rhythms of life

Translation

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

with thanks to Jennifer Guyor Jowett for the Open Write invitation on Ethical ELA today:

Think about your reality.
What do you see today?
Ponder the possibilities before you.
Allow a free verse poem to develop.
Begin with the line I see…

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Translation

I see the sign
on an office wall

simple black frame
simple black font
on a plain white field

devoid of décor

just words:

Alles ist fertig;
es muss nur noch
gemacht
weden.

I do not read
or speak
this language

but that doesn’t keep
images from
springing to mind:

I see furrows
lush and green against
chocolate loam soil
spread out
like a billowing blanket
to tree-lined ditches

I see my childhood
materializing like a ghost
in the white summer haze

I see the cadence
of cicadas
and storytellers
around the dinner table
long ago
(yes, I see them;

rhythms
have shape
and color

as tentative as candleflame
as sustaining as river
as permanent as earth).

—I see it all
even if
I don’t always know
what it all means.

Eventually
I’ll translate
what I see
into words
on a page
for the knowing.

Everything is ready,
it just needs
to be done.

Dog day rhythms

/ Fran Haley / 1 Comment

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

—John Lubbock

haiku story poem

dog days of summer
triple-digit heat index
white haze cloaks the air

one can drown in it
too hot for lying in grass
even in the shade

lethargic rhythms
settle on all living things
except for insects

unrepentant sun
shimmers on dragonfly wings
iridescent darts

buzzing cicadas
in feverish frenzy sing
of love high in trees

remaining unseen
falling silent before storms
darkening the skies

as lightning’s forked tongue
snakes from the heavens to earth
(thunder, they told me

when I was a child,
is just the angels bowling;
that’s their pins, crashing)

—the heat breaks at last
like evening revival
saving weary souls

murmuring water
seeps into my dreams
ephemeral streams

summer’s lullaby
syncopated rain-fingers
tapping windowpanes

no sleep is so deep
as that borne by rhythms of
dogs days descending

summer rain. annalisa ceolin. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

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with thanks to Ruth Ayres for the inspirational quote at SOS-Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog