Saturday morning readers share:
David Radavich and Richard Allen Taylor
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Birthday
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Every year a leaf falls,
one at a time, hands,
days full of raking, scattering
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and I come to see
the bare tree
of us
against the sunlight
strewn in branches, shimmering
naked against all
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those colors you give me
tumbling free
within a small space,
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a time together
walking in woods
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David Radavich
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For a possible Saturday poem I have selected Birthday, which strikes me as a quintessentially autumn poem. It was first published in my book, By the Way: Poems over the Years (Buttonwood, 1998).
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The picture shows me ensconced in a park in Champaign, Illinois when my hair was not yet silver. As for a curious factoid about me, I enjoy reading German philosophy (in German), especially Schopenhauer and Cassirer. Also, casting horoscopes. Go figure.
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Additional poetry by David Radavich at Verse and Image:
[April every year? David always contributes to our special EARTH DAY posts.]
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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 keep thrusting our hands
++++++++++ forward, groping the 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 the drought
+++++squeezes the pond dry, the 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 comes, finally, 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
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This poem first appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig Online, and received a Pushcart Prize nomination. It is now part of a book-length manuscript, Geography of One, that will be published next year if all goes according to plan.
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This is my habitat but not necessarily the only habitat or even where I spend most of my time. But I don’t have a picture of me typing at my desk. That would be my real habitat and that would be boring.
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Interesting tidbit: After retiring from my job as Regional Human Resources Manager of Hendrick Automotive Group in 2013, I earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte in 2015.
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Additional poetry by Richard Allen Taylor at Verse and Image:
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Saturday Morning Submissions – Once a week on Saturday I feature one or two poems shared with me by readers. If you would like to consider having your poem appear, please see the GUIDELINES here.
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I love that -- waking under snow only happened to me in the Boy Scouts. ---B