Poetry

Poetry Challenge NaPoWriMo – Daily Poem

April 6, 2013

Many Paths

Paths up the mountain,

Like paths in life,

Become rough with wear.

Unconsciously we stumble

Over the rocks and roots

As if they suddenly sprang up

To test our patience,

To see if we are really

Looking where we’re going,

Or wandering mindlessly

Through the years, following

Whatever path is there,

Instead of creating our own,

With our unique vibrance.

April 5

Senegal 1994

I remember the drums in the desert

Of Senegal, their call and response

Echoing from my friend’s drum to the children,

Their songs filling the air with voices

In counterpoint to the beat.

 

From the Louisiana swamps we teachers came,

Drying out in the desert—nothing could be

Further from what we knew and yet—

The beginnings were here—

The jambalaya, etoufee, rice and shrimp

Aromas so complex they alone could fill us.

 

Standing on this sand, like stepping back in time,

We know it all started a century before

With slaves imprisoned in the hole of a ship,

The only ones who survived the inhumanity,

Loaded from the slave castle through

“The Door of No Return”

Only to endure what was beyond inhumanity.

 

I watch their children dancing and singing

Responding to our call,

With us as if we were carriers of peace

And I pray we are and will be.

A little boy who speaks only French

Takes my hand and proudly pulls me

To the school he is so proud of,

Build on a concrete slab with no books

And I smile and clap as if I had entered

A golden palace lined with tomes of wisdom,

For his smile is golden and his hope my desire.

April 4

“Damn You, Mother Nature”

Sharp wind and icy rain slash across my face,

My umbrella turns upside down

Almost flies from my hand.

I want to shout “Damn you, Mother Nature,

What did you do with Spring?

Don’t you know we’ve had enough!’

She must be going through menopause,

Restless, quiet and patient one moment

Raging the next like a warrior defending –

I don’t know what.  What it was,

Slips away, and the sun comes up

And the birds sing Spring songs

And build nests and mate like they’ve never noticed

Nature was flipping out,

And I just sit here thinking

We women have our challenges, don’t we? 

April 3

Entwined

Ivy wraps around every tree in the yard

Entwined with leaves and branches,

Like lovers’ arms unable to let go

Of the one who feels smothered

By never being able to breathe her own air.

April 1, 2013

Squirrelly Lessons

Dinner is at five for the squirrels in my yard.

They’re picky eaters, often ignoring

The piles of acorns covering the upper lawn,

Choosing instead to dig up winter’s buried

And left-over treasures.

 

Standing upright in their gray and white tuxedos

They seem so proper, neatly nibbling on one acorn

At a time, never arguing about whose it is,

Or if it’s organic or from a red or white oak

Or fallen into this yard from the neighbor’s.

 

Early in the morning when humans

Are still trying to open their eyes and fix the coffee,

My squirrelly friends are chasing each other

Up and down and around one tree after another

Dare devils, flying through space to the next tree’s branch.

 

I watch them defying gravity and common sense,

Envying the simplicity of their lives,

The joy of their play, and how they just go on,

Even on the day, the hark appeared and fled

With one of them hanging from its talons.

MYSTERIES

by

Georganne Spruce

Published in Western North Carolina Woman, September 2005

Women

Strong as mountains made me,

Carrying bushels of corn

Up the steep path

From the truck garden

Near the river,

Sitting on their front porches

Shucking the ears,

Balanced in the cradle

Of their cotton dresses.

Their voices, like birdsong,

Entwining melodies

With the autumn breeze.

Sitting beside them,

I touched the corn silk gently,

Wishing my hair

Were that shining golden color

Like a vision of forest faeries

Dancing beneath our chinaberry tree.

Holding the corn in my hands,

Feeling it was still alive

Though common sense told me

It couldn’t be,

Plucked from the stalk that way.

Gently, I peeled the outer skins away

Exposing the naked corn.

At night when the moon was full

I would lie awake

Floating in its light

As if balanced on the water

Of a cool mountain stream.

I had no questions formed to ask

But knew there were mysteries

Pulling at me in that cool light.

I knew my grandmother,

My mother too,

Knew the wisdom of the mountains

And the mysteries of the moon,

Though we never spoke of them.