Poem: Who can know?

Who can know?

Who can know incredible joy,

Can know incredible sorrow.

In the difference lies Hell.

The Unity is God.

By: Sharon Graham                                                                      

4/8/12                                                                                       

Poem: These Woods

These Woods

What know these woods of our passings?

How could we think they should care?

We’ve done little to deserve their compassion

We've defiled them

Scarred them

Pushed them far from our lives

They should have no use for us

But as I stumble along

Head bowed below bare branches

Gathering tinder for this week’s fires

Fires to warm our now somber home

Fires to pierce the desperate chill in our hearts

These woods comfort me

Embrace me

Soothe me with calm, gentle silence

Wrap me in their blessed endlessness

For man is animal

Like fox and deer and bear

Despite our attempts to deny it

Despite our claim to be more

Man is animal

And these woods embrace all of their innocents

Even the wayward ones

They celebrate our birth with their spring

Energize our life with their summer

Acknowledge our maturity with their fall

And mourn our return to the roots with their winter

And winter is here

Winter is here

So together we mourn a return to the roots

Together

These woods

and I

By: Mike Sepelak

4/7/12

Poem: A Warm Summer’s Day

A Warm Summer’s Day

I cried for you, or did I cry for me
On that warm summer's day
The bay was calm - I drank its coolness
On that warm summer's day

As you danced your life, my life, for me
Your questions there for me to ask
Caught in my throat - the polluted sand of the bay
Your arms dancing
My tears crying
The Bay washing
Soothing, loving the sand away

But your foot caught my heart
Your foot pounding, his voice pounding
Were my heart pounding, pounding, pounding
The drum of antiquity pounding

As your partner read David’s words

And you danced our pain

Your love true, forbidden sanctity

My love, sanctified, dissolving

On that warm summer's day

Your dance ended then
The pounding echoing
The silence of my heart
You left as you came, a
Dirge that swelled my pain, your pain

The gulls were quiet
on that warm summer’s day

Soaring over the cool water of the bay

Beckoning me to with them soar
To love and freedom beyond the shore

But tears of my pain held me back
Tears of your pain called me back
Back to life, to the dirge of your feet
Walking silently in my pain
On that warm summer's day

I cried for you, or did I cry for me
On that warm summer's day
The bay was calm - I wept its coolness
On that warm summers' day.

By: Carol Phillips                                           

4/6/12                                                         

Poem for the day

T

Stone and Steel 

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer

More woodsman's axe than surgeon's scalpel

Cleave by inertia more than intelligence

I know this

And accept it for what it is

My lot

But it need not mean I'm dull

A blunt tool

Good for nothing more than rude smashing

I'm more than that

I work hard

Keep my broad edge clean with stone and steel

And with this edge endeavor to strike with rudimentary precision

For effort and proximity can carry the day

If that's what you have

We can't all be scalpels

And axes are needed in this world

They build from the ground the platforms of the knife

There's dignity in their work

Though they're seldom celebrated for it

It's the scalpel that's revered

But blades, unattended, quickly tarnish and rust

Razor edge turns pointless

While axes, when whet, work untiringly, and long

Even when blunted by hard times

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer

More woodman's axe than surgeon's scalpel

I endure by the effort

Stone and steel

By: Mike Seplak

4/5/12

Poem for the day

To celebrate National Poetry Month

Poems by authors in Chatham/Lee Counties

Dog Days

The summer swelters are here.

Days that make me want to burrow

deep into the earth, praying hard

for the wet blessing of a rain drop.

Trees droop their shoulders,

leaves limp as fingers dangling

without purpose.

Nothing sings.

Nothing moves

but the dragonflies gliding

through the thick warm soup

that once was air.

Hard to breathe.

Hard to care.

Caught in the doldrums,

I take baby breaths,

and dream of the quiet chatter of sleet

as it hits a tin roof.

Catherine Bollinger

Poem: The Telling that Changes Everything IV. Christmas Day, December 25, 2011

The Telling that Changes Everything IV.

Christmas Day, December 25, 2011

Humor is essential when you balance

on that edge between justice and mercy.

Nothing I hate more than to see people

mistreated, but I learn that the villains

have their moments of terror, too. Rage

can blindside any of us–no matter how

watchful we are, how self-aware and

enlightened. Yet we have no choice

but to re-find our equilibrium, consider

the culprit’s ancient dread, hold firm

to what is right, but smile and forgive.

A tough act to follow. Only those who

see clearly, who have taken the beam

out of their own eyes can do it. It’s

called healing, and it doesn’t make

you popular. Your stern side is

scarifying. They want absolution

before they confess their faults.

Not possible, and anyway, the first

essential, if you want to change,

is to forgive yourself. Learn how.

Unresolved guilt compounds itself

and leads to more and more cruelty.

There’s no substitute for honesty

at exactly the right time and place.

Not too soon, not too late. How do

we know the moment has arrived?

That’s when watchfulness pays off.

A space opens suddenly, and we see

the path straight into the rascal’s

soul. In the meantime, we always

have work in front of us. People

need our clarity, our joy, how we do

a stake-out to catch the errant heart

when it suddenly opens wide.

By: Judy Hogan                                                          

4/3/12                                                                       

Poem: Mockingbird in the Apricot Tree

Mockingbird in the Apricot Tree

A flash of white, gray

against the pink confetti laden

braches

party sky behind

the bride

groom in velvet tux, white tie,

tails. He can sing

any song,

sing it better

sing it louder

breast as puffed

as clouds

singer,

sentry,

servant of the song.

By: Ruth Moose                                                                            

4/2/12