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Posts Tagged ‘Bill Griffin’

Saturday Share – Merry Christmas!

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2025| 3 Comments »

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Saturday morning, after Christmas
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If the Fates Allow
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this could be the season we simply hang
together, forget parties, share a
cup of tea, perhaps those cookies with shining
sprinkles like you used to make, star
shaped, smell of baking better than feasting upon
any fancy cakes or puddings, the
presence enough, rooted and roosting – to fly highest
forgotten by two birds on a single bough.
 . 
Bill Griffin, for Christmas 2025
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Thanks for this “Golden Shovel” poem goes to Sarah, Jeannine, Suzanne, Sophia, Kim, and Renee. We are the Tremont Cohort, the seven poets selected to attend the inaugural Tremont Writer’s Conference, 2023, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We’re from Tennessee, Massachusetts, Ohio, and North Carolina, but for over two years we’ve managed to Zoom once a month to critique each other’s work and write something new together. MERRY CHRISTMAS, my friends! Thanks for the prompt. And deepest thanks to our inspired and inspiring teacher at the Tremont Conference, Frank X Walker.
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First a poem made from a song. Now a poem made into a song. In early 2018 conductor and composer David McCollum invited me to write a poem that could become the lyrics for a new anthem he wanted to perform for Christmas with the Elkin Community Chorus. We collaborated all summer, tweaks and adjustments to find the proper rhythm and cadence to fit the message. The Chorus premiered Wilderness Advent on December 2, 2018. Thanks for listening!
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Wilderness Advent
(Pisgah Stranger)
Lyrics: Bill Griffin . . . . . . . . . . Music: David L. McCollum
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Elkin Community Chorus 58th Annual Concert
December 2nd, 2018 – First Baptist Church, Elkin, North Carolina

Wilderness Advent
(Pisgah Stranger)

A stranger here, I sleep beneath the slash of stars,
The Pisgah forest deep and friendless.
I close myself to love, my heart requires the dark;
Can night within this cove be endless?

Come, you’ve slept too long
And love grows dim.
Awaken to a song – Can it be Him?

Is it madness or a dream that seems to whisper here?
The murmur of a stream or singing?
It chants, a still small voice, I’ve nothing now to fear
For tidings of great joy it’s bringing.

Come, you’ve slept too long
And love grows dim.
Awaken to a song and welcome Him!

And now the music swells as every fir and spruce
Unloose their boughs to tell the story:
May all God’s creatures wake, hearts quickened by the truth,
Invited to partake of mercy.

Come, we’ve slept so long
That love grows dim.
Awaken that our song may worship Him.

Come sing it with the wind and all the Pisgah throng:
The Child reclines within the manger!
With owl and bear and deer my soul’s reborn in song
For none of us is here a stranger.

Come, you’ve slept too long;
If love grows dim
Awaken to a song for it is Him!

Waken . . . welcome . . . worship . . . it is Him!

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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;
. . . . . every Saturday 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:
 . 
 .  .  .  .  .   https://griffinpoetry.com/about/

 . 
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 – Barnett

Posted in family, poetry, tagged , , , , on December 20, 2025| 2 Comments »

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Saturday morning readers share:
Nancy Barnett
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Death Tree
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The aging oak tree on our block, which we had watched together,
Noting the frailty of its branches even in Spring,
Now, stripped and gaunt after an autumnal hurricane
Stands in death tall, powerful, alone.
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I walk beneath, longing to tell you,
“Our tree is gone” – but you are not here.
You went out in another tempest, bruised and broken
Before one leaf had turned to gold.
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Like the tree you stand before me,
Shattered of branches, defaced of bole and leaf,
Torn away without gentleness,
Naked, wrapped in the invisible sheet of pain,
Noble in the completeness of death.
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I walk in sharp winds that cut life between us;
In clearness of winter light,
Along icy edges of despair,
I keep watch by your dark death tree;
Knowing in storms that will come
No lightning bold, in terror or anguish,
Can shatter the roots that bind me to you,
Plunged deep in primal earth clay,
In the passion and endurance of love.
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Katherine Garrison Chapin (1890-1977)
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This poem by Katherine Garrison Chapin is one I’ve had for 40  or 50  years.  I believe I cut it out from the New Yorker. It’s a little on the somber side; not for the holidays!
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It caught my eye because of my memory of the elm tree we had in our back yard in our home in Springfield, Missouri. I lost one of my brothers when I was 11 in 1962 to a car accident. When I was 15 years old I came home from school one day and the tree was gone! It was during the elm tree  blight and the city was removing the elm trees. This was about 1966.
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The tree was special because we had bought an old house and my mother, noticing my reaction  at 7 years old, told me we’d put up a tree swing. (It hadn’t been lived in for awhile and looked haunted…. We’d owned a nice brick home in Independence.)  My brothers put up the swing and I had much enjoyment swinging in the tree for a few years. When we came home from my brother’s funeral I headed straight for the tree swing.
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The last two lines I find especially poignant. There was no bereavement counseling in those days and over the years and to this day I’ve found comfort in poetry.
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– Nancy 
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Additional poetry shared by Nancy Barnett at Verse and Image:
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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;
. . . . . every Saturday 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:
 . 
 . 
Also note: after January 1, 2026 I will no longer be sending separate weekly email reminders.
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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Galaxies and Honeysuckle – Richard Chess

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , on December 19, 2025| 2 Comments »

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[two poems by Richard Chess from JUDITH MAGAZINE 11/27/2025]
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Galaxies
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Since the night his father
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died alone in a spacious
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room, the hours
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have left his bedside clock.
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Psalms, too, every night
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fly from the page, letter
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by letter, each letter
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taking its place, a star
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in winter sky.
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All he can do
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for comfort now
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is to face what remains
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of his nights and days, empty
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pages of prayer, and praise
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receding galaxies.
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Honeysuckle
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Today, he gives his right hand to the living will.
He gives his pronoun to the census bureau.
He gives his birthday to the family Bible.
He gives his face to the mirror.
What would you find if you looked for him there?
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Tomorrow, he’ll take god back
from the names in which god’s held captive.
But who can say if he’ll survive until tomorrow?
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For now, he gives his charm to one of you,
his disdain to another. And he won’t stop giving,
not when there’s an eye to give to beauty,
a short sentence to give to the book of oblivion,
not when inside him there’s still honeysuckle,
the fragrance of his loneliness, to breathe
into the air where it might make you swoon,
that scent of nectar tinged with vanilla.
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Richard Chess
these poems first appeared online at Judith Magazine, A Journal Of Jewish Letters, Arts & Empowerment, on November 27, 2025
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Moon
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I was introduced to Richard Chess and his poetry by my friend and medical mentor, Jessica Schorr Saxe, MD. I read these poems and others by Richard featured at Judith Magazine on the morning after a night of questioning and despair. Their lines take my frayed and tangled life and allow it to remain frayed and tangled, but now with a few bright threads revealed. Humility, seeking, and shared humanity – these are what Richard Chess brings forth to me through his writing.
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Additional poems by Richard Chess at Verse and Image:
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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;
. . . . . every Saturday 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:
 . 
 . 
Also note: after January 1, 2026 I will no longer be sending separate weekly email reminders.
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
 . 
2020-03-07 Doughton Park Tree
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