September 2018
Martin Willitts Jr
mwillitts01@yahoo.com
mwillitts01@yahoo.com
I am about to judge the New York State Fair Poetry Contest. I have not seen the poems yet. This will be the 4th year, and I have expanded the contest to include more entries. There is a cash prize, the typical ribbons for first through honorary places, plus a reading at the fair. I keep finding ways to promote other poets, whether it is my local “Poetry and Art in the Bus” or the Palace Poetry Group, or being an editor for Comstock Review. I remember when I first started writing and I did not know how to get started, so I offer these opportunities to others. I hope I never forget where I have been. It is important to encourage others.
Not Geese
the departing makes their way
past the lake’s edge
where sight cannot follow
trying to beat
fall’s inevitable changes
the departing takes with them
every part of the familiar
sound is the last to go
this wildness
this breathless parting of life
death
clouds
gone
Never Easy
In purified snow deepest-filled land,
resumes a blue light —
arrangements of silence;
hard and cold
intervals of wind gusts;
pinwheels of snow.
Never, never, again never, forever,
hammers the heart,
slowing the world to a crawl.
It is never, never forever, breaking
sunlight directly on snow.
I never-minded the break in weather,
never doubting completely
change was coming;
I tried not to count on it.
Pockets of ice had broken,
clear water was rushing,
never staying still.
Light Breaking Clouds
A dark cloud lowers
to the lake with precision,
forming a careful message,
breaking the ominous apart,
spilling light in haphazard directions —
some for you, some for me,
some for the grateful,
some for the ungrateful.
From the depths of despair,
we can only rise.
These few moments are all we are given --
this awesome responsibility
to share these small discoveries
before we forget them.
So, I rush out to tell you,
to shake you out of a slumber of not-seeing —
an iris sunset,
throbbing like an excited heart.
Light cracks out of us,
this way and that — some for strangers,
some for friends, some for the lost,
some for people finding their way into light.
Eyes of a Child
A girl was galloping through the pictures
of a wordless picture book.
I asked, “What are you reading?”
“This horsey is smiling and telling everyone
he’s found my mommy, and she’s with God,
and even God needs a mommy.”
Sometimes, a child can bring you down
to your very knees.
“And the horsey is racing as hard as it can
to tell everyone, clippety- cloppety,
over the gumdrop hills.”
I neighed when she instructed, sauntered over,
whinnied when she commanded,
swished giggles this way and that.
And, good news never traveled so fast —
to share with the farmer on a ka-churning tractor,
and the widdle-waddle ducks on the next page,
and the policeman stopping bleep-bleeping cars,
and buttery-brown trees, and blue surprised flowers —
all the way to the very end.
Not Geese
the departing makes their way
past the lake’s edge
where sight cannot follow
trying to beat
fall’s inevitable changes
the departing takes with them
every part of the familiar
sound is the last to go
this wildness
this breathless parting of life
death
clouds
gone
Never Easy
In purified snow deepest-filled land,
resumes a blue light —
arrangements of silence;
hard and cold
intervals of wind gusts;
pinwheels of snow.
Never, never, again never, forever,
hammers the heart,
slowing the world to a crawl.
It is never, never forever, breaking
sunlight directly on snow.
I never-minded the break in weather,
never doubting completely
change was coming;
I tried not to count on it.
Pockets of ice had broken,
clear water was rushing,
never staying still.
Light Breaking Clouds
A dark cloud lowers
to the lake with precision,
forming a careful message,
breaking the ominous apart,
spilling light in haphazard directions —
some for you, some for me,
some for the grateful,
some for the ungrateful.
From the depths of despair,
we can only rise.
These few moments are all we are given --
this awesome responsibility
to share these small discoveries
before we forget them.
So, I rush out to tell you,
to shake you out of a slumber of not-seeing —
an iris sunset,
throbbing like an excited heart.
Light cracks out of us,
this way and that — some for strangers,
some for friends, some for the lost,
some for people finding their way into light.
Eyes of a Child
A girl was galloping through the pictures
of a wordless picture book.
I asked, “What are you reading?”
“This horsey is smiling and telling everyone
he’s found my mommy, and she’s with God,
and even God needs a mommy.”
Sometimes, a child can bring you down
to your very knees.
“And the horsey is racing as hard as it can
to tell everyone, clippety- cloppety,
over the gumdrop hills.”
I neighed when she instructed, sauntered over,
whinnied when she commanded,
swished giggles this way and that.
And, good news never traveled so fast —
to share with the farmer on a ka-churning tractor,
and the widdle-waddle ducks on the next page,
and the policeman stopping bleep-bleeping cars,
and buttery-brown trees, and blue surprised flowers —
all the way to the very end.
© 2018 Martin Willitts Jr
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