A Farewell to Summer

A late summer sun reaches with long rays

Holding tightly as its grip starts to fail.

This moment stretches too, not giving way

To harsh Autumn’s change, but to no avail.

A soothing glow of farewell, then it’s gone,

Another victim by rushing Time felled,

For even with the same sweet words this song

Serenades less sweetly each time replayed.

The leaves that gently brushed ambitious hands

That climbed heedlessly into swaying heights,

Now feel burdening time strangle with bands

Of changes, differences that crept by night,

Subtly bleaching away innocent green,

Yet, dying, burst anew with golden flame.

Black Magic

Wednesday, crowded physics room

Velocity makes me smile because I think of velociraptors

Running, accelerating, like arrows shooting to kill.

Floating formulas fill my roaming mind,

Then demonstration time.

Anybody epileptic?  The enthusiastic doctor who stands poised to bounce
Into another dimension, the physical embodiment of physics, asks.

A question that precedes greatness.

Strobe lights stop gravity before my eyes,

And my heart stops, too, because my childhood dream just became true.

Magic is real.

In a Blink

What if we could have back

Every moment when we blinked?

Would we see a newborn world flash by,

Or watch again times tried to forget?

Would you gather the missed seconds

In a glass jar as if collecting raindrops?

Would you save them surreptitiously,

Under your pillow to soak in your dreams, strengthen with age?

Would you thirstily drain each drop

Right before you left your body,

Splicing on each extra second,

Forcing time to wait on you?

Or would you sip lightly

On foggy Sundays, taking

These moments one by one, searching each

For that perfection missed the time you blinked too soon?

Sonnet

I ask not for time stopping perfection,

That would dim the sultry sun’s reflection,

But for a warm hand that encloses mine,

Fitting snug, made to hold both hands and time.

Yet neither will we vainly pursue it,

Ever chasing fleeting Time’s chariot,

Flinging ourselves into the white capped sea

For false deadlines, to ground on shores rocky.

I ask for thoughtful hands that grab the reign

Ceaselessly hurtling that chariot on,

As we rest our feet, borrowing a ride

Upon the gold horses of time, alive,

Within moments that stall our frenzied breaths,

While outside this carriage, earth spins towards death.

Joyce Sutphen Preparation

            The poems of Joyce Sutphen always speak to me about the large themes of mortality and life.  She sometimes presents this dramatically, referring specifically to Death with a fine example of apostrophe, or subtly, describing in great detail a moment, a living object.  In her poem, A Bird in County Clare, the simple subject pulls this theme down to the mundane level, “Earthbound”, but this creature might have been spectacular, might have once flown with a “flash of crimson gold, as the cloud and land split open”.  The bird represents to me the possibilities of near magical life until one day we, people, look back in self reflection and realize that we never left the ground, rather stayed humbly upon a “stone wall”, remaining never more than dull humanity.  But, Sutphen wonders, what more might there be?  Her subject, now a hobbling, broken creature, could have accomplished great deeds, could have sung beautiful music, yet now it waits only for death to come as another of her poems, Death Becomes Me, alludes.

            She tackles momentous ideas with a calm simplicity.  Her poem, At the Moment, again uses apostrophe to represent Death.  The tone, as most of her works, is clear and peaceful.  The capitalizations of Love and Death allude to me of the romantic poets, as do her statements, “…how far away once Death had seemed” and “then (of course) my love, I thought of you.”  In the brief poem I saw similarities with To His Coy Mistress, as the prose begins with serene and seemingly endless love but continues to remind the reader of the brevity of human life, finally ending again with love, as if pondering death’s power Sutphen decides she should make the most of the love she has and carpe diem.  The variance of the last two lines from the previous pattern and finishing with a little twist and wordplay, coupled with a nice rhyme, rings of sonnets.  Throughout the poem, however, she doesn’t lose the earthy feel, speaking of “frost and winter”, consistent with her voice that shines through every poem, a peaceful, wholesome empathy that feels just like Minnesota.

Mascara

Two dark lines, parallel

Like an equal sign

Over pale gold lashes,

Or is it unequal?

Maybe I’m over thinking this,

I’m not much of a feminist.

I don’t feel oppressed by dresses,

But is it not strange

That strangers think I’m young with an unmarked face?

Why am I the oldest girl I know with light rimmed eyes?

It’s like we reach high school and overnight inky darkness scrawls

Over the childish, curious, wide eyes.

Or is that what happened to my innocence?

Why does it matter, why have I been asked

If I’m a lesbian, or if I’m just lazy?

I’m probably lazy,

And stubborn, and I accept change

Like a broken parking meter,

But I haven’t decided if I mind writing my gender, my culture,

Across my face.

I don’t know where to draw the line.

