STELLER TRAFFIC
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
Blue stars of Steller’s jays
dot the redwood deck: pick
and choose among scattered
seeds for fat and flavor: push
each other around while they
ignore the outmatched juncos
who hang on the fringe, waiting…
Steller traffic trumps
everybody else: ageless as
the constellations in their
aggressive push to live, they
twinkle bright eyes at me: dare me
to try to interrupt
the cycle of the stars…
_______________________
Sunday (3/4), 6 PM: All are welcome when the PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento assemble; the invited feature reader is Kathy Kieth. Attendees are also invited to bring a poem to read—your own, or one that you particularly like. Free and open to the public; open mic, light refreshments. We meet in the library/foyer of the UUSS, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sacramento, between Howe & Fulton Avenues, 2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd. Contact: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis at 916-481-3312, or JoAnn Anglin at 916-451-1372.
Free Tigers!
Tomorrow (Wednesday, 2/28) is the next deadline for Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. Google up the Kitty at tigerseyejournal.com and get the details. Co-Editor Colette Jonopulos writes: Will you tell Medusa's friends we are looking for ghazals? They get a free copy of the Tiger if they send us their ghazals to be printed in the blog. Send to: tigerseyetracks@yahoo.com
News from Poets Lane:
Cynthia Bryant, Pleasanton Poet Laureate and doyenne of the online Poets Lane writes: Please spread the word I am still accepting your poems for the Gift of Words-Poems for the Iraqi People project at PoetsLane@comcast.net or you may send it to C/O Pleasanton Poet Laureate, P. O. Box 520, Pleasanton, CA 94566. Please include your full name, area code and phone number along with your e-mail if you have one. (I am receiving poems from all over the country as well as New Zealand, England, Scotland and Africa.) The Challenge: Write a poem for the Iraqi People, something that you want to express to their citizens. Anyone, any age, can write a poem and submit it to be included in The Gift of Words: Poetry for the Iraqi People. The deadline has been extended to May 2007.
Cynthia also suggests that you submit poems to some of her other categories. For example, choose one or more of her March themes (Aries, Daylight Savings Time, Springtime & Limericks) and send your poems to PoetsLane@comcast.net.
Today:
•••Tuesday (2/27), 8:30 PM (but get there early): the alternating-Tuesdays series at Bistro 33, 3rd & F Sts., Davis, presents National Book Award nominee Clarence Major. Free; open mic.
And today, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would've been 200 years old!
from FRAGMENTS
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
December 18, 1847
Soft through the silent air descend the feathery snow-flakes;
White are the distant hills, white are the neighboring fields;
Only the marshes are brown, and the river rolling among them
Weareth the leaden hue seen in the eyes of the blind.
______________________
from IN THE COLISEUM
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All things must have an end; the world itself
Must have an end, as in a dream I saw it.
There came a great hand out of heaven, and touched
The earth, and stopped it in its course. The seas
Leaped, a vast cataract, into the abyss;
The forests and fields slid off, and floated
Like wooded islands in the air. The dead
Were hurled forth from their sepulchres; the living
Were mingled with them, and themselves were dead,—
All being dead; and the fair, shining cities
Dropped out like jewels from a broken crown.
Naught but the course of the great globe remained,
A skeleton of stone. And over it
The wrack of matter drifted like a cloud,
And then recoiled upon itself, and fell
Back on the empty world, that with the weight
Reeled, staggered, righted, and then headlong plunged
Into the darkness, as a ship, when struck
By a great sea, throws off the waves at first
On either side, then settles and goes down
Into the dark abyss, with her dead crew.
________________________
Happy Birthday, Hank!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)