Thank you, Lisa! I wrote so much about Côte d’Ivoire when I first came back, but so many of those poems are wound around the short-term mission trip I was on when I was there, which I have some mixed feelings about now. It feels good to revisit it so many years later.
Oooh, beautiful, Margaret! The feeling of moving from heat to rain to heat to rain was so visceral for me... as was the rest of the poem. I had to look up Danané, and then I had to look up how to add an accent mark in my Chrome browser. Thanks for helping me stay sharp!
This is very nice Margaret Ann. Your imagery is nice and the poem as a whole is evocative and so descriptive of an interesting place. You do a nice job of balancing the everyday with the wonder of a place. Thank you!
This is so incisive and poignant, Rebekah. I line “ It is my birthright but I can’t/make it fit.” Likewise, “overhead, planes slice/ and the-slice the same sky/wound,”. So good!
Holy donut, I love this poem! The phrase “perpetual transition” delights me and is going to stay with me for a good while. Everything is in perpetual transition, isn’t it? So much so that it’s funny we have so much language that assumes stasis as the norm.
Very enjoyable, as always, thank you. I am always struck by how different the world is depending on the point of view. I was always male, always six feet tall and always strong and so I never saw what my wife and you see. These things always stir an anger in me and I have done what that black woman did but even as I was extending a helping hand I knew that I was suspect as well. Here's one https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/a-memory-of-memories-8fd
Thank you so much! And your poem is beautiful. That first stanza totally captivated me - "Walking down streets / long known is a precious thing / because memory is honored / while being refreshed and updated." And then the rest of the poem felt somehow like I was on a long, lovely, winding walk with you. Thank you!
Thank you for reading Lisa. That was written this spring in L’Isle sur la Sorgue in Provence. Google the images, it’s a real beauty and it’s got great winding, ancient streets 1,000 years old.
Have you ever been to one of those market? The Sunday market there took me 30 minutes to walk it and that would be without stopping, which I cannot do.
Eeek! I commented before I got to the end. Congratulations on being a finalist!!!! 😊. I can't believe you've only been writing poetry for a couple years--you are so accomplished.
Thank you so much, LeeAnn! I live in a pretty rural area but had so much fun writing this poem and reliving urban memories. It makes me want to spent more time writing while in a city!
Being a finalist is amazing! I'm so glad you got to have that experience in Louisville. And I had no idea you started writing poetry so recently! Your poems are so powerful.
Congratulations, Lisa on being a finalist! I look forward to reading your book(s) someday! I know New York, which was quite intimidating to me at one time in my life, but with whom I have found a place of welcome and comfort. Your poem was so real and evocative for me. I feel like the scene you described has played out in front of me too many times, including the kindness of strangers. Now your future poem can be, "second poem for New York."
Danané
.
The air always tasted salty, though I don’t know
if we were near the sea. I licked my lips and loved it.
Grilled corn eaten on the bus. Fufu will expand in your stomach
(warned not to eat it, but we did anyway). The red of palm nuts
ground down to a paste. Doughnuts fried in twists, dark brown
covered in sugar. I liked the taste of everything in Danané.
.
My hair braided by Émiliènne into masses of slippery brown ropes
that slid and glided out while I slept. The fireflies lowering
into the bushes at night, blinking messages to each other.
The soft lengths of cloth—lappas—wrapped around
to make skirts, to make headpieces, to hold babies.
.
The baby who peed on my knee, her cloth diaper soaking through
as I held her on my lap. The slap of sandals as we walked.
In the bush, my friends used machetes to swipe the brush
and spiders haunted the eaves of their dwelling
the swelling heat moving into rain, and then heat
and then rain again.
This is so beautiful and atmospheric! I love how you pulled me into a place that I've never been.
Thank you, Lisa! I wrote so much about Côte d’Ivoire when I first came back, but so many of those poems are wound around the short-term mission trip I was on when I was there, which I have some mixed feelings about now. It feels good to revisit it so many years later.
What a beautifully descriptive poem. Your words painted a perfect image.
