APRIL 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 March 30 to listen, write, and read a variety of poems. Please join us on Monday, May 18 at 4:30pm for our next gathering. Check lopezlibrary.org or email Beth for more information.

Special Event
Young Poets
 
We were delighted to host two Kindergartners and their "producers" on April 27th. The Lopez School Kindergarteners have been reading and writing poetry all year. Andie & Olea shared a selection of their poems in their illustrated poetry books. Andie's poems were titled "Spring,"  "Yellow" and "Summer." Olea's poems included "Lummi the Greyhound," "Fairies picking berries" and "Deer Everybody." We hope to have more young poets present their work at future gatherings.
 
After the children departed, we talked about our own childhood exposure to poetry. Some of us were fortunate to have teachers who inspired a love of poetry while others were not introduced to poetry at a young age.

Poems Shared
Pam shared her poem "Pine Cones" with the phrase "gentle paw raindrops"
 
Becky is writing a prose poem as part of her memoir.
 
Brenda shared "The Reality of Peace" one of her poems in an upcoming collection Getting Down To It.
 
Nikyta couldn't attend, but shared her poem via email:
 
The honeyed apple of Spring joy
 
Practices undulate like seasons, waves, winds, perennials.
The winter when we locked ourselves inside and away from one another was my most poetically prolific:
 
I needed you.
 
We needed each other
 
and a language large enough to hold the ineffable sorrow of separation.
 
But now, sun-drenched
with birdsong
as snowy Mt Baker returns herself fully to the spring, powdered blue skies
And this warm cat of silken fur vibrating rests along side me at the seaside
As Madrona blossoms drop onto my hair and a baby harbor seal somersaults in the shallow bay
 
We have returned to one another
 
Contented.
Complete.
 
No where else to go,
Nothing else to do
 
But arrive to this perfect moment and bask in its rays.
Breathe it in and let it land
A cormorant on a mooring buoy
Wings outstretched that these
rays of joy might penetrate
Even deeper
into its winged heart.
 
Funny how words look for moments of need:
 
To alleviate loneliness
 
To capture spring joy
 
To be a cup for what would otherwise slip out of your hands
Fluid and uncontainable
 
The blissful elation of this moment
 
Unlike any other
And still
An undulating wave that repeats
Ebbs
Flows
Ebbs again.
 
For today is the good day when my
Cat goes on another walk with me: healthy and hale.
Today is the good day
That I am also
healthy and hale
Joyous and complete
In this island paradise
Of complex community
I call home
I call my place
of belonging
 
Today is the good day poetry has returned
To be the companion of this joy
That I might offer it in my open outstretched palm
A honeyed apple to your mouth
 
A gift of remembered reunion:
This sweetness.  
                   -Nikyta Palmisani
 
Beth shared "Someday I Will Visit Hawk Mountain" by M. Soledad Caballero. 
Writing Time
PROMPT: Someday I will visit ...
 
Someday I will visit
those questions in the sky
the ones that form from wind-tossed clouds
shaping and re-shaping
into promises and hopes,
evanescent moments 
of clarity and confusion.
 
Someday I will visit
those questions in my heart
the ones that loom unspoken
like heavy stones
waiting to be rolled
down the hill of memory.
 
Someday I will visit
those questions --
but today
I am content
with mystery.
               -Beth St. George, 4/27/2026
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sacred Monkey Forest
 
Someday I will visit
my next home
and if I don’t explore
I’ll never find it.
 
It’s time for a change
then I think of moving
what to donate, what to keep
Where have I been I’d like to repeat?
 
Costa Rica, the people, the climate
walking on the beach barefoot,
stopping for a sip
of coconut milk in the shell.
 
Most of all I love
the wildlife, the non-human
primates, My favorite
are the Macaques.
 
I’d like to return to
The Sacred Monkey Forest
during baby season, in Bali.
To see them in their natural habitat
 
Where it clearly takes a village
to keep all the inquisitive
little ones in reach.
Mothers, aunts, sisters
 
Like female humans
lazer focused on the children
regardless of men’s wars
in victory or defeat.
 
                   -Pam Pulver, 4/30/26
 

Lopez Island Library
2225 Fisherman Bay Rd
Lopez Island, Washington 98261
360-468-2265
www.lopezlibrary.org