Poetry – Page 36 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Making a Difference

If asked to speak I don’t know what to say.
Words appear and then refuse to be.
Mumbling nonsense I can’t clearly see
How dots from here to there could find their way.
Even so those dots begin to play
And laugh as they enjoy confounding me
And jeer when I pretend some honesty,
But nonetheless I’ll risk these words and pray:

  Make a difference. Show us something new.
  Judge us with Your mercy.  May we ask
  For wisdom so we'll see the pointing sign?
  Lead us so that we may more align
  With what You know is now our better task
  And not what we might like to see come true.

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. I am hosting today. The theme is to write a poem with fourteen lines. There’s no other constraint. I used a Petrarchan sonnet here, but no form is required. Come and join us with a poem of your own.

I heard earlier this week that the first Thursday in May is the National Day of Prayer in the United States. This has been happening on some day in the US since 1952. With our health and our economy at risk, I’m offering this sonnet as a prayer. Hopefully I am not offending the God who makes a difference with what I’ve said.

Solitude

In solitude I’m not alone.
Memories stay near.
Regrets have often held my mind.
Joy as well I also find.
Sweet turning made ways clear.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Bjorn is hosting with the theme of “solitude”.

From an Unusual Angle

While looking here
Or searching there
Am I now near
Or now nowhere?

Alone and standing,
Silly breeze,
Trails and landings
Restful ease.

Autumn green
And yellow blooms,
Sunsets seen
From prairie rooms.

After searching did I find
All that's best I left behind?

Linked to dVerse Quadrille. Lillian is hosting with the word “silly”. Also linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar in the final hours of the prompt where I am hosting with the theme of fourteen lines.

I am also linking this post to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “from an unusual angle”. I took the top photo on a trail in Colorado Springs. I don’t know why I decided to take a view of the trail while kneeling. Perhaps I liked the railings. It now looks like an interesting angle. The bottom photo was of a prairie in Northbrook, Illinois. I pushed all of the potentially interesting detail to the top right portion of the picture, not how I would normally look at the scene when walking through the park.

I am also linking to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Some friends decided to continue our monthly breakfast virtually on Zoom. I thought it was odd, but then I have heard of a couple recently who decided against postponing their wedding and instead do it virtually. So I guess it wasn’t all that odd after all. It made me smile to attend our virtual breakfast.

On Thursday at dVerse Meeting the Bar, I will be featuring poems with only one constraint that the poem have fourteen lines like the one posted here.

Fourteen Lines

We hope we built it on the solid stone.
Earth that would get dizzy makes things wave.
We used what we were given, staying brave,
Though walls might fall and we’re left all alone.
We did avoid the sandy, shifting shore
Licentiousness had offered in its hand.
We chose perhaps unjustly the well-planned
When legalism offered frowning chores.

Looking high we see dark skies above.
The morning brings us color from the sun.
We built our best, remained in spite of doubt
Talking from our hearts to only one,
Walking on the waters of his love,
Confidently breathing in and out.

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night where Kim, Writing in North Norfolk, is hosting.

I started focusing on poems with fourteen lines. Here is an attempt at a Petrarchan sonnet.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Though not the sort of Gods that I
Would bother to believe in,
They raise their silence to the sky
Rejecting useless reasons why
Without pretending they can fly
Point edges up uneven.

From a distance they look small
And red against the range.
They shock me. What was once so tall
Stands dwarfed as nothing much at all.
What rose majestic seemed to fall
Where wind and rain bring change.

Mountain heights may help me see.
Foothills praise more modestly.

Liked to dVerse Poetics where Lillian is hosting with the theme of describing a place we can travel to in our minds during in this lockdown.

The top photo I took from within this beautiful and well-maintained park. I took the bottom photo at Palmer Park a few miles away. At the top of the photo just right, off-center, below the mountain range are these unusual rock formations called the Garden of the Gods.

In the distance is the Garden of the Gods below towering Pikes Peak

Food As Art

Pumpkin piles rising high
Pointing to the blue fall sky.
Going up perhaps a mile
Or just enough to make me smile.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “food as art”. I hope those pumpkins or squash taste as good as they look. They are from two different fall displays at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. One unexpected thing happened this past week. I realized I have now re-seen all of the Pink Panther movies including the not so great ones. There’s nothing left to watch. That made me realize that I will have to crawl out of my comfort zone, take a breath of fresh air, and find something else to risk watching. And that made me smile.

Bookends

         Mystery of being
Further along the road less traveled
   Where the conflict really lies
            I and thou

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar where Bjorn offers the challenge to use the titles of books organized appropriately as found poems.

Symmetrical

There's symmetry as night greets day
And day greets evening’s light.
The virus flushed our breaths away.
It’s time to win that fight.
If I’m around when years go by
Remembering this time,
I’ll inhale breathing if I may
And offer one more rhyme.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt “symmetrical”.

This past week I also read Kim M. Russell’s Joe and Nelly and wrote an Amazon review. I highly recommend this story about two children and their families during World War Two in London.

Also linked to dVerse Quadrille. Mish is hosting with the word “flush”.

I am also linking to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Below are two more or less symmetrical versions of me wearing a T-shirt mask. These masks don’t take a lot of skill or materials to make (even I can do it). The broccoli sprouts that failed last week now sprout without molding. And so with two successful projects to brag about I have no reason not to smile.

Friendship

There is so much I do not know
And more that I won’t ever do.
Repent. Stop grabbing. Let things flow
Away if need be when they’re through.

See which odd ones stick around
Old friends I didn’t know, then found.

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night where Lillian is hosting.

I took these photos some years ago at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. I don’t think I will ever visit that park again since it is far away and we no longer have family living there, but these photos like old friends stick around in my memory.

Order

There’s order somewhere in this garden space.
I tuck the sheets and toss the blanket tight.
I wash the dishes daily, wipe my face
To carry with me courage for the night.

Dreams help order what I ought to do 
Summarizing stuff with morning light.
Today there may be some I shall get through!
I’ll plant them. Watch them grow and check their height.

This all depends on trust. That’s hard to find.
I know that if I did this on my own 
I’d often go astray or fall behind.

Who is that hoeing offering his aid?
I tend to think I’m on this walk alone,
But we’re both planting dreams though some may fade.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Laura Bloomsbury offers the theme of “order” featuring Elizabeth Jennings. My poem is based on thinking about Jennings’ sonnet The Garden. I took the photos some time ago with different seasonal views of the Chicago Botanic Garden.