We Early Pilgrims

from Balancing Act, quilted by Jan Soules

River City Quilt Show, Scottish Rite Temple, Nov. 18-20

—Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

WE KEEP ON

We keep on
believing in the Word
circling the spirit
of the early Pilgrims
as I drove from Falmouth
to visit Plymouth Rock
this morning
down country roads
of cranberry patches
late flowers and bogs
visiting farmer friends
along the highway
with their pumpkin breads
as everything lives
and wakens spots of sunshine
as a Beat poet 's jazz voice
open with my eyelids
no longer drowsing
in morning's early hours
from a northeast sea wind
lifting my astonished eyes
between a row
of singing sparrow hedges
in my own upturned intensity
as a red blackbird wing rises
to my riffs by frenzied light.

 Striking a Pose by Cathy Brorby

A MONDRIAN

Mondrian has splashed
in an unforeseen orange
and lemon color
with a wash and sponge
in a landscaped hand
with neon butterflies
fused in a luminous voice
from an organized mind
in touch with a choice nature
with some splashing
from wings
in a former Dutch painter.

 Window Seat by Laurel Anderson
 

TIME
(for Hart Crane)

Time for a poet
to emerge
from the language conduit
in a veiled shore
from a language without limits
informing the sea's mirror
we are ready on Cape Cod
among broad-leaved vapors
still surfacing at the edge
for our anthology pod
into a faint corridor voice
gracing an echo floating
off the circular Encantadas
with an underground choice
of knowledge to fulfill
in Melville's logs
flowing and flowering
over Florida bogs rising
those towers of God.

 Spiral Gakeaxus by Heidi Steger, Quilt by Deborah Dolce
 

PUT ON

Put on
by this world
system
with its cold faces
by my mirror
in the hallway
as I put on
my butterfly tie
and German heavy metal
set aside
as I'm out the door
yet feeling unusually astute
as my mind races
before today's poetry slam,
wishing always
to be mute in the sun
overwhelmed by
a Beat's mutual slam
away from personal
and mortal self-destruction
with parental expectations
in today's present company
higher than the azure sky
in my mental daydreams
like the bard William Blake
together with the great "I Am"
and the Danish philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard,
yet it seems I am secretly
expecting to be a star
in great measure
of perpetual motion
on the movie set's big studio
of my Cousin Sonny,
a great publicity director,
taking easy walks
by the Pacific Ocean
with actors in the arts
not forgotten
or verboten
vouching for me
on family couches
with stage managers
and a coach set to
watch me
on the hot seat
in my teenage years
with my actor's parts
in my hands
as I'm sledding
down the snowy hills
away from the badlands
to get to an audition
in Hamlet.

 Staycation on the Nile by Elyse Marinos

MORE THAN WE REALIZE
(for Margaret Atwood)

You walk by strange hills
across the woods and lake
in a wide space
not abandoned
by the thrill of words
of what survivors expect
in a language
of a metamorphosis
knowing Margaret Atwood
was a part of this.

 QJ Sitting in a Tree by Jan Millner 
 

ALLEN TATE'S WORLD

Deserted by printed moments
by the dawn
flirting by shadowy winds
in an early homecoming
as spring sparrows
and small birds
who headed south
in the Fall
by riverbeds
Tate repented by mouth
with love of language
on a world for words
as someone has represented
that transform our earth
admitting the dawn sky.

 Out of Africa by Jan Soules and Gail Parrish

WHITMAN'S DREAM

In greensward blades
cutting out
what our grey skies admit
facing Civil War's casualties
amid horsefly fields
of lost humanity's shields
over Achilles' heels
time restores the wounded
under soldier's knees
from our dead brothers
all Union in the rain
in Whitman's dream
from Lincoln's Brigade
in a future free Spain,
Walt's eyes permit us
the forbidden faults
of hidden hatred
behind the defenses
to bare it in riddled bodies
in vaults of a poet's grit.

 Our Lady of the Way by Jan Millner

WHEN APPLES FALL

When apples fall
from the trees
now with luminous leaves
in crimson arrangements
my mind goes back
to many harvest of sheaves
where Walt Whitman rests
near the big muddy river bed
finds a penny and a diary
as he notices
a red-winged blackbird
on the fir branches
in the forest backwoods
visiting his many brothers
fresh-faced yet injured
in whom America believes
by the Civil War sounds
scattered over our landscape
watching letters delivered
from the railroad underground
as he exhibits good will
to shape our poetic colors
on an Autumn's first light
singing tunes
in the grey dawn chill
with the sun reflected here
in words of earthy love
expressed in thrilling passages
to another body.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

 —Anonymous Photo

_________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch and Michelle Kunert for today’s fine poetry and pix, helping us celebrate Thanksgiving Day from coast to coast!
 

Celebrate poetry!

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