Tag: grass

“From The Front Porch” Wins Kelsay Books’ 2023 Women’s Poetry Contest!

~ Lynne Burnett ~ 18 Comments
Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay

After a bit of a dry stretch, I’m thrilled to report that my poem “From The Front Porch” just won Kelsay Books’ 2023 Women’s Poetry Contest! The poem and judge’s citation can be read here. Interestingly, Allison Joseph was also the judge who chose my poem “Tandem Hang-Gliding Incident” as the winner of the 2016 Lauren K. Alleyne Difficult Fruit PP. 

Along with a cash prize and several other goodies, this poem will be featured in the Summer 2024 issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal, along with some of my others plus an interview. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on that – and an upcoming virtual reading. My deep thanks to Karen and the Kelsay Books team for their generous support of authors!

 

A Thousand Blossoms

~ Lynne Burnett ~ 4 Comments

bantersnaps-52g-HBU9klU-unsplash
Photo by bantersnaps on Unsplash

Late spring,
walking home
through the cherry trees:

a thousand blossoms
hurrying
to the ground below.

Though soon to die
they danced in the breeze
together

like beautiful lovers
forever entwined.
It seemed the trees

reached for them,
that the birds sang louder
with the squirrels chit-chattering.

It seemed the ants looked up
from their mad black scramble,
that we saw the grass billowing,

and the sun, wanting to touch
every petal, and the enormous lake
of sky, spilling down.

It seemed we all swam as one
for a moment, and belonged
in the world that way.

Though I promised to post a variation of the previous poem, this seemed a more fitting poem right now, written a lifetime ago. First published as an honorable mention for the Arborealis Prize in 2012. When we can travel again, I’ll return to the Mazatlán poem. May you and yours keep healthy!