Wednesday July 13, 2011 River of Stones / We Write Poems

Alphabet Painting Jasper Johns

How to write of this small moment of silence?  In this quiet hour of early morning, I choose to think of the paintings by Jasper Johns.  There is one, I especially love, my life is enriched by it.  It is the alphabet, executed in many tones of gray.  It is silence, itself.  It does not suggest a journey, but a beginning, and in this painting anything is possible.  It is said in the beginning there was the “word” but in the beginning there had to be something to create the words from… Jasper Johns has captured this beginning, before words, the beauty of the forms, and the sounds suggested in silence.

Stone: Before the word, there was form.

Fly Catcher

We Write Poems: Prompt #62 Write a poem in another’s voice

http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/prompt-62-its-post-your-poems-day

Fly Catcher

It is the third year

We have returned

Found the little platform

Built by the man

Built our nest

The first day I got back

I was outside the woman’s studio

At the top of my voice

I chirpped, “I’m back!

I’m home!”

This year has been

A regular soap opera

I lost my wife

Then found another

She left

Mated with another fellow

Then found a wife

That would stay

We had five eggs

Raised four chicks

Intensive study

Prepared them for life

We’ll return again next year

As they say in Texas

“God willing

And the creek don’t rise!”