January 2024
Bio Note: Retired from Pediatrics after a wonderful forty-three-year career, I have added daily reading and writing poetry to grandfathering, bird watching, fly-tying and fly fishing. I write every morning, sometimes afternoon as well, pausing to pay attention, looking for details to explore, noting changes over time—bridges to a better understanding of life—that I have previously missed. New adventures every day; like the wind, a good poem is always going somewhere not yet seen. An endless parade—never the same cloud, same light, same shadow, same pond, same field, same sandhill crane, same hydrangea, same insight. What fun to be a new member of this community!
Compensation
Barn’s burnt down Now I can see the moon —Mizuta Masahide At summer’s noon, we cannot see through maple’s green—grasses hide on other side, as does picket fence, and the browns of trunks and branches in which the sap of life resides. By day, we note just photon nets that snare celestial light. A shallow depth of focus the price we have to pay— the maple’s barn is in the way. It blocks the stars at night, and the moon glides by unseen. Until autumn’s fires burn, that is. At first, the bits of flame surprise, but soon the tree engulfed. We gather in delight, the fire burning bright, until burnt leaves come tumbling down, leaving trunk and branches bare. We shiver, almost reduced to tears— the thought of winter’s cold and dark brings back forgotten dread, but a deeper focus has its perks— your picket fence, the moon above, a ceiling trimmed with stars.
Water Under The Bridge
And then what is said by all lovers: “What fools we were, not to have seen.” —Jane Hirshfield Not all perhaps, but for many some part of this is true. Turns out, the grass was greener than you thought, in the place where you had been. Your family’s flaws, your quaint hometown, good jobs you left, each love you shared, that failed, Always looking for improvement just more dust upon your eyes. All your tears won’t cleanse the lenses, despite how much you wipe. The water spent a failed investment, in a flow of foolish dreams, Tributary to a river, thirsty for regrets, that sips upon your sorrows, and blithely slips downstream.
©2024 Steve Williams
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL