WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

June 6, 2005

june 6, the last spring,first summer day this year[an old poem]

the river has stopped rising
   trees are in it up to their hips
         there are no islands anywhere
            only birch and aspen swaying
                  in water    their hair    a shimmer

of green and yellow light    I sit on the porch
   my hair    gathers seeds    white fluff
         pods    fine yellow pollen    a dark butterfly
            passes by in the wind another shimmering light-
                  catching thing    starlings whistle    sky

story-book sky all blue with sweet white
   clouds    sun lays its buttery hand across
         clover    columbine    tulips    smooth river
            stones in the garden    this small poem is
                  for mariah    on this    her eighteenth birthday

Mariah is 27 today.

Poems

One response to “june 6, the last spring,first summer day this year[an old poem]”

Kate S.

June 7, 2005 at 9:46 am

I loved that part about the dark butterfly passing by, another shimmering light-catching thing…
We have snow — aspen seeds, snowing down in profusion, from a complete invasion of the little “miner” larvae, graffiti artists, scratching trails across and back, zig-zagging the leaves in silver ink that says, “I was here.”
According to the newspaper, the infiltration is so profuse, that all the aspens in the entire Interior have been affected, hillsides shimmering in silver displays, not quite gaudy yet, subdued in stately elegance, like trim on the queen’s new hat. In response, the trees say: “I am stressed. I will now snow down my seed, wrapped in protective, aerodynamic fluff, to be carried on the wind, my legacy in case I die.”
It’s so bad, we could not cast out nor reel in our lines properly, the cotton-like balls covering every surface, blanketing the lake, grabbing on to any surface, hundreds wound up wrapped around our spools, looking like balls of yarn made of cashmere.

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Artificial Intelligence

I do not use AI to write. I believe writing is thinking, and I prefer to do my own. If/when I post anything here that I suspect or know to be AI generated, I will tell you.

Poems

Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.

In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.

It is likely to be — it is best if it is — a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.

A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think — but it is not necessarily biographical.

june 6, the last spring,first summer day this year[an old poem]

One response to “june 6, the last spring,first summer day this year[an old poem]”

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