Poems Carried on an Autumn Wind
Enjoy my poem offerings at the close of October:
Poem after reading the Argentine poet
Alfonsina Storni, ¿Y tú?
What the Wind Knows
My being is all breath and lungs
Bellows flamed by wildfire
I know a life of gust and buffet
breezing and whirling away
of hawks soaring in a double-helix
lofted on my heated thermals
I know how to daydream and slumber
even to rest within a hurricane’s eye
What is your life? Are you hiding
within the deep blue lake I whip
into a frenzied whitecap sea?
Aspen on Closing Day
We’ve come for the dance show
before the winds and rains scatter
the performers away.
Adorned in flashing gold coins,
Leafy dresses flicker and twirl to
the tangerine tempo.
How could we not sway our hips,
lift our arms as if to spark the last light
from our fingertips?
Recently, I joined an Ekphrastic poetry group with weekly prompts of art and photography for inspiration. I chose two to share below, with thanks to the poet and facilitator Laurel Benjaminson, and to poet Annis Cassells for her invitation.
The Spiraled Way
There is no such word as barren
when our senses awaken to
spirited winds.
Feel the way a chill breeze
teases tears to fall from
upturned faces.
Cresting white waves tumble
over a blue-eye tucked in a
prairie cleft.
Our breath spirals in the way of
moon shells held up to
curvaceous ears.
Hear the whispered stories like
bird wings feathering air into
twinning whirlpools.
Our tongues lap the honeyed hills
softening every worried crease in a
receding tide.
Pigeon Time
Scruffin’, toughin’, keepin’ time
We know how to keep in line.
Watch us when the sun do shine
Don’t we love our shadows fine?
Pigeon prowl. Rulers of the roost
We ain’t gonna take no abuse.
Watch out for our two-step motion
Here comes an avian commotion!
City livin’ that’s our tribe
Gotta love our rhymin’ jibe.
Strut, strut scuff. Chests go puff.
Ain’t we a bunch of pigeons tough?
We’re city birds. Survivin’, Thrivin’
Flappin’, tappin’, and always rappin’.
And while reveling in the rhyme I wrote this:
Rhyming River Run
Deschutes River reverberation
Each step a temptation
Fly on my next exhalation
Sun-struck aspen leaves a sensation
Each quiver a multiplication
Shake shimmied alliteration
Pearly tree trunks rise in relation
Branches caress in flirtation
Heart leaves a murmuration
Above the azure blue sky-nation
Home of belted kingfisher vibration
Elixir of feathery winged gyration
My feet dance across needled striation
Trail of crisscrossed lines of creation
Evolving autumnal transformation
Is it not time to live in revelation?
To celebrate every variation?
To find simplicity in flowing elation?
Poem on a Day of Affirmation
Good morning world!
I am the lioness
luxuriating after my nap,
Flexing paws as I stretch and
rise to my feline grandeur.
I am the deer leaping,
kingfisher plunging,
raven outracing a storm.
I am… a writer.
