May 2019
Michael L. Newell
astrangertotheland@yahoo.com
I have been peripatetic for most of my life, a trait which I inherited from my parents.  After living abroad for decades, I retired to the south-central coast of Oregon where I live peacefully in a small rural town.
 
JUST LISTEN—IT IS EVERYWHERE

​
music can arrive without warning 
on the breath of a passerby
a swirling tune afire
with hope or despair or peace 
 
it can be a sound delicate as a butterfly's wings,
which slips through shuttered ears
and warms a cold center forever frozen
no more no more no more
 
tree bush and wind, children loose in a field,
lovers in the rain huddled together under
a rock outcropping, runner alone with miles
of footfalls and enveloping air,
 
all know in their bones the coming
of music, the promise of sound 
to accompany creation's mighty dance
in all its manifold forms
 
(August 2009, La Paz, Bolivia)
 
 
 
UN CHANSON DES FLEURS
 

The entrance to her home is a visual,
tactile, aromatic medley of beauty 
and fragrance planted and tended 
by hands grown old and wrinkled,
yet still capable of nurture;
 
most contemporaries 
have departed, abandoned her,
but she endures, finds
and creates meaning in plants
for herself, and for all who pass by
 
and witness the sunlit glory
and hovering redolence that blesses
the immediate neighborhood;
with failing eyes, she lights
the world around her. 
Both poems this month are from my most recent book Meditation of an Old Man Standing on a Bridge (Bellowing Ark Press, 2018).
© 2019 Michael L. Newell
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