Tag Archives: Poetry

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 Girl and the Whale 🐋

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Scrolling through the vast wasteland of the internet, I discovered this picture and it immediately brought tears to my eyes.

I could actually feel myself as the girl caressing this magnificent humpback whale.

The essential and enduring connection and communion with other creatures is a combination of compassion and empathy and kindness.

I did a little research and learned about the work of Rachel Byler, artist and creator of The Colorful Cat Studio.

🐋It’s on my May Birthday Wish List as I could gaze at this painting forever and ever. It brings a simple yet complex joy.🐋

One of my favorite poets, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver wrote about humpback whales:

HUMPBACKS

There is, all around us,
this country
of original fire

You know what I mean.

The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.

Off Stellwagon
off the Cape, the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children
at play.

They sing, too.
And not for any reason
you can’t imagine.

Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.

We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky-
like nothing you’ve ever imagined-
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
our of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then

they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean

I know a captain who has seen them
playing with seaweed, tossing
the slippery lengths of it into the air.

I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever
she can, and nudge it gently along the bow
with her long flipper.

I know several lives worth living.

listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,

its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones

toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire

where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs with song.

🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋

April’s Full Pink Moon

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This full moon is all about healing, harmony, and balance. Stay grounded and peaceful as we embrace the beautiful energy of this pink moon.

“Always remember we are under the same sky, looking at the same moon.” – Maxine Lee

For some reason, none of the pictures I took of the moon came out great, so I snapped a pic of some of my favorite crystals on a pink heart dish.

I love this poem about the moon, written by Lady Montagu (1689-1762), a truly remarkable woman. In addition to her poetry and writing, she is also celebrated for introducing the smallpox inoculation to Britain, half a century before Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against the disease.

Hymn to the Moon

Thou silver deity of secret night,
Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!
By thy pale beams I solitary rove,
To thee my tender grief confide;
Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove,
My friend, my goddess, and my guide …

…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

Happy Valentine’s Day ❤️

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Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
–W.B. Yeats

Curated from and art credit to Elaine Bayley Illustrations

The Dream Fairy

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One of my favorites, poet Thomas Hood, who also wrote A Lake and A Fairy Boat.

This one calls to me, too…

The Dream Fairy

A little fairy comes at night,
Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown’
with silver spots upon her wings,
And from the moon she flutters down.

She has a little silver wand,
And when a good child goes to bed
She waves her wand from right to left
And makes a circle round her head,

And then it dreams of pleasant things,
Of fountains filled with fairy fish,
And trees that bear delicious fruit,
And bow their branches at a wish;

Of arbours filled with dainty scents
From lovely flowers that never fade,
Bright ‘flies that flitter in the sun,
And glow-worms shining in the shade;

And talking birds with gifted tongues
For singing songs and telling tales,
And pretty dwarfs to show the way
Through the fairy hills and fairy dales.

Image curated from Google public domain. Credit to artist.

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