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Saturday Share – Gene Hyde and Peter Venable

October 3, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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Saturday morning readers share:
Gene Hyde, Peter Venable
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Holy the Firm
– for Annie Dillard
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Falling like saffron flakes at my feet,
the glue holding the cover
of Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm
comes undone,
the cover slipping free
as I sit in the car dealership,
my brakes being repaired
and my safety,
at least in this regard,
assured for a while.
 . 
I gaze out the window
at the Blue Ridge,
thinking of Dillard’s
Countenance Divine
as it shone forth
on the clouded
Olympic Range,
while the same
God goes riding here,
oblivious to tourists and traffic
and human foibles,
of which we are legion.
 . 
God sits at my feet,
in the dust of bookish glue,
and washes across this waiting room
filled with unwitting pilgrims,
infusing even indifferent souls
with sparks of silent prayer.
 . 
Gene Hyde
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Originally appeared in a slightly different form in Amethyst Review. It was inspired by Annie Dillard’s book of the same name, and I dedicated it to her. I thought this might be a good time to share it.
– Gene
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Gene Hyde

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Read another of Gene’s poems at Salvation South . . . and listen to him read it to you:
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And here’s a poem by Gene at Verse and Image:
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Lazing On A Summer Afternoon
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Drifting in our wooded cocoon, oars at rest,
the cypress canopy shading noon’s full moon,
the pond smooth as glass, dragonflies circle…
 . 
You drop a pebble and concentric ripples
spread outwards across the lily-padded
surface, minnows schooling below
 . 
and I look into your eyes—
deep dark pupils—and plunge
into your vortices, swirling and swooning…
 . 
Peter Venable
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Peter Venable

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We are serving a life sentence–lifers–condemned to write verse. Guilty and glad about it! I am painfully aware of how ecology is being polluted by avārus-ology. Simply, nature is phenomenal. Blake’s To see a World in a Grain of Sand… I never have and never will use AI. Keep on “taking pictures and leaving footprints.”
Cheers – Peter
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 

Posted in Saturday Share | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Vanity – J.R. Solonche

October 2, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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4 poems by J.R. Solonche
all selections are from Vanity, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA
© 2026 J.R. Solonche
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❀
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Winter Oasis
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The woodpecker at
the suet cake must
be Yahweh to the birds,
for they have followed
his head’s pillar of fire
and are now harvesting
the manna falling from
the feeder to their feet.
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❀
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Nice Ice
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Covered in ice
from the storm,
the boulder, glinting
in the sunlight,
winks at a cloud as
sexily as a stone can.
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❀
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Zhao Li Stops
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to listen to the song of a bird
he has never heard before,
but it is not the song of a bird.
It is the song of two branches
rubbing together. “How did
that tree learn how to sing like
a bird I’ve never heard before?
Oh, it is the song of two
branches rubbing together
that I’ve never heard before,”
laughs Zhao Li.
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❀
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The Morning Was Weeping
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It did not brush away its tears.
The morning let its tears fall against the window.
The morning wanted me to ask why it wept.
The morning wanted me to comfort it.
It wanted me to console it.
The morning wanted my sympathy.
I did not ask why it wept.
I did not comfort it.
I did not console it.
The sun came out.
I went out to learn the sun’s sympathy,
which is also called wisdom.
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Old Zhao Li has written many books of poetry. He has been writing poetry since he was very young. Now Zhao Li is quite old but he just can’t stop writing poems. His hair is gray, his eyes are gray, but grayness is no excuse. Oh, many times Zhao Li has tried to stop. He has pulled the covers over his head. He has refused to get out of bed. But then the morning sun sneaks beneath his shade. Then a bird sings through a crack in the window. Zhao Li can close his eyes, he can stick his fingers in his ears, but it is too late. The sun and the bird have already become a poem. Zhao Li sighs, sits up on the edge of the bed,  and writes it down.
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❀
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J.R. Solonche has also written many books of poetry. How young was he when he wrote his first poem? How old is he now, and still writing? Only the sun and the bird know. Maybe the moon, too. We, his readers, sigh, sit up on the edge of the bed, and open his new book. It is too late.
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❀
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Vanity, J.R. Solonche’s forty-somethingth book of poetry, is available from Main Street Rag.
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Other poems by J.R. Solonche featured at Verse & Image:
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or more poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2025-07-10
 . 

Posted in Imagery | 4 Comments »

Saturday Share – Scott Owens

September 26, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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Saturday morning readers share:
Scott Owens
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A History of Rivers
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It’s Monday.
I cross the Yadkin River again,
as I have every Monday for the two years
my grandson has been in this world,
as I did twice a month for 10 years
delivering my stepson to his father,
as I’ve done once a year for 30 years
heading to the beach for our family vacation.
And each of these have had return trips
where I’ve crossed the Yadkin again.
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I don’t know how to count
the number of times I’ve crossed this river,
but each time I do, my eyes grow wider
to let more in, my skin tingles,
my breathing grows quiet and slow.
It’s not fear, not my daughter’s gephyrophobia,
but awe, excitement, anticipation,
as the earth falls away below me,
and I feel again the history of rivers
as borders separating here from there,
known from unknown, a simple crossing
of something beautiful into something so full
of potential it reawakens the life within me.
 . 
Scott Owens
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Needing No Heaven
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My mother sends me my childhood Bible.
I remember 53 years ago,
when we had little,
I would get myself up early
on Sunday mornings, make breakfast,
get dressed, catch the bus to church,
alone, hoping to find something more,
then praying I was sitting in the right seat,
the one with the lucky number taped to the bottom.
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One time, I was.
This was the prize.
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I read it three times through,
and occasionally again over the years,
looking for logic, marking lines,
The living God is among you,
Is with thee wheresoever thou goest,
gradually losing faith,
not in God,
but rather, in this God.
 . 
The marks are still there.
When you think that I am gone,
do not search for me in someone’s heaven.
I have already found heaven here.
Look for me in the earth you turn for planting.
 . 
Scott Owens
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Scott recently wrote to me that he’s been on a “nature statement kick.” If that means he is consciously thinking and writing about the relationship of us humans with the natural world, it doesn’t detract from the fact that all his poetry is colored, overtly or subtly, by that relationship. Scott and I have discussed how the four tasks of the naturalist are perfectly congruent with the tasks of the poet — pay attention, ask questions, make connections, share. Lately I’ve been thinking about a fifth imperative for the poet — remember. And isn’t memory also demanded of the naturalist? Our relationship with nature stretches across time, always changing and yet always anchored.
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I hope in those future days when I am not living on this Earth, my grandchildren will notice some September afternoon the wispy seeds of Burnweed drifting past them and remember me.
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Additional poetry by Scott Owens at Verse and Image:
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or more poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
— Bill
 . 
 . 
 .

Posted in Ecopoetry | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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