MAY POET'S PEN SUMMARY & NEXT MEETING
Poet's Pen is a dedicated time to share our own and other poets' works, to allow time for writing/workshopping, and for closing with reading of works in progress. Six people met on May 18 to listen, write, and read a variety of poems. Please join us on Monday, June 29th at 4:30pm for our next gathering. Check lopezlibrary.org or email Beth for more information.

Poems Shared
Brenda shared her unique walking poem, "Breathing Peace" which we all practiced with her, outside.
 
Nikyta shared Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes."
 
Love recited her own beautiful poem which includes the line "silence speaks her wisdom."
 
Beth shared "We Need to Teach the Children the Old Words" by Caroline Mellor which includes a glossary at the end of old British words. Oh, and when I checked her website again (click on the link), I realized the poem includes 3 more verses! My favorite old word in her glossary is "smeuse - the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal."

Writing Time
ePROMPT: Sit beneath a tree, rest your back against its spine. Relax. Allow yourself to drift into a meditative space. Write with half-closed eyes, as if you're barely awake. Imagine you are the tree itself. Tell me about its life. Consider the sounds, smells, and adventures it has experienced as it has grown in this very spot. Remain relaxed as you begin to write, try to write the poem from that half-thinking dreamy state. (Allis Hamilton for The Poetry Society)
 
"Mapled One"
 
Maple, dearest
I ask your grace 
for my back against
your lichened trunk.
How long have you rooted here?
Longer than your years
have I grown here,
blessed by the nests of 
Robin and Finch
the plaintive cries of hungry babes.
Once, in a storm
I felt one arm, holding
nestlings
about to break
So I loosed myself,
let the wind do her will
and though that arm 
was tested
it did not break
the wee ones survived.
How shall I become
like you
steadfast and true?
I wonder, does the
breeze on my face
feel like the breeze
on your leaves?
How would it be 
for my feet to grow
roots? Could I stand
still long enough?
I think not.
Maple, dearest
I cannot be you
For I am me
But I can 
sit beneath you
and be me, with you.
                    
                     -Beth St. George
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
                                             
 
                                               tree’slation by Love 2026~esh, Lopez Island WA
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Legacy and Life in Odlin Park
Cutting Down of Trees
 
Whispers of the original Word
Found within the depths 
Of bark, trunk, of sap and roots
And nestled in cone spirals.
 
Word made wood
Unique to planet Earth.
 
We have Irrational and 
Soul needed connections
To whats unseen, but felt
Between thee and tree.
 
Will there be a ghost vibration
When separation is enforced?
Will it seem right when
No legacy is left?
 
What else is there, only love?
Does the truth of love mean
Letting trees "Be"?
Is the story of Odlin
An epic?
Or a single song?
Might it be the promise of 
One more seed?
 
What do those whispers 
Carry and uphold?
The present tree
The seeded chance to 
Sanctify another season?
The course of water, 
Homes for squirrel, thrush?
The yearning towards tomorrow?
 
What goes with the tree
When Legacy is lost?
The insects hole and food?
The eagles nest, the vole, the hare? 
The shade, the caterpillar's cocoon?
 
The whispers?
 
The Island?
 
                   -Brenda Asterino
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
“Even without being named 
Spring returns, resplendent”
 
A cascade of forgotten words
Nootka rose petals above
Showering my face and hair
With the fragrance of remembering
The tender clover breathing below
My body alive in a chorus of 
 
Rebirth, rebirth, rebirth
 
S P R I N G 
 
Field daisies & robin song
I half recall 
their many names given & forgotten 
like stitches on the 
underside of fabric 
how they reappear 
like cotton candy crocus and
purple & white striped irises 
fancy in their cotillion finery 
 
They must have had a 
thousand million names
spoken by adoring bee tongue
bat tongue
the endless river 
of ever changing human tongues
as fickle and changeable as 
snowmelt to spring creeks and
as babbling 
for these beyond bodacious baubles of 
audacious beauty 
whose splendor lives beyond names
 
Just as we are named 
and our names— do they 
truly die with us? 
or does the memory of placehood
christen us with poem & rhyme
song and story 
of our one and precious life
that our names live 
far behind the dusk of day
 
And the stitch of time
might reveal again 
the thousand myriad names
we give the divine
spoken so the goddess 
might remember herself
year after year 
as dumbledores become bumblebees
and Elizabeth Mary’s become Anna Sophia’s
 
and still the field daisies live on 
blooming 
whether or not 
their secret names are every spoken
 
the green green of the world 
before and beyond language 
just as soft 
under my bare & wordless feet. 
 
                   -Nikyta Palmisani