Category: Poems

Posted on

N is for North: a poem

On Spring, North of 60

The seeking rays of the sun, golden in the perfect clearness of the returning morning light have found the hippy-heart crystals in my window and are casting rainbows of colour onto my walls and kitchen floor, causing the cat to dance madly from spark to spark of sapphire, emerald, ruby, tangerine and turquoise…

Bohemian Waxwings, those chirruping, silky, summer-time fly catchers, winter-time fruit-eaters, flit in undulating flocks from blue-red mayday to orange-red mountain ash and back again, solely to brighten my afternoon with their soft, mysterious calls.

When daylight finally agrees to stay for supper and when the evening meal is done we will toast ourselves cherry-red by the fire and admire the stars shining valiantly through the rippling green fingers of the Northern Lights.

Let us go to bed and browse the seed catalogues.
Winter begins in spring.

~Nita Collins, September 2014

 NI’m participating in the Blogging From A-Z challenge.  One blog post for each letter of the alphabet, each day of April (except Sunday). 

Posted on

Dear Maya Angelou

Dear Madame Angelou,
I was so sad to hear of your passing this morning. Perhaps your physical presence has moved on, but your influence will be with me forever. The words of your poem, Phenomenal Woman, influence who I am every time I read them. Thank you for teaching me how powerful I can be if I allow it. You showed me that my power resides in the arch of my back, the sun of my smile, the ride of my breasts, and the grace of my style. Thank you for mentoring my generation.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Maya Angelou

20140528-083608-30968414.jpg

Posted on

Sunday Morning Sunshine

The sun has come out after a showery
Sunday morning
and I have taken my handwork
onto
the deck.

blog 6The air smells of wet wood,
soil
and lake
water.

blog 4

Quiet and still, I hear a gull calling in the distance.

The campers in the campground next door
have not yet emerged
from their tents
and their travel
trailers,
and I savour the moments
of stillness
before their children
re-discover the chill of the water
and dogs
begin the business
of chasing squirrels from the trees.

blog 2

Across the lake, a lone fisherman
drifts,
and I can hear the faint tick-tick-ticking
of his
reel.

blog5

I sit in the hot sun
until I begin to feel the trickle
of sweat
behind my knee
and behind my neck,
under mblog 1y hair.

Eventually
the quilt becomes
too hot
to hold on my lap.

I put stitching daisies
and feathers
aside
until the cool of the evening
entices
me to return
to it
once
again.

blog 3

Posted on

Just Write {5} – Michael’s first bike

You got your first bike when you were four because you had started throwing tantrums and daddy said no way we’re not rewarding bad behaviour but I said he needs his freedom from the daycare kids in the back yard, he is getting older he needs to be allowed to do more, trusted to be a big boy, he is asking us to help him grow up,  and so we went to town and you picked out a purple bike with handle bars that came up to daddy’s knee and white training wheels and plastic streamers in the hand grips and we put clickers in the spokes and a helmet on your head and you were allowed to ride from our house to three houses down and back again. You stopped throwing tantrums, and a year later daddy took the training wheels off and ran behind you, back and forth up and down, one hand on the back of the seat, on your back, on your helmet, hovering, hovering, until you looked back and saw him running beside you, look, look, no hands!

This is my 5th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. I am linking up with The Extraordinary Ordinary. (Please see the details here.)
Posted on

Some things bear repeating…

I posted this back in March. Seems appropriate to re-post today. Hope it gives you a bit of a laugh…

It seems this year I do not know
if the snow will ever go.
In March April it sits here like a brick
(not a brick like “you’re a brick, Dick”),
I mean a brick like bricks and mortar,
the kind used in the Latin Quarter.

Winter hard and cold and cruel
will last until the end of school,
and instead of flying kites,
all the kids will get frostbite.
No more soccer, bikes or bats,
for them it’s mittens, scarves and hats.

Cry and wail and weep away,
it’s in the snow you’re forced to play.
Sleds and skates and hockey pucks,
if you don’t like it, then you’re (ahem) out of luck.
For no matter how you plea,
summer’s just not meant to be.