Tag Archives: Poems

Strawberry Full Moon’s Penumbral Thoughts

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| Penumbra: a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area |

I sent you a present last night you know
Though it didn’t address you by name
It was all of those meteors showering, dancing
And falling to earth like the rain

I wrote you a letter last week you know
But it won’t have arrived in the post
I wrote on the bright coloured curves of a rainbow
The reasons I missed you the most

I sent you a message just yesterday
But it wasn’t a message in words
For I spoke to the wind and I taught her our song
And I asked her to make sure you heard

I drew you a picture last Tuesday
But you may not have noticed it there
For I drew round the clouds with the rays of the sun
So they glowed as they hung in the air

No, you may not get gifts like you used to
Or get messages stored on your phone
But I’ll make sure I’m sending something each day
So you know that you’re never alone

And tomorrow I’ll paint something wonderful
I don’t know quite yet what it will be
But I promise you’ll know when you see it
That it’s sent just to you

Love from me
Xxx

From When I Am Gone – Becky Hemsley

How I Go To The Woods

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This intense cosmic energy is not only messing with my sleep, but I was having strange battery issues with my laptop computer so I went back to the Apple store where I had once met Al Gore (yes, VICE PRESIDENT Al Gore) and asked the Genius Bar tech to perform a diagnostic check. The tech didn’t do much but it’s all better, so who really knew what caused the problem, whether it was a hardware glitch or a solar flare, or other planetary influences. The good thing is that it’s back to working perfectly.

There were lots of traffic accidents and horrible drivers everywhere yesterday. The freeway was completely shut down for hours because of an insane situation with a woman who allegedly vandalized a vehicle and carjacked a Lyft. She led the police on a short chase but finally, peacefully, surrendered to police after a prolonged standoff on Interstate 5. It looked like WW3 with all of the military-like Special Weapons and Tactics Team surrounding the vehicle. The woman was taken into custody on suspicion of felony vandalism, brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, assault with a deadly weapon, carjacking, resisting arrest, and felony evasion of police.

That’s way too much negative energy for ME to deal with and I’m so glad I wasn’t stuck for hours on the freeway. I felt lucky that I had made a spontaneous last minute decision to take an alternate route home. I heard all the sirens though, but had assumed it was simply another accident.

Time to take a deep breath, stay home, work in the garden, listen to the birds, and read a poem or two while cultivating some zen as well as my veggies.

How I Go To The Woods by Mary Oliver

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

The Chair That No One Sits In

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(I know that one is not really supposed to end a sentence with “in”, but the proper way sounded stilted and phony, so I made a decision based on this information: “never ending a sentence with a preposition is a myth. It’s something wrongly attributed to English that is actually a real rule in Latin.”)

So…on a walk a couple years ago, I found this chair with its turquoise-painted partner tossed out on the street. They looked lonely and sad, so I went home to get my car and rescued them both.

I placed the chairs on the side of the house with every intention of brightening them up with a new coat of paint but their weary and worn character grew on me. I’ve left them to naturally weather every storm just as they are — honest and true — with nothing to camouflage their straightforward authenticity.

I like them just the way they are.

Funny enough, I get a lot of compliments from neighbors who walk by and comment about how they love the artful way the flowers seem to embrace this simple old chair.

The Chair That No One Sits In

You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple

who might sit there and look out|
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone

sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed   
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.

Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one   
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.

It might be none of my business,
but it might be a good idea one day
for everyone who placed those vacant chairs

on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them
for the sake of remembering
whatever it was they thought deserved

to be viewed from two chairs   
side by side with a table in between.
The clouds are high and massive that day.

The woman looks up from her book.
The man takes a sip of his drink.
Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking,

the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or warning—
it passes the time to wonder which.

William James Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.

(Photo credit to Enchanted Seashells)

…the butterfly

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I love butterflies. I’ll stop whatever I’m doing to point and say, “Look at the butterfly!”

Today is World Poetry Day | Anne Sexton

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Every year, World Poetry Day is celebrated on March 21st with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression.

Here’s one of my favorites by Anne Sexton, elegantly illustrating our shadow side, at least that’s how I interpret her words.

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

The Wild and Unloved Things 🕷️

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May We Raise Children Who Love The Unloved Things
May we raise children
who love the unloved things – the dandelion, the
worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days
the same way they turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown &
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things
and be the ones.–Nicolette Sowder

🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

I LOVE the idea of nature-connected living and (grand)parenting!

“My passion and heart’s mission is to help families step back into the circle of wild things and bond with Mother Nature. When rooted in that relationship and ancient connection, we heal, we flow, we fly.” https://wilderchild.com

An Awake Heart

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This quote by Hāfiz (1325 –1389), a Persian mystical poet, seems an appropriate way to commence this month of love and Valentine’s Day.

A Lake and A Fairy Boat

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This is everything…

A Lake And A Fairy Boat

A lake and a fairy boat
To sail in the moonlight clear, –
And merrily we would float
From the dragons that watch us here!

Thy gown should be snow-white silk
And strings of oriental pearls,
Like gossamers dipped in milk,
Should twine with thy raven curls!

Red rubies should deck thy hands,
And diamonds should be thy dower –
But fairies have broke their wands,
And wishing has lost its power!

By Thomas Hood

Curated from Snowwolfs Woodland Nook
Artist: Charlotte Bird

Come Home

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Come home to nature. The forest is magical and full of sparkles.

Come home to the forest
Where time goes slow
and the breath is mellow
Where thoughts find rest
and calm comes to nest .
Come home to the woods
to be friends with trees
and listen to the breeze
to wander through trails
and mend your sails .
Come home to nature
when your heart is hurting
or your soul needs healing .
When something feels wrong
or you just need a place to belong .
The forest awaits
Come home, be healed …

-Bidushee Phukan-

Art by Elaine Bayley. Curated from Coyote Watch Canada

Dragonfly To My Heart

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I’m not sure why, because there’s not any water in my pond right now, but the garden was full of little dragonflies today, which made me extraordinarily happy.

The temps are up again, nearly ninety degrees, so hot it dried the sheets on the line in about half an hour, but the humidity is low with these Santa Ana winds. It’s way more pleasant than the heat/humidity wave we experienced a few weeks ago, and the nights are blissfully cool.

“I heard the wind whisper and the earth sigh, it made my soul smile as I walked by.”
Michelle Schaper