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Dead Reckoning

May 15, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

1949 Yearbook Staff, Women’s College of the University of North Carolina

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[ poetry by Hyejung Kook and Donna Masini from Poem-a-Day ]
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Dead Reckoning
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to estimate one’s position
without instruments
or celestial observations
 . 
calculating direction and distance
traveled from the last known fix
while accounting for tides, currents, grief
 . 
drift       numbness
sudden storms of pain
unexpected joy
 . 
to reckon is to believe
something true
to reckon with the dead
 . 
is to believe I can know them
an airy thinness
gleaming
 . 
despite
the distance
traveled
 . 
I’d like to know how far
I’ve gone
how much farther there is
 . 
to go       how absence
unfathomable
becomes
 . 
something I can carry
 . 
Hyejung Kook
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Copyright © 2024 by Hyejung Kook. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 16, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. Hyejung Kook is a Korean American poet from Seoul. She received her BA from Harvard University and holds an MFA from New York University. A Fulbright and Kundiman Fellow, Kook lives in Prairie Village, Kansas.
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Mother’s Day was this past Sunday, May 10. I unboxed my old digital picture frame, the thumb drive from September, 2024 still in place: Mom’s memorial service, two months after her death at age 96. I set it up on the bedside tray in Dad’s room at Chatham Nursing Center and he and I watched it through twice. Infant Mom on Grandma McBride’s lap. Tween Mom on her bike with favorite dog. Graduate Mom in mortarboard at Women’s College in Greensboro. Mother Mom holding my hand as I take my first steps.
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And happy, nutty, smiling Mom in all her favorite places with all her favorite people doing all her favorite things. Some of those things we engineered during her last year of life. I measured and helped her stir the batter but she rolled out the nutty fingers to bake. Mary Ellen scheduled the entire family for an afternoon of painting pictures of dogs, Mom’s favorite subject, and she the only true artist among us. And for her last Birthday that hat – knit Duke Blue Devil with protruding horns and eyes – she couldn’t quit laughing while she wore it.
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Absence unfathomable. I am carrying it.
 . 
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❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
My Father Teaches Me to Play Solitaire
 . 
by the window of his hospital room. So late in the day
and he won’t let us cheat. Cards slipping on his rickety tray,
 . 
the orderly rows collapsing into one another,
his hand diminishing, he turns over the one card
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that won’t fit anywhere. We couldn’t finish.
Wait, I said, we’re almost done. He shook his head.
 . 
Luck, chance. No skill involved. No will. No bluff. No time
to start a new game. I left my father waving in his window.
 . 
Days later I bought a deck, shuffled the stiff cards, set them up
the way he’d shown me, and—beginner’s luck?—I won.
 . 
Can you win a game you’ve played alone? No need to display
a poker face to yourself. No kidding, he said, I just won too.
 . 
My father’s a joker. Bruno, our neighbor used to say,
you’re a card. So no surprise what he taught me:
 . 
when you’re done you have nothing in your hand.
 . 
Donna Masini
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Copyright © 2025 by Donna Masini. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets. Donna Masini is the author of four poetry collections, and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant. She is a professor of English and creative writing at Hunter College and lives in New York City. . 
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Dad didn’t need me to teach him how to play Rummikub, but at ninety-nine he is requiring a few more nudges and prompts. And he can still beat me. Sometimes.
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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;
. . . . . 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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Saturday Share – George Harrison, Damaris King

May 9, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

Coltsfoot

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Saturday morning readers share
[George Harrison, Damaris King]
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Neighbors
 . 
Into the woods I go
To watch my little creek flow.
Along it winds through crevice and pine
Arrayed in bright shine.
It glistens in sunlight,
bidding my neighbors, deer with tails white
And a crow, black as night
To drink its sweet nectar.
 . 
George Harrison
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I attend Joseph Bathanti’s weekly writer’s group [Joseph is former North Carolina poet laureate – ed.].  Our mentor and leader, Joseph prompted us to write anything about “Getting Out”. It could have been about getting out of anything or getting out to go somewhere. We have a very short time to write, so this simple and short poem is what I came up with.
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Joseph invited us to submit poems to you to celebrate Earth Day. What a joy it is to read the poems on your poetry site [for Earth Day and Earth Month].  As a fly fisherman, I was particularly drawn to Ron Rash’s poem. [Poetry and Earth – Awe]
George
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Nothing in nature is isolated. Nothing is without reference to something else. Nothing achieves meaning apart from that which neighbors it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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In Sligo’s Woods
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Pay attention along the path,
among the trees are mysteries.
Bright clusters of ferns emerge
sheltering their rusty veins.
 . 
Feel the texture of varied fronds,
some craggy, some silky.
In the middle of this array,
five tender petals newly shine.
 . 
Draw in the colors. See the dead
cradled unsung in blood-dried
leaves. Note the greens, from palest
wisp to boldest hue, how
light unfurls from fiddleheads.
 . 
Damaris King
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I wrote this poem after a walk in the woods, one of those lovely walks that calls you to slow down and look around you. There is a certain peace and awe that overcomes me when I am in nature and this poem is my attempt to share that feeling with others. 
Damaris
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You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
St. Bernard (1090-1153)
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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, include a comment and if possible a photograph of yourself in your native habitat. Review 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.
And Mike, thanks as always for the apt quotations. A treasure chest!
– Bill
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Poetry and Earth – Coastal

