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April 19, 2024
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…the path to heaven
doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
It’s in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world
and the gestures
with which you honor it.
++++++ Mary Oliver
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Insects with Long Childhoods
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June bug, stag beetle, cicada –
three, seven, thirteen years as larvae
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feasting underground in the gentle
rot of roots and castoffs, gone generations,
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only a few weeks in the light
sharp as the blades of consciousness, incessant
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buzz, cosmic background of loss
threaded through late summer’s throbbing
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days, lush nights, a brevity so full
it must feel like th eternity they came from.
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I have a child who asks a question
of the air’s every hum. He has not learned grief.
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Sky, he says, and shovels soil into his mouth,
let’s it drip out mud.
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Hannah Fries
from ECOTHEO Review, 3/2024
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Shared by Lynda Rush Myers, Durham NC, who writes:
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The poet, Hannah Fries, reminds me of Pattiann Rogers: scientific, technical, yet capturing the dense brevity of her subjects’ lives. The turn of the poem came as a touching surprise. Every parent can relate. A child’s word and actions capture his reality. The mother enjoys the unforgettable moment, knowing her son will learn grief all too soon.
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++++++ Lynda
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There is only one subject: what it feels like to be alive. Nothing is irrelevant. Nothing is typical.
++++++ Richard Rodriquez, in American Scholar, Spring 2002
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Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.
++++++ Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
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The Fly
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Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.
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Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
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For I dance,
And drink, & sing
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
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If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,
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Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live
Or if I die.
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William Blake (1757 – 1827)
from Songs of Experience; in the public domain.
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Shared by Paul Karnowski, Asheville NC, who writes:
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I like the connection Blake makes between the narrator and the “trivial” fly. Humans too easily dismiss the rest of the natural world because we have the ability to “think.” But it’s the countless thoughtless acts of blind hands – from other humans – that bring about our demise. Life and death connects us all – from the greatest thinker to the lowliest fly.
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++++++ Paul
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Am I leading the life that my soul, / Mortal or not, wants me to lead is a question / That seems at least as meaningful as the question / Am I leading the life I want to live.
++++++ Carl Dennis, A Chance for the Soul from Practical Gods
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If I Fell
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Crow knows me.
Can see the difference
between me and another.
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Gave me a feather
I keep
in case I need to fly.
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I know Crow
from Blackbird
and Raven
yet wonder
what Crow
would want
to keep
from me.
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Perhaps a token
of my essence
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in case Crow needs
to dream of flying.
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David Dixon
Poetry In Plain Sight 2024, NC Poetry Society
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Shared by Jenny Bates, Germanton, NC, who writes:
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Life is a process of waking up from a long and ancient sleep of the soul. David Dixon embodies this whether he means to or not in his poetry. This poem I chose to send, If I Fell, has also been chosen for 2024 Poetry in Plain Sight through the NC Poetry Society.
As far as my own poem, it is a plea, a prayer that each of us has to fill up the emptiness inside us in different ways…even the Earth. My poem, Conceived and Born is from my Pushcart nominated book, ESSENTIAL.
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++++++ Jenny
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Conceived and Born
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There’s no suckling here
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as though we were
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going to get some anyway
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The sanctity of Earth is a fast.
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The holy presence of prayer a fast.
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We are born of a mother that is not
dependent on us.
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She is a planet — and a small, fragile
one at that.
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Jenny Bates, Germanton NC
from Essential, Redhawk Publications © 2023
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And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
++++++ William Shakespeare, As You Like It
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To celebrate EARTH DAY 2024 we are featuring seven posts of poems submitted by readers – poems by William Blake to Walt Whitman, Robinson Jeffers to A.R.Ammons to Linda Pastan, and by a number of contemporary poets. Check in every day or two – connect to the earth and to each other!
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Another thoughtful compilation of poetry and thought. Merci. Bill, I loved hearing you read your Coreopsis poem yesterday at the NC Humanities/NCLR reading.
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Again thanks, Debra. That was a wonderful gathering and I really connected with your poem. —B
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Thanks Bill for including the Blake poem. I have enjoyed all the poems, as well as your photography and Linda’s artwork. All nicely done. –Paul
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Thanks for sharing in many ways, Paul. I really appreciate the depth and variety in the poems and personal statements. —B
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[…] inspiration for the poem… . Additional poetry by Jenny Bates at Verse and Image: 2025-04 2024-04 2024-02 2023-04 2022-04 2021-05 2021-04 . ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ . Thank […]
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