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Dead Reckoning

Posted in family, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2026| 6 Comments »

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
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calculating direction and distance
traveled from the last known fix
while accounting for tides, currents, grief
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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
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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
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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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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.
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My father’s a joker. Bruno, our neighbor used to say,
you’re a card. So no surprise what he taught me:
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when you’re done you have nothing in your hand.
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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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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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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:
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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.
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 . 
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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
– Bill
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Passage – Earl Huband

Posted in family, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2026| 5 Comments »

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[ with 3 poems by Earl Huband ]
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Cocoon-spinner, straining / to engineer the risk out of life.
from Rites of Passage
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A Sister’s Presents
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Across the table
two goggle-eyed owls,
my pepper and salt,
hoot at me. Wise to
a bric-a-brac heart,
my sister Mary
surprised me with them
many meals ago.
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And here she is still,
cheering me through these
efforts to add spice
to this saucepan life.
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Earl Carlton Huband III
from The Dix Hill Blues, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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The Pavilion of the Old Chinese Poets
— for Priscilla
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Leaves resist the ground.
The ground calls to the trees.
The trees slowly nod their heads
and leaves fall to the ground.
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The canoe is propelled
through the parting waves.
Island water whispers;
the canoe rocks.
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Here the winds caress
the flanks of the island.
Here the lover caresses
the arms of the beloved.
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The moon hides its face
behind fingers of cloud.
Lover, close your eyes
at the touch of love.
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Earl Carlton Huband III
from The Dix Hill Blues, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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Lost
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Do not condemn this granite.
Become one with the stone
and weep as water trickles
down the cracks in its face
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Look for your reflection
in the pool of moving water
at the bottom od the stone.
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Earl Carlton Huband III
from The Dix Hill Blues, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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Years ago, during one of my longer visits, my mother had me sit for a portrait. I watched the back of the canvas, smelled the linseed oil, while she worked ochre into the surface for an hour. Her technique was to create the subject’s shape and dimensions in monochrome, then remove pigment to add detail. Later she would dip into her entire palette to finish the portrait. Only on another visit when the oils had dried did I realize that for this painting she had folded the canvas and painted me on the right half. She opened the hidden side to reveal beside mine another man’s face with Mephistophelean goatee and declared, “I’m calling it ‘Saint and Sinner.’”
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How to respond to the idea that my mother considered me a saint? Oldest child, studious, diligent, following the straight and narrow passage through life? I will smile a little that Mom evidently drew some comfort from that image. Only to myself do I confess every thoughtlessness, unkindness, misstep, outright mistake and fuckup I’ve every committed, all those demons that throng three AM when I can’t fall back to sleep. Sins of omission and commission. That is the real passage, straights and turbulence beneath but only untroubled waters showing. On canvas, my mother could create reality from her artist’s imaginings. I ask myself today, is this the life I imagined for myself? My imagination was clearly not sufficient. Short on wisdom, insight, compassion.
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Earl Huband’s imagination does the heavy lifting of recreating the reality of his life’s passage in Dix Hill Blues. There are no softened edges in these stories, no cheerful hues to the palette. The first two sections of the book capture the struggles and failures of his family through the generations and paints them into a montage which narrates Earl’s own passage through life. One might at certain points use the term sin, or one might simply call this truth. Earl as poet, however, touches each person and each event with benediction. Yes, we are all human, fallible, broken; yes, love can still enter here. These poems need to be read as a whole to grasp the hopefulness that survives even darkest nights.
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The third and fourth sections of the collection are a deep and cleansing breath. A bit of humor from a wry observation, the other side of a dreadful story, a moment of joy: Earl’s imagination is not short on wisdom, insight, compassion. He unwraps his own failings and I am comforted that we are brothers. The poet can be healed by the telling. Perhaps none of the saints that surround me have such a straight and unerring passage as would seem apparent. Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I glean a little wisdom. Perhaps I will pick this book back up and read again from the beginning.
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Earl Huband lives with his wife Priscilla Webster-Williams, also an accomplished poet, in Durham NC. I have met him many times at various poetry events and never seen him without a warm and welcoming smile. Dix Hill Blues is his third collection and is available HERE
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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:
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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.
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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
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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
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Doughton Park Tree 2020-11-22
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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.
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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/

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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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