
photo provided by freedigitalphortos.net
By far, autumn is my favorite time of year. Here, in the Northeast, it sings. Below are three short poems inspired by all that surrounds me.
First of Autumn
A crimson leaf
that’s bound to a brook
creeping with the last
blood of summer warmth.
Its stem scratches
the air – a pencil to paper.
Night descends, hazing trees.
More leaves spot the water.
A season’s elegy will
be written by dawn.
Night Harvest
thanks to J.H.
Pumpkins lie under
the judgment of cornstalks,
under the inspection
of raccoons scratching
for sweet pulp.
Some people
are like this –
reconciled to the weight
of moonlight,
to the advice of stars
sitting as still as odd shaped
gourds in a withering field.
Napping Beneath an Oak
Above, branches weave like fingers –
hands folded in prayer. My skin has cooled
in this shade. For a moment, I imagine
myself beautiful. This would be the best
time to sleep, become an afternoon’s icon,
but two squirrels begin their games,
leaping limb to limb – autumn wood
scrapes like bone. Day ages, shadows stretch
their roots, and the sun dips her eye beneath
the tree’s stark hem – my skin begins
to warm. I’ll not be worshipped again.
Poets – Stupid, Stupid People
December 20, 2009 by sthomassummers
Really, they’re the laziest, stupidest people I know. They became poets in part because they were demoted to that job, right? You should never tell your students to write what they know because, of course, they know nothing: they’re poets! If they knew something, they’d be in that disciple actually doing it: they’d be in history or physics or math or business or whatever it is where they could excel
Of course, this troubled me. I consider myself a fairly intelligent bloke. My business card says I’m a professor of English at a local college – I must be intelligent. I know what an antecedent is. I can quote Shakespeare. I evecan even employ metonymy. I must be intelligent. I’m a poet!! However, I pondered why I explore literature, why I write poetry. Answer – I’m searching. I’m striving to uncover what I don’t know about the world, what I don’t know about myself. The seeds of my poetry are questions. The poems are attempts to answer questions.
So, I’m stupid. Gotta problem with that?
A link to the passage posted above is provided here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/12/poets-really-theyre-the-laziest-stupidest-people-i-know/
Posted in A Poet's Life, Commentary | 3 Comments »