April 2019
Robert K. Johnson
choirofday@cs.com
choirofday@cs.com
Born in New York City (in Elmhurst), I lived in several different places there but have memories only of The Bronx (off Fordham Road). Then my family moved out "on The Island"—to Lynbrook, where we stayed till I graduated from Hofstra (then a College). Several years after my wife, Pat, and I married, we, plus our two children, settled in the Boston area and have remained there (except for my daughter, Kate, who has lived in Manhattan for quite a while). I have been writing poetry since I was twelve (many moons ago).
Author's Note: "Late Winter Thoughts" is one of my best everyday-life poems. Painters often alter details in scenes they are painting (El Greco changed Toledo a lot in hs famous view of it). And I have felt free to do the same. However, in this particular poem I stuck 90% close to the original/actual incident. The young woman coming out of the (Cornell U.) library did become my wife--and still is.
LATE WINTER THOUGHTS
Tiring more easily now,
I settle in a chair
to watch another snow's
falling whiteness, and remember
how often my life has pivoted
on happenings briefer than
a branched bird taking flight
as on the glistening autumn day
I strolled across the quad
and saw--hurrying out
of the library--a young woman
cradling too many books
in her cardigan-covered arms.
Her footsteps brisk with purpose,
her smile caught by the sunlight,
she walked toward where I had stopped,
and I knew even before
I offered her my "Hello,"
knew right to my fingertips
I loved this sun-golden woman
and would marry her forever.
previously published in REACH POETRY
Author's Note: The first of my two "Best Poems" represents my "breakthrough" in my years as a poet .For many years the quality of my poems was very hit-and-miss because I wrote on all sorts of subjects from all sorts of points of view. Gradually, I realized that my better pieces centered on everyday reality--or, if you like highfalutin phrases, quotidian reality. "A Night-Rain" is an early exuberant poem celebrating my found focus.
A NIGHT-RAIN
Dabs of night-rain
trickle, slow as snails,
across dark windowpanes;
tap on tin gutters like
impatient fingernails;
deck the undersides
of branches with white beads.
Wet winds buffet
long-stemmed flowers until
they bob like sailboat masts
anchored in choppy bays;
swab shingles to a silver
sheen; while tree leaves flap
like flushed birds' climbing wings.
Bright streetlamps blur;
speeding car wheels singe
the puddled roads; and road signs,
sheathed in spray, glisten
like the heroes' shields
extolled in epic tales
about enchanted lands.
previously published in BLOSSOMS OF THE APRICOT
LATE WINTER THOUGHTS
Tiring more easily now,
I settle in a chair
to watch another snow's
falling whiteness, and remember
how often my life has pivoted
on happenings briefer than
a branched bird taking flight
as on the glistening autumn day
I strolled across the quad
and saw--hurrying out
of the library--a young woman
cradling too many books
in her cardigan-covered arms.
Her footsteps brisk with purpose,
her smile caught by the sunlight,
she walked toward where I had stopped,
and I knew even before
I offered her my "Hello,"
knew right to my fingertips
I loved this sun-golden woman
and would marry her forever.
previously published in REACH POETRY
Author's Note: The first of my two "Best Poems" represents my "breakthrough" in my years as a poet .For many years the quality of my poems was very hit-and-miss because I wrote on all sorts of subjects from all sorts of points of view. Gradually, I realized that my better pieces centered on everyday reality--or, if you like highfalutin phrases, quotidian reality. "A Night-Rain" is an early exuberant poem celebrating my found focus.
A NIGHT-RAIN
Dabs of night-rain
trickle, slow as snails,
across dark windowpanes;
tap on tin gutters like
impatient fingernails;
deck the undersides
of branches with white beads.
Wet winds buffet
long-stemmed flowers until
they bob like sailboat masts
anchored in choppy bays;
swab shingles to a silver
sheen; while tree leaves flap
like flushed birds' climbing wings.
Bright streetlamps blur;
speeding car wheels singe
the puddled roads; and road signs,
sheathed in spray, glisten
like the heroes' shields
extolled in epic tales
about enchanted lands.
previously published in BLOSSOMS OF THE APRICOT
©2019 Robert K. Johnson
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF