Spring Ambush

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Faint goose honk at edge of hearing,
soft chinook arch crowns the sky.
Wobbly fawn at edge of clearing,
baby coyotes croon and cry.

Redwing blackbird’s liquid chuckle,
rushing water’s roiling ring.
Crow returns with cocky ruckle,
peeper frogs begin to sing.

Pussywillows, silver glowing,
green haze limns the poplar trees.
Hush, child, listen, grass is growing,
Spring is ambushing the Peace.

#93

note: (I live in northern British Columbia, in an area called the Peace. Spring is a trickster here, sometimes you’re not sure if it’s really here until summer!)

Awakening

lindastudley4 Comments

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to wake up from a coma,
groping for the past, staring into the mirror
only to see a stranger staring back.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to live in a foreign country,
everyone waving hands and talking gibberish
until I speak, and they stare at me, puzzled.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to be a sleepwalker,
restless pacer, blind seeker,
doomed to endlessly retrace a pointless journey.

Then your laughter rushes in to fill the gaps,
you smile in a language we both understand, and
the beating of your heart sings me to sleep.

#92

One Bird’s Trash

lindastudley1 Comment

I found a feather,
bright blue resting lightly on the grass,
a swatch of the sky drifted to earth.
I gathered it up for wonder.

I found a feather,
yellow gold, glowing on the dirt road,
a shard of the sun, a celestial hitchhiker.
This too I gathered.

I found a feather,
iridescent black, lodged in the pansies,
a nail paring of night sky, hiding from the day.
I gathered again.

I wove the feathers into my nest of memory
and never again wondered
why some birds steal tinfoil.

 

#91

Fibonacci Rules

lindastudley6 Comments

I?
I
do
not
think
that form
poetry is a less
valid expression of true
emotion or insight than vers libre poems,
do you? There is a symmetry
to it. Fibonacci
makes our
poems
fit
to
a
t

#89

Fibonacci – the sum of the number of letters in the last two lines equals the number of letters in the next line (I also reversed this). So start with 0 and 1, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5 etc….(1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…)

Seasons of Love

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Our love sings to my heart
in the trickling chuckle of a redwing blackbird
proclaiming the promise of a dawning spring.

Our love clings to my heart
with the sweet scent of lilacs, nodding, langourous
in the still warmth of a summer garden.

Our love plays on my heart
like a phantom melody at the edge of memory,
and the sound of leaves falling.

Our love cradles my heart
as a layer of snow protects the slumbering lilac,
patiently awaiting the seasons of love.

 

#89

Leave Breadcrumbs

lindastudley2 Comments

Never trust an early spring,
a lover who works late,
or directions that end in “you can’t miss it”.
Because you can.

You can miss it so fast that one day you look up
and it’s so gone that you almost
forget you ever had it.

You can miss it so easily that one day you turn around
and it’s so not there that you nearly
doubt it ever was.

You can miss it so deeply that one day you wake up
and it’s so far away that you might
think it was just a dream

Bring a sweater.
Change the locks.
Write your own directions.
Leave breadcrumbs.

 

#86

The Moment in Forever

lindastudley7 Comments

How we used to travel.
We would pack up the equipment and a suitcase
and just drive,
map on my knee,
radio playing a good old song,
your left elbow resting on the edge
of the open window.
You always had a driver’s sunburn
on your left arm.
You wore shades and a hat and
a confident cowboy smile
and time slowed down and
spun around us and if I had to choose
a moment to live in forever it would be
driving deserted prairie roads,
sun beating down,
Hank on the radio,
you at the wheel,
me at the map,
the world spread out before us.

 

#85

Jading the Emerald

lindastudleyLeave a comment

St Patrick’s Day dawns
and I contemplate a stroll down the
ancestral branch to the Irish twig.
(My name used to be Connell, you know).

Not much is known of the paternal lineage,
although in recent days some rumours have started
that the Connell clan sprouted from
a Scots branch, not an Irish one.

Not that I hold any grudges against the Scots,
my most excellent partner hails from that twig,
but I’ve become quite comfortable with my Irish roots,
twined in a Celtic knot around my heart.

I will not drink green beer today,
or wear any article of clothing
emblazoned with an invitation to
“Kiss me I’m Irish”.

Instead I will exhume my tenuous heritage,
hold it up to the light of a newly dawned,
St Patrick’s day morning, and
delight in the emerald refractions as they
play up and down the ancestral branch.
But if I wear green today it will be Canadian jade.

#84