My poem “Just in Time”, inspired by this painting by Lenore Conacher, is now up at https://mockingheartreview.com/volume-2-issue-3/lynne-burnett/ with many other gems. Many thanks to editor Clare Martin for including it! Lenore Conacher was a Gibsons, BC artist whose work I had the good fortune to see firsthand and whose “Time” series led to a collaboration of sorts: 17 poems for 17 paintings!
daffodils:
a glory of suns
within hand’s reach
***
the arbutus twists
through shadows to catch the light,
shape leaves
***
pouring
from their long green stems:
one red, one white tulip
***
fogbank:
a lonely ridge of trees
has scaled the heavens
***
in a restaurant:
tables apart, blue eyes
feast on brown
***
downtown lunch hour:
all my faces
streaming by
***
How do you open the bottle
when you are
that which is poured?
These also appeared in North Shore Magazine many many moons ago.
She bangs her son’s runners together,
turns them over.
Sand falls and falls.
***
roadside: all day,
teens in school uniforms
come, heap flowers
***
an old ladder
climbs a small embankment,
steps into the sky
***
in the glade’s cloaked silence
the shade-soaked song of
one bird plays
***
snapdragons clutched
by a rock wall:
mustard on an old man’s face
***
up from a cloud of gravel
peeks the half-moon
of a tire
***
opening the door:
a moth flutters in,
darkness too
***
the pen dips
into a small well of ink:
one by one, stars appear
***
Thought I’d change things up with a few haiku, first published in North Shore Magazine. I’ve missed writing them! More to come….
It has taken many years of being married
to agreement, years of being divorced
from the he in the she of me,
to finally agree it’s alright to disagree,
alright to make a difference of opinion serve,
spreading it between us like a table,
pulling up a chair and leaning on it,
knowing it will take our weight, it will
take our words, brewed just like coffee
and downed to the last strong drop before
we get up, lovers again neighbourly.
Which is why I praise the kitchen table,
the generous block of polished wood
that holds us at its ends, the salt and pepper
in the middle, ready to be shaken over
this altar to our various hungers,
to which we bring the meat
of our accomplishments, thankful
for the click and clack of the other’s cutlery,
for the filled plate we can empty,
squeezing the grape, the lemon, glass raised,
the tang lingering, livening our tongues.
This poem first appeared in my chapbook, “Stealing Eternity”.
Snowflakes feathering the trail
below the highway. A young
fellow, toqued and sweatered,
strides out of the woods
where he has been camping
for some time. Now on a search
for empty cans and bottles,
he asks me what I think
of last night’s news (which I,
watching American Idol, missed).
He tells me Iran warned the United
States it would feel the pain
if tough measures were imposed
against the Islamic Republic
for its nuclear program,
and ponders aloud the grave
possibility of a third world war
before drifting away,
back into his solitary life
which, like mine, lives
inside a bigger story
that is always ripe for change.
He knows the Earth he wants
to inherit, having made his
living room into a grove
of trees meadowed with stars,
stars loved more than priests
for their enduring benediction
of light, their twinkling
testaments of hope.
Trees whose raised roots
rope roughly into pews.
The ground that knows
no names, but keeps
a footprint. Wind
that is a window.
The darkness humming
with a billion unheard voices
when a different congregation
is invited in.
This poem was first published by New Verse News in 2006 and then by
New Millennium Writings as an Honorable Mention in 2012.
You’ll leave your dreams
for it. Blossoms have
even burst
open in bliss,
limbs been left shaken.
It hides out of reach
but orchestrates its life
so you know it’s near.
It began when the sky fell
through the tiniest crack—
now that’s a rush of angels
never seen! It could be
a famous conductor’s wand
waving in the air
or your ticket to serenity.
Its odds for striking
the right note
are better than yours
(a real feather
in the world’s cap)
for over and over
it sings an old song
handed down from the first
day it was ever sung—
praising, praising everything.
Say this is for the birds,
and you’d be right,
but then the riddle’s more
how a bigger brain could find less
to praise from its high perch.
Another old favourite, first in North Shore Magazine (2008)
The truth bends
into a spoon
with which you feed yourself
until the bowl
you put it in
is empty.
Then you look
for other bowls
with equally measured offerings.
Meanwhile, life
comes to your table
in platters,
heaped with bite.
The truth is razor sharp.
It slices and divides
until everyone
has a piece of a piece
of the pie.
It is not fair and
not always palatable.
It is forgettable,
dulled when lied about,
the dangerous blade now
of betrayal,
unable to penetrate
a thick skin.
The truth is a telling
fork in the road:
go left,
but if it is not right,
you will catch hold
of nothing. You will
keep searching,
and never arrive.
Take the path
that is right
and there will be
nowhere left
to go.
This poem first appeared in Northshore Magazine in 2006. An old favourite.
Waking up in the night
before the bugling of birds,
no child’s screams
tracking the 3:00 a.m. train,
no trucks or buses
bellowing into the valley
from the mountain highway,
no siren, for once,
gathering all who can hear
into its grief,
just silence
so deep
it speaks
to your stammering
heart,
sinking past the debris
of words,
washing over you
like a river-rich sea
the rocks.
Your family sleeps, unaware
you are stealing eternity
for an hour.
By the time they rise
you will be ground into sand:
a beach that can hold
the jump and jaunt
and slow toe-kick
of all their footprints,
until evening’s flood-tide.
This is the title poem from my chapbook, “Stealing Eternity”.
Fifty years it’s taken to get here
and the road’s all wrong:
the easy pavement with its white
sidewalks and marked shoulders,
the solid yellow line, cats-eyed,
ends
and everything I’ve passed by
at a distance
now leans in.
If life is a long walk down the aisle
to an altar,
then this must be the kiss
that lifts the veil,
loosening my tongue – willing or not –
to learn new vows.
This poem is from my chapbook, “Stealing Eternity”.
Lynne Burnett 