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

Geography of One – Richard Allen Taylor

September 25, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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[ 3 poems by Richard Allen Taylor ]
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Continental Divide
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When I drop the word cry on the spine
of a mountain ridge, weep flows down
one side, shout down the other, one word
split into different-meaning halves,
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then face will follow, turning toward
the Eastern slope while becoming the front side
on the West, and
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check will hesitate at first, not sure whether
to inspect for defects or stop a moving object,
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but before I drop the word orange,
I have to decide whether to eat it or wear it,
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and I discover the word colonizing, when released
from high altitude, might burst into colon and zing
like a couple divorced for irreconcilable differences,
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and knowing that rivers seldom head straight for
the sea, but wander sometimes in great bends
and curves before they reach home, one must
be careful when dropping a grenade like love.
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Richard Allen Taylor
from The Geography of One, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro, PA; © 2026
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Blessed Are
 .  .     after “Ode on Inheritance” by Kate Partridge
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Perhaps there is no inheritance worth having
that does not include a narrative of water—
a river, a lake, an ocean
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pounding on the beach below the open windows.
My father bought a farm
with a white house on a hill, a pond
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at the bottom. My mother inherited. She later sold.
All of it was, shall we say, liquidated.
Gone, the tiny lake
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fed by a stream tumbling over my father’s modest
ambitions. Just as well. My brothers and I sought
neither the view nor the serenity.
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We were reaching elsewhere, for something
less pastoral, more hopeful,
something more highway
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than country road. But even a cave can elicit hope.
The torch goes out, we thrust our hands
forward, grope walls,
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feet following our blindness. As if a hole could lean
against its sides. All it takes is the will
to swap adjectives.
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Trade wet for slick. Choose briny over soaked.
Here we go again with that
narrative of water. Snow, hail,
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ice melting in your palm. Later, when drought
squeezes the pond dry, a spark catches,
and fire climbs the hill—
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everything promised burns. The difference between
bold and meek becomes a matter of timing.
Bold when we rush forward
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to extinguish the blaze. Meek when the flames
force us back to a place
where faces do not melt.
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When rain finally comes, we inherit the memory
of blackened hills, even if no lawyers or signatures
attend. When grief follows, we console ourselves.
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We say the trees bury their seeds under layers of ash.
We say the trees dream of resurrection..
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Richard Allen Taylor
from The Geography of One, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro, PA; © 2026
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Song for a Wind with No One Left to Talk To
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Now that you’re alone, wind,
where will you go?
north, sough, high, low
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Now that you sleep, wind,
what will you know?
peace, love, war, snow
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Now that you’re empty, wind,
how will you fill?
zephyr, gust, sail, chill
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Not that you’re free, wind,
what else will you be?
home, afar, aloft, alee
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Now that you die, wind,
how will you rise?
cloud, star, spirit, sky
 . 
Richard Allen Taylor
from The Geography of One, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro, PA; © 2026
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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About a month shy of 60 years ago, DuPont transferred my Dad (again) and we moved from Michigan to Aurora, Ohio. The first of November was my first day of eighth grade in my new school, and my first class was German with Fräulein Appenzeller. I shuffled my feet while she introduced me, then declared that they already had a Wilhelm in the class and therefore christened me Fritz. For the next five years most of the kids in Aurora thought my real name was Fritz.
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I sat down and looked around the classroom. I don’t remember much from that morning, but I do recall that there was one girl with long dark hair and very red cheeks. I mean really red, like silver dollar sized lipstick circles. Was this an arcane German class ritual? Turns out it was lipstick, from Halloween the night before. Turns out she had tried really hard but hadn’t been able to wash it off. Turns out her name was Linda. Turns out eight years later, in 1974, we would get married.
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Turns out we still are. During those almost 60 years now the proportion of time we have driven each other completely nuts has been far less than the proportion of time we have made each other laugh. Or at least smile. Smiling — I love that.
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Smiling is what these little paragraphs are about. Richard Allen Taylor’s poetry always, always makes me smile. His new book of poetry is crammed to bursting with smiles. Not just the poems that are funny – slyly, wickedly, innocently, unexpectedly funny. Also and even more so I am smiling with Richard and with his poems about these last few years he has lived alone, and about the three decades he and Julie were married before her death from leukemia. Smiling because love remembered and relived in such a pure, tender, and honest way lights up the world. Smiling because it is a gift to discover a poet willing to give so much of himself or herself.
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Turns out, Richard, that you are the world’s biggest mensch, and I love you. Keep smiling.
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❀
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Order Geography of One from Main Street Rag Enterprises.
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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 2020-11-22
 . 

Posted in family, poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

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