Thank you, Karri. So many of my recent poems wouldn’t exist without Lisa’s prompts 💛.
Oooh, beautiful, Margaret! The feeling of moving from heat to rain to heat to rain was so visceral for me... as was the rest of the poem. I had to look up Danané, and then I had to look up how to add an accent mark in my Chrome browser. Thanks for helping me stay sharp!
Thank you, Rebekah! I learned how to add the accent mark from my teenagers 😁.
This is very nice Margaret Ann. Your imagery is nice and the poem as a whole is evocative and so descriptive of an interesting place. You do a nice job of balancing the everyday with the wonder of a place. Thank you!
Thank you so much, Larry! It was so good to revisit Côte d’Ivoire with this prompt.
Yesterday I walked in a grove of trees
Trees of different species from my home
They were beautiful but dispassionate
Communicating to me they only observe
The events of this place
They sometimes provide shade against an angry sun
Distraught against events in time
But today provide some protection
Against a light rain of tears
Why do I need protection
From something that only exists
In this grass covered history
The trees observe me peering
Into depressions of former mass graves
Within this killing field
In the land called Cambodia
Not recalling other mass killings
Of forests of trees destroyed
To provide fire and furniture
For financial gain of my species
Obdurate to the rhythms of life
What is life
Why is life
Why so vulnerable
To other life
"Obdurate to the rhythms of life." This is beautiful and so achingly sad, Jim.
Leaving Cambodia for Vietnam. So much horror in this part of the world caused by what is called The American War.
"What is life
Why is life
Why so vulnerable
To other life"
Hauntingly beautiful.
Thank you Karri. Visiting the Killing Fields is very traumatic especially when learning that Pol Pot was a Buddhist Monk. Ideology kills so many.
Oh wow, I didn’t know that!
I did not know that. Somehow, it makes those terrible atrocities even more so.
They have seen a lot.
Yes they have.
I'll Take the Pottage
.
From the rooftop patio
no other bodies are in view
but like God, I see their good works:
their squared-off summits
and smoldering pinnacles,
their webs for moving light and heat,
their many ways of
walking on water.
.
It is my birthright but I can’t
make it fit. I will always crave
something older,
something that builds
within bounds.
.
Overhead, planes slice
and re-slice the same sky-wound
in their final approach to Sea-Tac,
one every 70 seconds,
each its own planet
of fundamentally righteous people
who just can’t stop.
“Sky-wound.” 💔 Wow, the last stanza slays me.
I don't want to be a sister slayer -- but thank you for the compliment! :)
This is so incisive and poignant, Rebekah. I line “ It is my birthright but I can’t/make it fit.” Likewise, “overhead, planes slice/ and the-slice the same sky/wound,”. So good!
Righteous
It took me a while but this one came to me today, inspired by Portland, Maine near to where we live, and our favorite slice of heaven.
Holy Donut
^
Emerging from the waterfront trail,
we come back to this city and
it’s historic harbor,
blending old and new,
in perpetual transition
and opening its heart and arms
to generations of kindreds
that do not look like you and me.
We walk across old stone roads,
up the hill bent on a mission.
We see our church around the corner,
long lines of worshippers excited for a taste.
Drawn by the pull of the Holy Donut.
potato base, uncommon combos,
heavenly delights infused with spirit.
Coffee ice cubes and Sunday music,
the buzz of possibility in the air.
Round temptations of wholly grace,
Discipline and self-control take a holiday.
If only real church was this good!
We take our bounty and walk back to the seaside,
bow graciously in our hearts to each other
and dive in.
There are divine donuts, food for angels,
waiting to be prayerfully eaten.
Amen.
Holy donut, I love this poem! The phrase “perpetual transition” delights me and is going to stay with me for a good while. Everything is in perpetual transition, isn’t it? So much so that it’s funny we have so much language that assumes stasis as the norm.
That is a brilliant insight, Lisa. I often encounter folks or communities who say they don’t like change, and I smile. It will come regardless.
Eat prayfully.....🙂
Just the knowing that
We cannot surface right now
Makes all the difference.
