small Things Rise & Go, FootHills Publishing:

Nap in a Treehouse

Alone in my children's treehouse,
I read 300 poems from the Chinese.

Sunlight slants over the cornfield,
flies buzz, the afternoon is warm.

This first day of autumn,
insomnia's caught up with me.

After so many sleepless nights,
I doze with Li Po and Tu Fu.
~

Equinoctal

Torrents. We had rain in torrents, and it went on for days from February into March and then on…and on. Constant alerts on the cell phones: “Flash flooding.” Doldrums set in. In an effort to accomplish anything at all, I even started to sort through and organize my attic.

Talk about desperation!

The attic project isn’t finished–the weather turned mild and clear two days ago, so I ran to the garden to get to work out there–but it turned out to be a more rewarding task than I expected. I started by tackling the Christmas stuff, then the books (SO many books), children’s toys (the kids are in their 30s and there are no grandchildren), and moved on to paper correspondence. Letters! Postal mail. Epistles. Why I have saved so much of my correspondence from 1975 to the present, I cannot explain. Maybe that’s a thing that people who love words just naturally do, the same reason I have kept so many books. I certainly don’t need all of it; but that was part of the task, sorting what I want to keep and agreeing to recycle the rest. I also found odd ephemera, such as photocopied posters for long-ago poetry readings, broadsides of poems, xerox-zines from the early 1980s, and ancient mixtapes on cassette.

~

There’s some sorrow with this project. So many of my former correspondents have died. I find my grandmother’s looping script, my dad’s distinctive handwriting, my dear friend David Dunn’s nearly-illegible scrawl. Reminders of times past. Maybe that is why we keep ephemera: to remember what we thought, at the time, was important.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, by the time we reach our later decades–if we’re fortunate enough to reach them.

I keep gardens for different reasons. Not to remember the past but to see what the present can bring.

~speaking of the present~

My new book can now be ordered from the publisher, if you find Amazon problematic (and there are good reasons for that). The link is here.

House concert

I can only recall ever attending one house concert. It was during my college days–1977 or ’78–and took place at a large Victorian house in Ann Arbor, MI. We sat about on chairs, sofas, stairs, and the floor to listen to blues/folk singer and guitarist extraordinaire, David Bromberg. It was a pleasant environment in which to hear the musician–an intimate and attentive audience, a sense of camaraderie and shared appreciation, and quite comfortable. But I never managed to attend another house concert…usually, such events are fairly private and by invitation (as I think that one was), so you don’t hear about them until after they’re over.

I was therefore delighted when friends suggested that they hold a “house concert” or, in this case, a house reading, so that they could share my poems with some acquaintances. A new audience! A comfortable, non-intimidating space, terrific food, and the kindness of people willing to listen to a bit of poetry…what’s not to like about that? There were over a dozen folks in our friends’ pleasant home, and at the close of an evening of wine and food and conversation, I was asked to read and talk about my poems. And promote my new book (which is now available to order on Amazon).

My gratitude overflows, Don and Jeannie. You’re the best!

An unexpected aspect of the house concert event was that it was delightful to meet the “audience” first, before the reading–a reversal of the usual order, and very helpful in getting me to feel more comfortable not just in presenting my work but in deciding which poems to read. In addition, the cozy atmosphere meant listeners felt free to ask questions and continue the conversation to include thoughts on song lyrics, “private” poetry (that people write for themselves alone), favorite poets, and the context of the work of poetry in the world.

That was such a marvelous evening. And up ahead, somewhat similar in nature: on March 27, at 7 pm, I will be joining poets Marilyn Hazelton and Susan Weaver–two members of the writing group that I’ve been part of for decades–and folk singer, radio host, teaching artist, and community arts leader Dave Fry for one of Dave’s monthly “Dave’s Night Out” events at Godfrey Daniels, a listening room in Bethlehem PA. Dave has been generous enough to have hosted me with other poets on stage at the coffeehouse before, and the experience was terrific. His guitar accompaniment enhances the sonic delights of poetry. I’m looking forward to this one. Tickets are $15, I think, and they keep Godfrey’s running as a non-profit arts venue in our region.

I’m happy to see this book in the world. Copies can also be ordered from Kelsay Books.

~

https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Diminishment