Since early last spring, Artful Journeys has been hosting a poetry hour on Wednesday mornings. These readings and discussions have built a greater understanding of the meaning and themes that make great poetry.
The enjoyment and study of some marvelous poetry have inspired many of us to take pen to paper and create our own prose. In this latest chapter, you will find the work of many of our Armchair Poets. Please enjoy!
THE BARR DAM
WRITTEN BY KERRY BROWN
1955
“You’re reaching back too far,” he said.
“You’ll get caught in the trees.”
Too far….
Down summer days washed clean as white pebbles,
Time curled from the pipe he smoked
On green-moist rock
Behind me,
My grandfather.
Knee deep, I cast the fly
Upon still waters–
The fish slide silently, swirling–
Quietly, the old man grasped
My eight-year-old hand in his,
Liver-spotted.
The rod moved soothingly
Back and forth, back and forth
My hand lost in his,
And the line extended
Farther
and
farther.
At its back-most reach,
My hand (in his)
Forced it forward.
The silent fish swirled
In the green summer mornings I woke
To seek him in his wrinkled bed
And the stories he told of
The salmon-clustered streams and
The Indian guides he knew and
The paths he’d walk, and
The sun moved for him
He asked me to kneel by the brass bed
And look upon the window’s day
And pray beyond the elephant clouds and
Nettled pines to a silence
Beyond questions
His water-blue eyes closed.
The fly settles on the stream
Making a vague disturbance,
A small, but widening circle.
He died in my fifteenth summer, the old man,
Propped against a small sapling
On a golf course in Cape Cod–
He found sufficiency in little things–
He spoke that day of the grandeur of God,
The jewels on the ocean, not far away,
The underside of the osprey’s wing,
Of the sleekly swirling fish, back and forth.
He watched the widened circle of the noon’s sun.
Grasped in the palm of his memory,
My days are not his.
Fish slide silently in the still streams–
I may not grow old.
BEACH WALK
WRITTEN BY BOB SUMMERSGILL
Walking on the margin
Where beach greets inbound seaIs as in a poem
The rhythmic harmony
As sea meets shore
The gentle layered waves
Spread quickly over sand
Backed by soft and steady ocean roar
The sky is dense with fog
The sea alive with sound
Together with the beach they say
Press on, the sun will shine today
We have so much more for you to enjoy. You can find more of these works by our hard working Armchair Poets by clicking here.
Written by
Joan Hill, Artful Journeys Director and
Carla Bohnett, Artful Journeys Co-Director