As I Think Of Kelp, How It Lies In The Shallows

Image by Alan Robb from Pixabay

the birds begin their evening declensions,
note by note, the grammar of praise.

The air cools. I close the window to a crack,
the pale sky falling out of sight, yoked

now to darkness. I write at my desk by the light
of a lamp: a small moon turning the tide.

How fathom the mysterious waters
in which my soul swims, finning stars?

The clock ticks but time sleeps
until I return to the bone-white shore,

a wave from far away, heartbeat of the ocean,
tugging at the wagging brown tongues of words.

This poem appeared in the Crosswinds 2019 Poetry Contest Anthology.

Jane Kenyon Lives Again

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as an abstract painter in my neighbourhood,
“Yielding to Transience” the theme of her
current exhibition, according to the pamphlet.
It’s that simple, the only life we have we’ll lose
in a neon nose dive or the drift of gradual surrender.

My Jane, who briefly entered and briefly spoke
in poems—having it out with melancholy—
said Let evening come and it did, under cover
of leukemia, far too soon. Wish it were otherwise.
A moody harvest, those notes from the other side.

Now there’ll be a conflux of Janes when I see
one’s art, read the other’s poem. A conjuration—
open sesame into the chambers of two hearts.
The amazing echoes, bone’s signature marrow
waving its wand again, sweet Om on the tongue.

Another poem from my chapbook “Irresistible”, available from Finishing Line Press here and also from Amazon hereAnd do check out this link to the artist Jane Kenyon’s site: hereShe also has a Facebook page, titled Jane Kenyon Art Studio. Of course I had to write a poem about this synchronicity – what’s in a name anyway?