May 8, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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[ poems by West Carteret High School Students Aurora Goodyear,
Bryana Fessler, Xristos, M., Yaritza Lopez-Castro, 
and their science teacher Jessi Waugh ]
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Back Field Ecosystem
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The sun sits high at 8:30,
Warming the dark, quiet soil.
Everything feels just right,
Like the field is slowly waking up.
 . 
A hawk glides across the sky,
Silent but watching everything below.
A butterfly drifts without a path,
While a ladybug crawls, small but bright.
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Leaf litter crunches underfoot,
Pinecones rest, sharp and still.
Green shrubs fill the space with life,
Hiding more than you can see at first.
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Everything here has a place,
From the ground to the open air.
It may not look simple from far away,
But up close, it’s full of life.
 . 
Aurora Goodyear
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❀
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Let us probe the silent places. Let us seek what luck betides us. There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam too. And the Wild is calling, calling – let us go.
— Robert Service, Call of the Wild
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Out in the Sun
 . 
In the sun I lay so bright
Waiting patiently for the night.
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The birds sing
The flowers dance,
Right beside me
Lay the ants
Bringing food,
To their colony below
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And then December comes
The snow, powdery white
Covering the plain
I wonder, do these creatures
Have a name?
 . 
Or are these creatures just
Like me, figuring out where
And who they want to be.
 . 
Bryana Fessler
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❀
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Underlying the beauty of the spectacle there is meaning and significance. It is the elusiveness of that meaning that haunts us, that sends us again and again into the natural world where the key to the riddle is hidden. 
— Rachel Carson
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Bees
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They say a bumblebee is incapable of flight.
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Its tiny wings cannot produce enough lift
to fly and its fat body only drags it down.
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Other creatures such as butterflies
and flies have the lift for flight while bees
do not.
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That is because bumblebees defy
the laws of aviation, flying anyways.
 . 
Xristos, M.
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❀
 . 
Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it, so it goes on flying anyway.
— Mary Kay Ash
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❀    ❀    ❀
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The Tree
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The tree – its stature,
its branches –
the purest emerald
of the path –
unveiling its magic
before my eyes.
What a beautiful and sweet song!
The birds of the path
tweet within your heart.
 . 
Yaritza Lopez-Castro
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❀
 . 
Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a song bird will come. 
— Chinese proverb
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Baby Snapper, West Carteret High School

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Photos by Jessi Waugh

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The World in a Grain of Sand
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These feet have never left North America
have crossed fewer than fifty meridians
they remain on long familiar land
 . 
But the mind travels farther than the body roams
I’ve seen the world in a grain of sand
scanned the beaches of Normandy and Spain
 . 
My co-teacher exchanged local sand
with pen pals via snail mail
assembled an unrivaled collection
 . 
When he shared his horde
I poured each vial into a petri dish
sealed the sides, labeled with location
 . 
Saudi Arabia, bleach white
New Zealand, volcanic black
Dominican Republic, fine as dust
 . 
I have seen Scotland’s weathered highlands
studied stones cast by the gods of Mt. Olympus
sifted silt gleaned from Utah’s red lakes
 . 
These are the Florida Keys
can you feel the sea breeze
see the coral ground to brilliant snow
 . 
For twenty years I’ve yearned
to walk the coast of County Cork
for now, I magnify its mythic grains and dream
 . 
Jessi Waugh
 . 
The back soccer field continues to be a great place for the Biodiversity Lab. This year, we found two baby snapping turtles, a baby alligator, and the salamander in this area. A student returned the snapping turtle to the creek beside the field. Classes are currently designing a sign for this freshwater creek. The winning sign design will be made into a metal sign by a local graphic design company, thanks to a grant. 
— Jessi
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 . 
❁✾✿
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West Carteret High School is in Morehead City, North Carolina, on the Atlantic coast of the southeastern USA. It is a public 9-12th grade high school, with about 1100 students. Approximately 40% of students are economically disadvantaged. Jessi Waugh teaches Earth and Environmental Science, since 2000 a required course for graduation. She also teaches Biology and Marine Science as needed, and has been a teacher for 14 years. Her students are all 9th & 10th grade, ages 14-16. The poems shared here are from both the honors and standard classes. Jessi holds a Master’s in Teaching Secondary Science and an undergraduate Biology degree and tells me,  I like teaching this course and age group; it’s my niche.
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Thanks always to my outdoor companion Mike Barnett, who plies me with a continuous treasure of thoughtful quotations about nature, science, wonder, and discovery.
 . 
And Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present 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
 . 
IMG_0880, tree
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