Sunday, June 19, 2016

REFLECTIONS FROM A PORCH SWING



This poem is a woman on a porch swing.
This poem is hummingbirds at the feeder,
dogs on the deck and horses in the field.
This poem is a blue-sky puffy-cloud 
afternoon in the country.

This poem is a woman on a porch swing,
rocking and swinging as her mind roves back
through the memories of all the shambling years.

This poem is a summer’s day:
hummingbirds buzzing and darting, 
dogs lazily thumping their tails,
and horses munching grass under tall cedar.

This poem has early summertime bees in it,
and flowers, and the sound of the sprinkler
swoosh-swoosh-swooshing across the yard,
to grow lush grass for the horses’ evening meal.

This poem is stillness, slowness, 
reverie, and contentment.
This poem – and this woman – know how to
see the glass half-full; sometimes brimming,
but always, stripped down to the essentials,
quenching thirst.

This poem is a summer-blue sky, 
and puffy white storybook clouds.
This poem remembers the whole story, but also is
its Right-Now story, even when the woman 
forgets to remember that,
and even though she knows 
the pages remaining are slim, 
compared to the bulk 
of the chapters gone before.
It is still the same story.

When she remembers that, 
she raises her eyes up, and up,
tracks a bird in flight, 
scans the horizon – the her-izon –
and finds much satisfaction
in sky, in dogs, in horses, in trees,
in that true blue dream of sky
she fell in love with in her childhood,
that has kept her Looking Up
(-head back, grinning at the azure vault -)
all these years.

A variation of a Boomerang Poem, created by Hannah Gosselin, and a great leaping-off place for poems.


4 comments:

  1. To trace the child through the years retained in the woman who still gspes at the sky to daydream. That is a wonderful journey shared

    Happy Sunday Sherry

    Much love...

    ReplyDelete
  2. So sweet. This business of the slim days ahead something we all have to keep in mind. Thanks, Sherry. k.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The art of remembering is truly an Art. Especially when the awareness of the slim days left, is so real.
    This poem is a jewel,

    Elizabeth

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really do like the form of this poem, Sherry. Repetition of the words 'This poem is...' works so hard to heighten its message.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for visiting. I appreciate it and will return your visit soon.