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Posts Tagged ‘poetry’

I See You Waving – Sherry Siddall

Posted in family, tagged , , , , , , on April 3, 2026| 3 Comments »

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[ with 3 poems from Transformed and Singing ]
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The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
— Henry Miller
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   ❀
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Night Ship
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The compass of our bodies leads us
through another moonless night,
cresting waves of sleep, steered
by phosphorescent dreams that
knit our cells whole again,
or as whole as they can be
after years on this sea.
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The dark has no power over us
as we roll on our ship of tossed
and wrinkled sheets, the shushing
of syrupy crickets a white noise
leaking beneath the cracked window.
As dawn approaches once again,
the dogs stir and lick our hands.
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Sherry Siddall
from Transformed and Singing, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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The Beautiful Dead
2020
 . 
are half a million human souls
lost the way spring is lost
in deepest winter.
 . 
I go about the day
as if everything is fine,
as if safety can be found
 . 
in the folding of laundry,
the arranging of
store-bought flowers.
 . 
Outside where life is shuttered,
still, there is some comfort
in the wildness of branches
 . 
twined on winter trees,
or a scatter of bird seed
on frozen ground.
 . 
I turn to the simplicity
of sunlight on a well-worn chair,
how it warms me if I sit there.
 . 
From the window I watch
a male bluebird who studies
the birdhouse on a maple tree.
 . 
Its round entry is exactly the size
for birds of his kind, and also snakes,
because no home is absolutely safe.
 . 
The bluebird will make up his mind
to nest or not, and when spring
erupts in its ruthless way,
 . 
with green possibilities
and warmth suffusing all
that was brown and bare,
 . 
I’ll half-expect the dead to return
cross some impossible border,
overwhelm me with joy.
 . 
Sherry Siddall
from Transformed and Singing, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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Daily reality sometimes washes over us like a wave, slams us down, sucks us into the darkness. How are we to stand? What if, as Sherry Siddall suggests in her poem Time Chop, we can know love as a ripple in the fabric of spacetime? Perhaps the deep nature of reality is not particles and energy, not wave functions and uncertainty, but the moment by moment expanding web of experiences and relationships. And every bubble of experience is under the influence of the nudge of love.
 . 
When I was half-way through Sherry’s book, Transformed and Singing, I became aware of the thread of love that weaves these poems together. I stopped and went back to each to discover love’s signature: sometimes explicit as love for strangers . . . nothing to be done but love, and always implied, as this clockwork beauty of the cosmos and one of may favorite images, I see you / waving to me from far away, and I wave back. Sometimes we find meaning as we reflect on our past – the stab of loss countered by the fullness of companionship – and sometimes meaning finds us in a moment of simple presence. Feelings swirl within us as restless as the sea, at times threatening but just as often beautiful as sunlight on water. A struggle, a jewel. Reality. As Sherry discovers in Conch – same joy, same something too difficult to name.
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Transformed and Singing is available from Main Street Rag. Sherry Siddall lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. She is also the author of a poetry chapbook, Sweet Land (Finishing Line Press, 2021). Thank you as well, Sherry, for the Henry Miller quotation which I have lifted from you book.
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Conch
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After his death we flew south,
like storm-tossed birds, mother
and I, to get away.
 . 
I walked the beach, fourteen,
sunburned, heron-thin,
a shadow me of years ago.
 . 
The surf was pounding
like today’s, the sun jolly,
its own relentless self.
 . 
One wave shoved forth
a perfect conch, pearly pink as
flesh inside, rough whorls
 . 
hard and soothing. I picked it up.
Here was joy, and something else
too difficult to name.
 . 
Today, on a different beach, a sturdy wave
delivered another whelk as I walked,
this one battered, pocked, unique.
 . 
Its only beauty might be in a garden,
green tendrils winding through the holes.
My scarred body greets this new shell
 . 
as kindred after fifty years.
Same joy, same something else
too difficult to name.
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Sherry Siddall
from Transformed and Singing, Main Street Rag Enterprises, Edinboro PA; © 2026
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Today’s photos were taken this spring along the Elkin & Allegheny Nature Trail in Elkin, North Carolina, USA. As you read this, Foamflower is just about to bloom. Perhaps you would like to join me and other curious seekers on one of this spring’s naturalist walks, a program of Elkin Valley Trails Association. Upcoming dates are April 11 and April 25. Details and registration (free!) here:
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❀    ❀    ❀
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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 also 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:
 . 
 . 
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
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2025-07-10
 . 

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Why Sing – Scott Owens

Posted in poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on March 27, 2026| 2 Comments »

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[ with 3 poems by Scott Owens ]
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Now and Then
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The mountains came down to Hickory today.
It happens now and then.
Clouds low, mist hanging between the trees,
a coolness that makes everything feel
less urgent, more contemplative.
I saw a boy on a hillside, sitting,
back leaning against a tree,
not minding the fine mist
against his skin at all.
I imagine he was writing.
I imagine it was a poem
about the mountains coming down to Hickory.
I imagine he was me.
It happens now and then.
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Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
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Existential Knot
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I picked up a knot from the ground today,
not an important knot,
not of significant size,
not of any significance really,
at least not initially,
but then I realized if not for the knot
I likely would not have noticed it at all.
In fact, the knot would have just been
 . 
a string, not of any special size,
not of any noticeable color,
not anything special about it at all,
but the fact that it was tied into a knot
made it not exactly like every other
unknotted expanse I’d seen.
Of course, I thought about unknotting the knot
but ultimately decided not to,
as the knottiness was exactly what made it
exactly what it was and continues to be,
 . 
a knot not like any other,
insured by its knottiness
not be left unnoticed.
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Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
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Ten. You, after all,
are half the poet, and in all
likelihood, the better half.
from 13 Ways of Reading a Poem
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Reading a poem is like turning over a mossy log. As you approach, you appreciate the appealing form of the log without even thinking about it. Its green cushion, so inviting, perhaps a scent of fresh pungent life. But when you turn the log over, who knows? I am personally a fan of grubs and larvae, flabbergasted ants grabbing their white nits and sprinting in all directions, an oozy slug or two. Double bonus if there’s a salamander.
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But beneath some logs there’s just not much. A few bark fibers lingering in their immediate pre-humus status. A tired worm casting. Dirt. If that’s all there is beneath the mossy log of the poem, I’m done. Maybe I’ll go turn over that rock over yonder instead. I, the reader, need something to discover when I get down on hands and knees and shift the poem. I have to do the work of coming closer, of noticing, and the poem has to do its work of sharing.
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Scott Owens’s newest collection of poems, The Song Is Why We Sing, is about poetry. Writing poetry, to be certain, but even more this book is about reading poetry. And maybe most of all so many of these poems are about the partnership, let’s even call it companionship, between writer and reader. The lines and stanzas break down the fourth wall. I as reader become part of the process, part of the poem. Perhaps in reading no other book of verse have I been so intimately invited into the mind and life of the writer. Scott’s offer is sincere – here I can be half the poet.
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Scott’s poems are existential knots that freely allow themselves to be untied. They offer up their essence like a flower offers nectar, hidden but discernable, just follow your nose, and always keeping the promise of a sweet droplet on the tongue. I first encountered the term “quiddity” in a philosophy book but I know I first read the word “dailyness” in a poem, and so are these poems, filled with essence and substance. Here is the world with its warts and its wonderfulness. Scott takes seriously his poet’s calling of showing you what you already know in a way you’ve never seen. That mossy log, what lies beneath? I am dying to turn it over. And throughout these pages I know I will find what this poet is determined to show me, because as he says, You have to care / enough about the world / and all who live in it / to take the time / to not just find the words / but also get them right.
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Chores
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fr. Latin, chorus, those who do the work, who carry the play forward
(titles from Poetry in Plain Sight selections July 2025)
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I rise from my knees, not from prayer,
not from planting autumn blooming crocuses,
but from fixing a table bending beneath
the weight of too many ovens. Still,
any rising is a good thing.
In the heat of early July in the South
I head out to make my monthly delivery
of poems. One called “Tomato Sandwich,”
transforming the taste of summer to art,
for the front window of my coffee shop.
One called “Hum,” for the community theater,
about a boy remembering the sound
of his father blowing on his face to cool him
off in a Louisiana Church on Sundays.
Another called “Wild Women,” for the wine shop,
about girls who were told they couldn’t be cowboys,
who hitched up their chaps and spat on the ground.
And one for the library, called “Song
to a Little Tree under the Eve of Terminal 2
at Raleigh Durham International Airport,”
just about a tree in an unlikely place
refusing not to grow.
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Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
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Scott Owens teaches at Lenoir Rhyne University, coordinates the Poetry Hickory program, and promotes poets and poetry year round at his coffee shop and gallery, Taste Full Beans. The Song Is Why We Sing is Scott’s twenty-sixth volume of poetry. Among his many honors and awards are two nominations for the National Book Critics Circle Award and appointment as Hickory, NC, Poet Laureate. Scott’s most recent books are available from Redhawk Publications.
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Sample additional poetry by Scott Owens at Verse and Image:
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Perhaps you’d like to turn over a mossy log (metaphorically speaking)? Walk along Elkin Creek and discover Foamflower in bloom (for real beginning early April)? Watch a Blue Head Chub build its spawning nest in the creek? Breathe deep? Join me and other curious comrades on one of this spring’s naturalist walks, a program of Elkin Valley Trails Association. Upcoming dates are March 28, April 11, April 25. Details and registration (free!) 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:
 . 
 .  . 
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
 . 
2016-10-17b Doughton Park Tree
 . 

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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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❀
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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:
 . 
 . 
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
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2020-11-22
 . 

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