2024 NaPM 16 April

[RiverNotch]

Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month.

Describe maturity.

[Mark A Becker]

grandmother tree

It is not a lovely tree.
It stands alone along the creek
amid the many trunks

of trees that have fallen.
Most of its lower limbs
are dried and brittle.

A large gash near its midsection
suggests a lightning strike.
It does not tower majestically

yet bends from leaning
against storms and crippling winds.
Still, in its upper branches

it houses a nest of squirrels
and produces meager offerings
of acorns to sustain them.

How much longer
can it provide such grace?
As long as it takes.

[TranquillityBase]

It was a mile to get to the pond
following the white rock lake shore
then tracing it around, 
to the beginning of the first slough.

A few hundred yards above 
through rocky fields of wildflowers
an old oak stood over a pond fed by a spring.

A rattlesnake lay beside the pond
next to the small waterfall.
We studied each other,
he with what serpent wisdom
I can only guess at,
and did not move.
I maintained the certainty 
we were not enemies.
And so we sat until I felt
I’d exhausted my welcome
and moved away.

I never met him again,
though the pond was a weekly visit.

By now, his land is destroyed,
his future generations, stamped out.

But something in that meeting
has held my attention
for half a century.

[Quixilated]

It is cutting Neverland out of your heart
because you kept tripping over mermaids
on the way to the dentist.

It is amputating your imagination
because the dishes piled up
while you were out chasing dragons.

It is a living death of obligations met
and conversations that taste like dust
while fairyland’s door grows daily smaller.

It’s easy to never grow up
unless you like to eat
and warm places to sleep.

[dukealien]

Rise and Shine


Maturity, you see,
is not being Phaeton.
Get up every morning,
harness the horses
and drive them
not too fast or slow
neither high nor low
ignoring clouds and sleet
wind, thunder, and rough air
like a semi-driver
but with that hard fusion burn
to keep always in check
never more angry
than this world can stand
or coldly unengaged
despite every temptation
to just stay home and let
Earth freeze and die.

Sunstroke madness
is for others. I’m Apollo
father of doctors
slayer of dragons
who still gets in the chariot
every dam’ day
and drives.

[RiverNotch]

"Maybe" is a habit you have yet to fully doff
when you turn 18, at which point there's another

that must be your answer---"Yes" to friends, to love, to life---
hence why people often judge what follows as mature---

to your fledglings' foolishness, or else to all the world
or, for their sakes, to comfort or salvation, "No"---

but that's only the final step.
Ascetic masters say, with every breath,

one prayer or another,
while the saints among them relish silence.

[Mark A Becker]

amputating your imagination

Great phrase Quix!

[busker]

1713215875[/url]']
It was a mile to get to the pond
following the white rock lake shore
then tracing it around, 
to the beginning of the first slough.

A few hundred yards above 
through rocky fields of wildflowers
an old oak stood over a pond fed by a spring.

A rattlesnake lay beside the pond
next to the small waterfall.
We studied each other,
he with what serpent wisdom
I can only guess at,
and did not move.
I maintained the certainty 
we were not enemies.
And so we sat until I felt
I’d exhausted my welcome
and moved away.

I never met him again,
though the pond was a weekly visit.

By now, his land is destroyed,
his future generations, stamped out.

But something in that meeting
has held my attention
for half a century.

Shades of DH Lawrence

---

Rise and Shine


Maturity, you see,
is not being Phaeton.
Get up every morning,
harness the horses
and drive them
not too fast or slow
neither high nor low
ignoring clouds and sleet
wind, thunder, and rough air
like a semi-driver
but with that hard fusion burn
to keep always in check
never more angry
than this world can stand
or coldly unengaged
despite every temptation
to just stay home and let
Earth freeze and die.

Sunstroke madness
is for others. I’m Apollo
father of doctors
slayer of dragons
who still gets in the chariot
every dam’ day
and drives.

A fine one

[Wjames]

Making the bed immediately after rising
from long sleep

octagons swirl fragments of dreams
through window shade.