Martin Willitts Jr Verse-Virtual 2017 August

August 2017

Martin Willitts Jr
mwillitts01@yahoo.com

I have an every-day habit of writing in a spiral notebook. I go to different places to be inspired, and sometimes, I do not have to go anywhere. As a Quaker, I go into silent meditation and try to listen whatever is being said within me. I never know what “will speak to me.” I have decided that all the books that I continue to re-read have a nature theme. I have been re- reading David Budbill, Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, Denis Levertov, and Wendell Berry. I have been saying, “I want to write short, tight nature poems.” This is some of what appears in my notebooks when I am done.

Invitation

when my time comes
I hope it is in morning in a garden
planting marigolds
after I dig a hole in the red clay soil
pouring in water
and the marigolds settle
until the flowers invite me
to that sacred place

I will know there is an invitation
when there is no messenger

Garden

A woman in the garden
inspecting that out of reach apple,
knows yearning.

The man
tormented by unbearable,
unspeakable horrors
of his actions during war,
tosses his weapon,
knows yearning, too.

There is the unresolved need
to find solace and demand love.

Coneflower

A purple coneflower has one black eye glancing
at the blue impervious sky --

not one dot of a cloud
as far as one can see.

Nearby, there is a weed too insignificant to name;
it does not even attract bees.

I am summoned to notice both.

Praise catches on my tongue
as the sky darkens and purples.

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