I love the poems we are bringing to you today, kids, because they feature human and non-human creatures, and the theme is love. What could be better than love and animals? Our poets today are well-known and loved by us all: Hannah Gosselin, who writes at Metaphors and Smiles, Elizabeth Crawford, of Soul's Music and 1sojournal, and Mama Zen, at another damn poetry blog. Pull your chairs in close, and clean your specs. You won't want to miss a single word.
Our first delightful poem is by Hannah. You'll love this. Watch for the doggy smile at the end.
Of Big-Small Happenings – Lady-bugs and Black-holes
Spring speaks in chartreuse hues again
sings a crimson song
maple leaves beginning.
Somewhere scientists record big things
shape and sound of two black-holes colliding
gravitational waves from 1.3 billion years ago.
Concentric circles were sent
wave-rippling across immense pond of uni-verse
the one-poem exclaims its presence
and here blue stars have erupted afield.
Forget-me-nots have arrived
I wonder what they would ask us to remember?
Today I recall lady-bugs
that green-breathing day
air was filled with flight
black-spotted redwings on blue sky
and on beautiful brindle coat.
So much joy in that moment
me and my dog in the grass
smiling with our eyes
laughing in our hearts.
Copyright © Hannah Gosselin and Metaphors and Smiles, 2011-16
Written in memory of my dog Jade (5-16-13), the sweetest girl ever.
Sherry: Such a beautiful girl, she was. I love "smiling with our eyes, laughing in our hearts." Dog lovers among us will recognize this kind of love, such a deep bond, with our fur companions. It is so hard to lose them, but the memories of the joy they brought us make us smile forever after. I love this poem, Hannah. Tell us about it.
Hannah: Lady-bugs and Black-holes is about those time-stopping, small-big moments. It's about how, when one is within that space, it feels like everything is just right. For me, one such event occurred while I was at home with my dog in the yard. Ladybugs filled the air....sunlight glimmered on wings and the atmosphere was alive with the just-rightness of it all. I planted forget-me-nots where Jade rests, and every year they return and I remember.
Sherry: Dear Jade. She was a sweetheart. Thank you, Hannah, for sharing this tender moment. Now let's take a look at Elizabeth's poem about love, which involves a somewhat larger animal.
image from the public domain
Love Is An Elephant
Sometimes standing right there
in the middle of the living room
being ignored at all costs.
Able to survive in driest of climates
with a long trunk that sucks up, stores
memories like water so vital to life
and utterly refreshing.
Huge ears fragile enough to be moved
by any passing breeze, yet able to hear
the softest sigh at greatest distances.
Heaviness that can crush boulders, turn
rocks of resistance into pebbles of relief.
Big feet that leave an enduring path
back to itself and far beyond the same.
Tough wrinkled hide quick to protect,
defend a heart beating with life and living,
yet allow it freedom to become slow
languid with loving.
Above all of these, an ability to remember,
to weep with deepest sorrow, to grieve
the losses, both large and small,
and still continue to breathe.
Elizabeth Crawford 4/21/16
Sherry: I love this description of love, which is all of the things you have described so beautifully. Tell us more, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: 'Love is an Elephant' was written during April and NaPoWriMo. I find when I do a poem a day that the poems often sort of bleed from one to another. That was even stronger this past April because I was also writing prompts. I would prepare the prompts the evening before and post them. They were, for the most part, six word wordles, but I occasionally dropped other prompts into that process. The poem from that day had been a letter to my Mother who passed away 6 years ago. We had a strained relationship while I was growing up and the letter addressed that issue. I was thinking about how love can often be a complex set of issues, not easily defined.
With that in mind, when I got to the prompt site, I simply created a prompt that asked writers to finish the phrase "Love is __________." While I was actually typing out the prompt phrase the word "elephant" came into my mind and I sort of grinned at the idea. Most of the individuals who read my poetry, know that a young woman, an incest victim, lived with me for ten years. She wasn't the only one. Another young woman lived with us for almost a year. She collected small figurines of elephants, leaving two of them with me when she decided to go home. By then, the first stanza of the poem had popped into my head. I typed it into a note and left it there.
The next morning I looked at it and thought I'd skip it because it seemed a bit far-fetched. But then put the words 'elephants and love' into my address bar and asked for images for that topic. Found the image that I used for the poem because it started triggering several more ideas. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Sherry: Or her-story! I really loved this poem, Elizabeth.
Next we have a sizzling love poem by Kelli Simpson, whom we know as Mama Zen. This one sets the heart a-flutter, even old, shriveled-up, elephantine hearts like mine, LOL.
Dorling Kindersley/Getty images
A Beat Of Butterfly Wings
Your shirt slides
to the floor -
a beat of butterfly
wings. In Florence,
David shatters. In Tibet,
a poet dreams. A Montana
bird turns stone, falls, and is found
by a blonde locked girl.
Here, I am still as stone myself,
as your shirt
slides to the floor.
We each reach
for the infinite other
closing the distance
from star to star.
The sky kisses
the open mouthed sea;
far is near and near is far.
You kiss me; I taste
salt on your tongue,
salt and something more -
the silvery skin of a butterfly's wing
as my shirt
slides to the floor.
Kelli Simpson 5/28/2016
Sherry: Wow, Kelli, the reader catches her breath as those shirts slide to the floor. I especially love "the sky kisses the open mouthed sea." So good!
Kelli: What I remember about this one is that it was determined to rhyme whether I wanted it to or not. Oh, I fought it for a while (you should see the rough draft!), but I finally had to admit defeat. A poem wants what it wants; sometimes the poet just has to get out of the way.
Sherry: Yes, especially when the poem speaks its truth so perfectly. Thanks, Kelli, for this breathtaking poem.
Thanks to each of you talented ladies for your thoughts on love. I know our readers will enjoy your offerings. Do come back, my friends, and see who we talk to next . Who knows? It might be you!