Poetry

A Song for Mary

Mary Aubrey is a friend I met while living in Door County, WI. We were fellow members of the local N.O.W. coven chapter, the radical women on the Thumb. Then she went off on adventures and landed in Massachusetts and I went off on adventures and landed in Seattle. On Monday, she and her wife, Nancy, arrived at my house for a week-long visit, and it is a joy surpassing most other joys to spend time with her and with Nancy, who is an absolutely amazing woman in her own right. Read more about A Song for Mary

Tags: 

A May Memorial

In the Sun's Last Glow

On her terrace where she once had viewed a crimson field,
she stands recalling heroes who were battling their foe.
She still can feel the terror! How her poor heart reeled
thinking of her lover fighting on the field below,
with others on that plain bathed red as the sun dipped low.

Read more about A May Memorial>
Tags: 

Poem for March

The afternoon is bright,
with spring in the air,
a mild March afternoon,
with the breath of April stirring,
I am alone in the quiet patio
looking for some old untried illusion -
some shadow on the whiteness of the wall
some memory asleep
on the stone rim of the fountain,
perhaps in the air
the light swish of some trailing gown.

- Antonio Machado, 1875-1939
Selected Poems, #3, Translated by Alan S. Trueblood Read more about Poem for March

Tags: 

Shakespeare in Winter

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Read more about Shakespeare in Winter>
Tags: 

I Remember November

Two poems today, celebrating my first November in Wisconsin after 32 years.

"Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast."
- Sara Coleridge

"How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun. Read more about I Remember November

Tags: