Boggle poetry for January

After a nice round of Boggle (say, first player to reach 100 points), the party takes 5 or 10 minutes at the end of the game to compose a poem (or poems) using only words they wrote down.

B:
[This is a sound-poem]

shin stool shim sine
shine this tool chin

Bath nails stay keen tho
pale heel heats too.

A:
The snails’ sad sheen
dots this isle.

The seas lean
the sails snap
the isles hint

his yens stood shy
neat

less

Permeable membrane

listen
love
let things in
let things out
live in this permeable membrane,
weep and laugh and read and remember and
live

Here’s a song from Vic Chesnutt. RIP.

Abayneh Adefris. This article (and this kid’s smile) make me so happy.

The surface of another sea

and a sea-worthy ship

eleven years after the first ocean subsided

high tide at my hip

Funeral

The ferry shudders, slows, and stalls,
A strange stop in the middle of its run.
It’s Saturday morning and we look up and out,
Leave our laptops, books, children, ourselves for a moment
And see each other and the sea.

The water is rolling in a slow churn,
Because of the ferry or on its own, I can’t tell.
Above the water the passengers are also moving, stretching, walking, restless.
I notice who gets up, I see the group gather on the outer deck.

The water is calmer now, each wave erasing the last
Like steady hands caressing over and over again,
Catching the ashes and cradling them down,
Doing what we cannot do.

I see the people speaking,
I see them hold hands, I see them and I look away.
A sympathetic grief catches in my throat,
And the ferry’s three mournful blasts
Unfurling over the water are both
Sobs and songs that go on and on.

Seattle

The sunset grazes your surface
A reductive love
A backwards glance
That turns me completely

Life in the Woods

In the cold falling of autumn
one true thought leaps up like a spark
like a defiant child
young and vigorous
birthed in my upper womb

Deliberately I choose
I follow the trajectory of this spark
seeing things from bottom to top
digging from cellar to ceiling

And I find I am no sibyl
no seer for all of my seeing

But in the here and now
what do any of us want to know
except who we love
and why

A song for spring

I was asked to put together a children’s piece for the island’s upcoming IFC Music Festival, and here’s the song I chose (I absolutely adore the UU hymnbook, where this and tons of other American poets’ work can be found):

In Time of Silver Rain

In time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of life,
of life,
of life!
In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain
When spring
And life
Are new.

–Langston Hughes
Music is by George Walker, and it’s amazingly, hauntingly beautiful. I think the kids singing this will be perfect.

First thoughts of the day: William Stafford

(Uh, except for: Not morning already!  Nooo.  Bed so warm, body so tired…)

William Stafford was a writer’s writer.  Profoundly prolific, he believed in trusting the thought that came to him in the morning, writing it out, and following it to fruition.  Thursday would have been his 94th birthday, and I’ve been hearing about poetry readings and celebrations all over the Northwest (and in fact, all over the world).Driving back from Poulsbo yesterday, I was listening to an NPR story about Stafford that reminded me of how much I love his work, his style and subject matter (ordinary life, nature).

One of my much read, much loved collection of poems is a small volume he co-edited for BYU,  Modern Poetry of Western America.  Though I’m lucky enough to have met a couple of the poets it features, I feel I’ve met them all.  Stafford worked with an amazing cohort, one that figured prominently in my high school and university education.  I’m quite out of the loop just now, but someday I’ll jump back in–and the past couple of days have made me excited about what’s going on in the Northwest world of writing.