A trip under the polar ice cap
Makes you restack things.
This is such an intriguing poem!
I love this Chuck! It is a short poem that is creative and powerful and holds together so well!
Very enjoyable, as always, thank you. I am always struck by how different the world is depending on the point of view. I was always male, always six feet tall and always strong and so I never saw what my wife and you see. These things always stir an anger in me and I have done what that black woman did but even as I was extending a helping hand I knew that I was suspect as well. Here's one https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/a-memory-of-memories-8fd
Thank you so much! And your poem is beautiful. That first stanza totally captivated me - "Walking down streets / long known is a precious thing / because memory is honored / while being refreshed and updated." And then the rest of the poem felt somehow like I was on a long, lovely, winding walk with you. Thank you!
Thank you for reading Lisa. That was written this spring in L’Isle sur la Sorgue in Provence. Google the images, it’s a real beauty and it’s got great winding, ancient streets 1,000 years old.
Another place to add to my list of “maybe someday!”
Lisa, here is a poem filled with photos of that town's market this May. It has market days on Wednesday and Sunday. I hope you get to see it one day. https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/a-sunday-market-in-spring
Your pictures made me very hungry!
Have you ever been to one of those market? The Sunday market there took me 30 minutes to walk it and that would be without stopping, which I cannot do.
I loved "some things are impossible to see when looked at directly". Beautiful poem for what seems like a beautiful place.
Thank you Karri, for reading and commenting. Have you looked at the Google images of that town? Beautiful. I wrote this about roses in this town. https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/rose-of-all-roses
Oh, Lisa! I am painfully familiar with this deflection. Why didn't we grow up with better ways to say NO?!?!?:
“I have an apartment in midtown,” he said,
and wanting to always be nice
I let him down with
the easiest truth—
“I don’t like midtown,” I said,
but he wouldn’t let go.
Yes! "No' has been the absolute hardest word for me to learn.
Does a slap on the snout count as being nice?
In my new definition of nice, I’d say that sometimes it does!
Eeek! I commented before I got to the end. Congratulations on being a finalist!!!! 😊. I can't believe you've only been writing poetry for a couple years--you are so accomplished.
Thank you! And I love the word accomplished. It makes me want to practice French, do some cross-stitch, and then play the piano forte.
Don’t forget using firelight to trace someone’s profile for a cameo. And singing as you play that piano forte 😁.
This is fantastic! You have found your calling. It is wordwork. So glad you did.
Thank you so much, Kim! I really do just want to write all day (or play outside, I like that a lot, too).
I love city poems, since I’m pretty urban myself. Congratulations on being a finalist! That’s awesome.
Thank you so much, LeeAnn! I live in a pretty rural area but had so much fun writing this poem and reliving urban memories. It makes me want to spent more time writing while in a city!
In Angkor Wat
The bamboo gave its life
To be a ladder
To climb to the fruit
Of the palm tree
The palm tree reaching
For the arms of the sky
Makes itself vulnerable
To the lightening of heaven
It’s life is defined
By its death
The bamboo returns
To the peace of the earth
Beautiful poem for a beautiful place.
Very nice, Jim.
Wow, love this poem. Lisa!!
- I was similarly young in NY... half a century ago... believe your lady watched after me too
Looking back, I'm fairly certain she was a guardian angel! Thank you, Mark.
Being a finalist is amazing! I'm so glad you got to have that experience in Louisville. And I had no idea you started writing poetry so recently! Your poems are so powerful.
Thank you so much, A! 💚
Congratulations, Lisa!
Thank you so much!
Yay, and congratulations!
Thank you, Priscilla!
Congratulations, Lisa on being a finalist! I look forward to reading your book(s) someday! I know New York, which was quite intimidating to me at one time in my life, but with whom I have found a place of welcome and comfort. Your poem was so real and evocative for me. I feel like the scene you described has played out in front of me too many times, including the kindness of strangers. Now your future poem can be, "second poem for New York."
Haha, yes, I'll have to write a second one, and it's so nice to already have the title ready to go.