Poem of the Day September 17

Farewell Song to the Banks of Ayr
by Robert Burns

The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
Loud roars the wild, inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the plain; 
The hunter now has left the moor. 
The scatt'red coveys meet secure; 
While here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 

The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
By early Winter's ravage torn; 
Across her placid, azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly: 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave; 
I think upon the stormy wave, 
Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from the bonie banks of Ayr. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore; 
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear, 
The wretched have no more to fear: 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound; 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
To leave the bonie banks of Ayr. 

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, 
Her healthy moors and winding vales; 
The scenes where wretched Fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves! 
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! 
My peace with these, my love with those: 
The bursting tears my heart declare- 
Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr!

I chose this because as a senior, I know I will miss home and my past that lives there.  This reminds me of that feeling, the sadness of leaving behind everything one knows, people, experiences, and places.  Also, I love the description, exactly reminiscent of the highlands, another place I love.  I realize the rhyme scheme is simple and sometimes sing song-y, but I find it peaceful to hear, especially if you imagine it in a Scottish accent.

Cold Wars

Nightly it seeped into my blood

The hidden poison in the still, pure air

Through pores that fought with sweaty pride,

Yet still it crept, insidious.

My labor strapped across bony hips,

That bruised a chilly, subtle hue,

Leaning into each slow step,

But sticky fingers laced and pulled,

 Into frozen lakes that called,

With shocking cracks and weary groans.

With each dusky, starspecked gloam,

I fluttered, burden cast into soft snow,

Light feet left not a print to show,

Windswept limbs piled deep in warmth.

Sometime into each blessed night,

Creeping, he returned with blight,

Heeding not the sacred stars,

He trod through dreams with heavy foot,

To wake with icy legs, tongue mute,

Unmoving until resolutely forced.

With one dawn left he ambushed me,

Waking alone from feverish dreams,

To feel the cold soaked through my flesh,

Come to claim the bones he wished.

With rattling voice I heard him speak,

Muttering that he would not take,

What did not belong to him,

Then I felt within my chest,

The thudding warmth that would not rest,

The fiery blood of my protest.

I met the cold again at dawn,

This time I greeted the dreary form,

I rested on the frozen shoals,

Fought not with arms but with the coals,

Of peace in heart among the cold.

How to Scuba Dive

As a blue world rolls underneath you,

Standing on a small, rocking patch of humanity

Gently unfold your lifeline,

the black vest that holds you reassuringly,

smelly with caked sunshine and dead sea,

Slip this mildewed machine of adventure over the tank,

Cold to your careful fingers, unfeeling,

Fiercely pull the strings, tie yourself

into the salt encrusted net

as if your life depended on it.

Twist with a jerk of the hand,

Resisting your touch, the young girl where she does not belong,

Then giving in with a whisper,

Intimate, saying trust me, trust this icy bottle spewing life like a dispenser,

and when you rerun your warm blooded hand over each vital instrument, recheck, rethink,

Slip the rasping rope into your mouth, hope the sweaty palms that secured your rubbery, foreign

suit were good enough to hide your fragile body in this heavy uniform of progress,

kick your feet and plummet

into azure depths.

Mick Murphy Sullivan

Mick,

Not Michael, Murphy, Irish with each wholehearted cell,

Likes people.  They entertain, he amusedly claims,

but here, new school, new people, less certain.

He wears his grin like leprechaun gold,

Tossing it among lucky passersby.

Likes the shade of the sky as darkness edges in,

Thanksgiving, family of five,

Bowling, painting friends with rubber bullets, bleeding rainbows.

He likes the peace of inactivity in hot showers,

Each imperfection of his glowing family.

He likes sliding across the slick, untainted ice,

Not the time a foreign limb crashed down,

Followed by darkness, ten brutal days alone with his throbbing head,

Memory clean but pain constant.

Head healed, returned to the searing light,

Graces people once more with a crooked smile, warm against the ice,

Sullivan.

At the Cement Gas Station

At the Cement Gas Station

The long thirsty walk ended with the glint of steel guns.

Steel guns, cradled in the arms of stiff soldiers,

Gleaming bullets like pageant banners across shoulders,

Steel guns bright in the dust, machine guns, AKs?

They needed no name,

They were just guns.

For safety, they said, safety in the musty air,

Of the gas station nearby nothing,

Down the crumbled road from nothing,

Between the burning city of humid sewage, dirty clothes waving,

And the bright village at the beach, sunburned foreigners hiding.

For safety, from the boy who said we should leave this road,

Too dangerous, so he followed us, Roberto, speaking animatedly,

With a wide smile, sharing stories like he walked, rapidly,

Along the whole path, disappeared as fast,

Parting with, This is safe enough.

For safety, at the air conditioned, grunge gas station,

And as I left, I stared deeply,

At the teenage face, stern, avoiding my gaze, staring stiffly straight,

Of the soldier.

And I looked at the unsympathetic, steel gun,

I looked, the safety wasn’t on.