[with poems from PINESONG 2023, NC Poetry Society Anthology]
Ghazal: Ghost Apples (Kent County, Michigan)
Ice-encrusted boughs from which transparent versions
of apples hang – each fragile as hand-blown glass.
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Their history: fruit on the cusp of rot, winter storm trundling
down a hillside, sleet coating each apple in sudden glass.
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Viscous fruit leaked from apertures until only icy shells
remained – December trees bearing quicksilver bulbs of glass.
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Imagine them a vivid red or green, like cascades of apples
even humble grocery stores offer on the far side of plate glass.
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If we shattered these globes, would they taste like hard cider
or the cloying sweetness of pulp, like edible versions of glass?
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Soon these crystalline shells will melt to nothingness, the way
we all disappear. Beloved, step lightly upon grief’s bitter glass.
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Lavonne Adams
Joanna Catherine Scott Award First Place, Pinesong 2023
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Diversity often blooms at the edge. This little trail heading out from Isaac’s Trail Head on the MST is limn upon limn . . . boundary . . . transition. The wide riparian border along Grassy Creek attracts neotropical migrants for a rest stop each spring; Louisiana Waterthrush, White-Eyed Vireo, and Common Yellowthroat stay behind to breed here. The footpath parallels a pasture fenceline, and while cows with their calves stand flank-deep in meadow grass and blackberry bramble, all manner of wildflowers hug the margin of No Grazing: Blue Toadflax, Venus’s Looking Glass, Carolina Crane’s-Bill. Leaving creekside, the trail is hemmed by a moist rising woodland: Rattlesnake Fern, Sensitive Fern, Southern Lady Fern. And by the end of summer, if the farmer hasn’t sprayed, the trail edges will fill with Blue-Curl, Cardinal Flower, Goldenrod, Wingstem.
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Smaller fields and many interruptions make for many edges; diversity begets diversity. At one point along the trail a wide acreage of corn abuts a small hay field of mixed grasses. The corn field is solemn in its solitude; above the hay the air is filled with swallows, Bluebirds and Phoebes perch along the wire, and as we hike past we’re apt to flush an Indigo Bunting foraging.
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But then there are Cowbirds. For centuries they followed prairie bison herds and no doubt also the woodland bison of the Carolina piedmont. Now they follow every human disturbance, common in cow pasture but just as common on suburban lawns. Cowbirds are exclusively brood parasites, known to lay their eggs in the nests of over 220 other species. To their detriment. Kirtland’s Warbler has been pushed beyond the edge of “endangered” by Cowbird predation, and most birds do not have the ability to recognize the foreign eggs which will hatch and out-compete the rightful occupants. How to resist? Escape the edges. Reverse the fragmentation. Cowbirds will not follow into deep woods – warblers nesting deep in the forest are safe.
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It isn’t the Cowbird that threatens wood warblers, whip-poor-wills, vireos. It is shrinking habitat. Many species thrive at the edge. Some, though, require wide wild expanses. How much wild can we leave?
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Upon which side of the boundary does poetry perch, thrive or decline? And what would it look like, that restored, invigorated poetry habitat, a definite nudge toward thriving? More fifth graders setting pen to page and seeing their lines is print, as they have in this year’s annual Pinesong anthology by the North Carolina Poetry Society? More opportunities and promptings to write – whatever one’s background, training, preferred theme, chosen form? And more readers?
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That’s where we come in. This morning I broke a nice sweat hiking miles along meadow and creek, through upland forest to lakeshore and back. This afternoon with feet up I’ve covered another rewarding meander through the pages of Pinesong. Student poets, grades 4 through undergrad; dozens more of adult poets, many names entirely new to me. I’ve traveled new places, I’ve encountered the unexpected and enlightening, I’ve paused long to reflect, and I’ve even laughed out loud. As Robert Frost wrote in The Pasture: “You come, too.”
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Eleven Lines In Search of the Perfect Rhyme
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Is it accidental that bereft almost rhymes with death?
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Watching geese rise in a chevron formation The New River
at Grassy Creek, flying south to warmer waters, I think of how
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sons and daughters grow up, how the nest – that like death
almost rhymes with bereft, – empties with their flight.
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How these words fly out of my mouth like startled birds.
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How we dream of loved ones who are dead. How we forget
what happened in the dream, what we did, what we said.
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How there are hundreds of ways to leave, not only the 50 ways
in Paul Simon’s song, and thousands of ways to grieve, bereft.
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How you can both the lover leaving and the lover left.
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Beth Copeland
Carol Bessent Hayman Poetry of Love Award Honorable Mention, Pinesong 2023
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Pinesong is the annual publication of contest winning poems by the North Carolina Poetry Society, founded in 1932. Pinesong 2023 is Number 59, edited by Sherry Pedersen-Thrasher with assistance from Joan Barasovska. This year’s volume is dedicated to David Radavich, former NCPS President and steadfast supporter of poetry and the arts.
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You can learn more about North Carolina Poetry Society and its contests, plus read previous years’ editions of Pinesong . . . here.
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If you would like to purchase Pinesong ($12, postage included) please contact NCPS Vice President of Membership Joan Barasovska: msjoan9[at]gmail[dot]com
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A free issue of Pinesong is available to all NCPS members in good standing who request ($2 mailing expense). Please contact Joan, as above.
Wonderfully fluid and mercurial poems
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Thanks for reading today, Katherine, you creator of mercurial poetry. —B
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We are plsgued by cowbitds, and English sparrows that occupy every bluebird house I put up. I also had a black rat snake tightly coiled in my only occupied bluebird house. I lifted it out and sent it on its way.
Thanks for highlighting Pinesong poetry!
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Les, thanks for sharing, and congratulations to Joyce for her winning entry. And I am confident there is an Indigo Bunting in your future. —B
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Thanks for the lovely poetry pause that coaxed a swing away from history hikes, hazel hoes, fallen oaks/pines, downed power lines, morning chainsaw whines, and unrequited trail easements requests. A poetry warp and weft adds rich fabric to the life have left.
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Thanks for reading and thanks for the poem, Classic Bill! —B
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