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Winter 08 Poetry Posts
Softness
There was a softness on summer days
When fluff from cottonwood trees sift through the air
There is the softness of dresses
Satin and silk and gossamer threads wound together
And there is the softness of bruises
Darkening and bleeding gently beneath the skin
There is the softness of books, of snow
Of a single feather floating down from the sky
There is a softness in earth
In the quiet dead things rotting away underneath
There is a softness in old photographs
The ones greying and ripped from being folded
Old grey photographs soft with your face
Jennifer Donovan, age 16
Lane County, Oregon
Partner Poem
Cypresses
At noon they talk of evening and at evening
Of night, but what they say at night
Is a dark secret.
Somebody long ago called them the Trees
of Death and they have never forgotten.
The name enchants them.
Always an attitude of solitude
to point the paradox of standing
Alone together.
How many years they have been teaching birds
In little schools, by little skills,
How to be shadows.
–Robert Francis (1901-1987)
from Changing Light: The Eternal Cycle of Night and Day, ed. J. Ruth Gendler
Ask the Poems
1. What is the gift of your shadows?
2. How do you shine?
3. What do you want to remind me of?
4. How are you lonely?
5. How are you enchanted?
Fall 07 Poetry Posts
Me, the Disease
I am bruised knees
Waving at tie-dyed children through school windows
Falling out of trees of apples
I am red with confused fingers
I seem to be looking for a megaphone
I am dead dragonflies
I seem to be a train
I am wet footprints down the dock
I am catching the next wave out of here
It seems I am not the only one
I am fossilized peanut butter in a rented kitchen
I am making air graffiti where everyone can hear me
With my tongue
All-nighters high on nothing but thoughts
I am too tired to care
I seemed to be unplugged
I am doing cartwheels
I seem to have a jagged spirit
I am the kid asking, "Where did all the good people go?"
--Madisyn Schultz, age 14
PARTNER POEM
Sister Cat
Cat stands at the fridge,
Cries loudly for milk.
But I've filled her bowl.
Wild cat, I say, Sister,
Look, you have milk.
I clink my fingernail
Against the rim. Milk.
With down and liver,
A word I know she hears.
Her sad miaow. She runs
To me. She dips
In her whiskers but
Doesn't drink. As sometimes
I want the light on
When it is on. Or when
I saw the woman walking
toward my house and
I thought there's Frances.
Then looked in the car mirror
To be sure. She stalks
The room. She wants. Milk
Beyond milk. World beyond
This one, she cries.
--`Frances Mayes
ASK the POEMS
1. What do you know about restlessness?
2. In what ways do you recognize yourself?
3. How are you a stranger to yourself?
4. How does thought keep you company?
5. What is the gift of limitations?
Spring 07 Poetry Posts
Good Bye
Goodbye bare feet, I cannot live shoeless anymore
Goodbye cold water, I cannot stand to swim in March anymore
Goodbye cut off jeans, I don’t grow taller anymore
Goodbye times tables and timed tests; you do not scare me anymore
Goodbye tops of trees, I am too heavy to climb that high anymore
Goodbye black cat, you are long gone and you will not scratch me anymore
Goodbye redheaded little friend, you have grown up and do not want to tag along anymo
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