The first spring dawn is here.
Am I ready to celebrate?
No, in fact its all quite a shock.
I should have known it’s about to happen
when March marches in.
What is this?
Am I holding onto winter?
Is it the candles or the soup or the wool
that tugs on my heart strings.
Not rushing to crack open this cozy cocoon.
Balaclavas off to you, equinox!
Here’s my halfhearted welcome to spring.
I’ll just take a few more quiet days at home
before I’m seduced to go out by
tugging vernal buds.
Susan. J Cohen, March 20, 2025
Inspired by At the Spring Dawn by Angelina Weld Grimké
Anchorage, Alaska
There are caves with icicles, with no light,
No radiant meadows with room to expand
When the sun comes in one direction,
Up, not down,
Of course, I’m not as real as the coming of the sun,
Nor is this wasteland I live in,
I’m a figment of someone’s imagination,
waiting to wake up,
from this nightmare,
Say nothing as in the movie,
Be quiet, be very, very quiet.
Nothing is more real than the coming of the sun,
The bus I ride to the market isn’t real,
nor is lying in bed after dawn.
I will wake up and be someone else,
I forget sometimes,
I’m a dream someone else is dreaming.
I believe when she wakes up
The fences of frost will melt out of the way,
life will be better through the gate of intention,
everything will always be pleasant
and I will no longer exist.
No words to say
And no way to look out
Anchorage, Alaska
On the caves
Or the clouds
But what I represent will be inside of her,
And she will remember the photos we took
Of each other in Anochrage, Alaska<
Of the caves,
Of the meadows,
Of the country
Before I disappeared,
She gave me a blank stare
Like a child looking for crumbs left behind,
I smiled while watching the sky,
she waved as I faded,
her back facing the coming of the sun.
Renee Bray, January 6, 2025
Food for Thought
Prompt - Inner Acreage Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
The Wind and the Boats
Version 2
The trees who hug,
who love you,
who will not hide from you the wind,
It touches,
and kisses your wet cheeks
The wind is also precious to the boats,
so necessary to sail new heights
above understanding
As your lips lay on the pier,
on the grass near
the ships call the wind to take them places
and back
Your lover calls your name as he lands,
the trees speak as you run,
Don’t be afraid your lover loves you,
The wind loves you too,
It has brought your lover home,
so love the wind,
Kiss it back.
Renee Bray, February 20, 2025
Food for Thought Poem
Prompt 1 – Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton
Equal treatment
Leaves in autumn
fall as they fall.
There’s no trumpet playing
or woman in black interpreting their pattern on the pavement.
They had their tree time
and now that’s over.
Every leaf is satisfied.
Every leaf has had a chance to bud
and a final fall.
We see this equal treatment
from Mother Earth’s loving hand,
and sigh with recognition.
We know she gives us similar portions of
precious time and earthly space.
Sue Cohen, February 13, 2025
Black Dog In Muddy Weather
For Quinn, my dog
He hops out the boot of my car like he always has,
thrashes his thick club of tail at the cold air, warning
that joy is on the way.
At some point in life I forgot how to play, but never him,
blessed angel who warms my bed and cleans my plate,
they didn't watch the gate when this one got out of heaven.
Miracles occur, and this one is mine, and he trots over there
to sniff dirt or let a stranger stroke his head,
paws disgusting with February caked in the grooves.
I don't care, I don't care, I simply don't care;
if I can watch a creature love the idea of life,
let him roll in whatever he pleases, it's of no consequence to me.
Sam Woodbridge
Food for Thought, 6 February 2025
Prompt poem: Black Rook In Rainy Weather, by Sylvia Plath
Bandages
I bring bandages for hearts broken by departures from ancestral homes.
I bring bandages for feet without shoes cut by rocks at the shores of dangerous seas.
I bring bandages for children who long for mothers’s, fathers’ arms
I bring bandages, triple antibiotic ointment and gauze wrap
I will hand these out to those of us cut by vicious mouthings and poisonous eyes
I hope my bandages will stop the tears of fears, not knowing what is ahead
Bandages for cuts and bruises from life was we know it
For generation 2000 now, for this one world off kilter
Muster courage, pray for guidance
Hold hands.
Daniel Raskin, 02.13.2025
On That Same Fifth Day
(der. from “Pledge Allegiance” by Natalie Scenters-Zapico and “On the Fifth Day” by Jane Hirshfield)
When they dredged the dead river, some were surprised by what they found.
Some were not.
A mother’s left ear.
Seeds that slipped off the drawbridge as it parted
to let slave ships and cruise ships through
and through again.
Seeds whose coats had become so hardened
they were unable to receive Mama Earth in the black-blue deep.
It is time to summon all the Mothers
to pockets on fire
and purses filled with tears.
Then it will be time to sit at their feet,
Black Madonnas all,
ask for the stories of ash.
First. Cover all your years of self in it.
Second. Eat it like charcoal to treat your overdose.
The Ash is an ancient tree
whose seeds begin dormant
who germinate only when we tend them in gathered silence
dropped down to our knees.
You are a tender.
You are a seed.
This will happen on the Fifth Day.
- Coke Tani, 01.28.25
caves
‘These are my caves’ I gesture with outspread arms
to the rooms where I drown, revive and drown.
Dark waters never heard low tide
Waist deep in the basement
Welcome to sludge life, baby you'll hate it here.
But look at me, trying anyway
Nothing to prove
No one to prove to
And still failing along the bell curve
of trial and error
Cataclysmic outlier.
I tuck in my corners like envelopes smothering
scented letters to nobody
Climb under myself
Perceivable dimensions reduced like sauce to resuscitate
Cocoon the bed, floor of the sea
You know where I'm at
You know where I be
It's so over; we're so back.
Dry yourself off: it's the year of the snake.
---------
Sam Woodbridge, January 16, 2025
Inspired by: Inner Acreage, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rebuilding a New Life
Mid-fifties divorced now married
Not the magic wand I wanted
Instead my naked hands
Tilling the new soil
Sowing the seedlings of a new life
Though I sometimes wonder why I am here
Why afraid feeling alone
Treading on shaky ground
Will I grow, emerge through the dark
And I wonder as I recalibrate
My one and only life
What will light really look like
...
Not Giving Up
Last three years COVID
and dating post fifty
My mind a slate sky
I want the Zen master’s
empty mind
so I can emerge
from wicked winter
through the fuchsia tunnel
to a warmer spring rain
June 2024