February - Poem 27
My Friend, Let’s Remember / Kristine Anderson
Snapdragons
like the ones your mother planted in the backyard
sun-yellow and lavender and white
strength, mystery, protection
The duck
that wandered into your childhood, which you adopted
quacking as it waddled in the yard, teasing your terrier
grit, fun, adaptability
Chocolate
as in Halloween or Easter candy, but also in baking
Christmas cookies every year, a sweet endeavor
a small luxury, a gift, celebration
Your cocker spaniel
the puppy a gift from your father who was dying from cancer
moving with you to a new home with its impish pleading eyes
loyalty, affection, playfulness
One could do worse than have such landmarks along the way.
Justice / Barbara Audet
… Bold self-creating men did statutes draw,
Skilled to establish villainy by law;
Fanatic drivers, whose unjust careers.
Produced new ills exceeding former fears:
Tarquin And Tullia/John Dryden
Self-shady men ever negotiate the penchant
To vanish faith, duty, decry mercy as an attribute.
Dryden’s villainy secured by law is ever true.
New ills, new fears, fruitful times of wickedness
Are willing stand-ins, holding permanent,
Planting gardens of seedy plotters, overgrown patriots.
Evil does not deserve to be redundant.
The poet wrote, “innumerable woes oppress the land,”
Did his insight leapfrog down the centuries to cast a searchlight
On baffling justice, the lacking of, that holds nations hostage?
ELEGY FOR A SECOND CHANCE AT BREATH / Ashby Logan Hill
Standing there waiting for me on front porch like fire, glowing,
as sure as you are that you still breathe, a heavenly thing,
brought down from sky to earth, as Faith is an angel,
you take all of the air that you can in, release what’s not given,
swift as a brisk wind, cold enough to freeze over, like the
Dry River high up and out of sweet light, for you a
second chance at breath, longing no more for what is lost,
instead for all that breathes and sings holy — Faith is her name,
a way to be whole again, ducks by the shallow pond and
green fields of morning, our walk through Central Park,
and all that remains holy is night — the night, our endless,
sleepless night that brings, sings with it our joy forever.
It’s things like this that make a life. It’s things like that,
this second chance at breath you hold a bit before breathing.
Consider / Amy Marques
Consider looking
at attitude
his whispered
anxiously unattended
suspicion
his untidy reckless
demeanour,
his sympathy
which made him
turned
back
and paused.
Source material: A Tale of Two Cities
I do not want to live a life that is boring / Sonia Sophia Sura
I do not want to face my journal and have nothing
to write.
I have already lived a thousand lives in this one,
and I’ve recovered enough of my parts to live
my present moments in one body.
My soul is all-in this human-thing and I am praying,
meditating, cleansing, bathing.
I am calling on all those higher-ups,
the most unconditionally loving
archangels and
elevated ancestors
and my highest self.
We are all here,
cherubs surrounding me with their
cute faces and
white wings and
deadly bows.
I am impenetrable.
I am light shining so bright,
touch me too firmly
and you will
get
burned.
