Monthly Archives: June 2019

Bring your own

I cordially invite you to make this sandwich order with me soon;

read from the post-it note I found on my walk

last Tuesday, just before noon.

It’s for a cheese-steak sandwich on sesame,

using both American and mozzarella cheese.

Laden with onions, probably red, and banana peppers, yellow,

the pungent and acetous toppings combating the cheesy marrow.

And if this weren’t enough acescent taste,

with lots of A-1 sauce, as told, the sandwich should be graced.

Likely you will thirst upon it’s completion,

this sandwich activates the salivary gland secretions-

and since I cannot offer what you seek,

bring your own preference of beverage, then, to drink.

***********

This poem was written in response to #summerofprompts entry 3 by Mary Biddinger and generally inspired by a found post-it note.

The Sentinel

I was there when the sun rose and watched it trim the horizon. The night wind kept me awake and swaying. Now, the sparrows sing as I gently swing to the breezes proffered me.

Somehow taller than yesterday, I can see a bit further. I bend towards the coming day, collecting the light. The arrhythmic pulse of beetles and alighting flying things courses through me.

The robin and the jay argue and flutter over nest placement. The stone path beside me stares upward in disbelief or ambivalence, I cannot tell the difference.

There will be others soon: Old ones that sit beneath me and drink in the silence. I understand the solitude. Young ones that run and squeal. I feel their joy.

Moments of complete stillness are rare and only abide in seconds. I hear them coming.

An end will come, pulled from the beginning of this day. A strand of light that dims and thins will precurse the wind turn. Stars beguile the sky.

I stand here, watching amidst the time and winds that move me.

*******

Written in response to #summerofprompts idea by Mary Biddinger.

Needlework

3 Replies

It is to admire, the dedication of Ireland to her writers and poets.

Stories and verse are held close and read in weekly doses.

The next writer featured from Oranmore or Kilmainham or Skibbereen.

All have something to be told.

Just as words born from Beckett and Heaney, Yeats and Tynan,

these are ancient and bold.

It is a patchwork stitched from ages of fabric and thread,

pierced with tales of loss and love and fairy trees.

Sometimes covered with gorse and rock, instead.

But almost always green and growing

beneath a cloudful blue, with the wind blowing.

Held fast in stone with those who’ve passed

or washed in crashing waves felt in the west.

Words that only come from those who live and die

stitched to their land with a needle through a feather in the sky.

hidden in sight

She likes to nest in the seasonal swag on our front door,

even with better natural options in the burning bush on the corner

or the Japanese maple in our neighbor’s yard,

our roosting house sparrow waits, en garde.

Perhaps it is the safety of a solid wall,

the camouflage of her twigs and grasses and straw

among the bundles of dried vine, hydrangea blossoms, glistening and false.

or this perfect window to a world as she “twee-deeps” her calls

Perhaps she shares some insight to other songbirds

hidden within the sound of her chirping words.