Regarding "Runners"

Mom says that Dad was electrified by this poem and told her that he thought it exemplified the best of her work.

RUNNERS

Two by two, in fellowship 

Backs wet with sweat,

And hair awry above the band

That aids the brow in keeping salty droplet from the eye…

You run along the highway

Dogged, building heart and muscle

To the task.

I ponder as I pass.

You were made to run the world

In search of game to feed yourself

And others.  Your bodies built for strength,

You marked out trails and found

The means to eat and sleep and safely

With another bring to life from seed,

Sons and daughters!

Who gave you such a role?

Where is the path now , as you run?

Oh, brave young men, it’s just begun.

A new world has grown across

This ancient globe.

The trails that told you once

What could be done

With nature’s pattern that unfolds

Within you from your first beginning

Have grown cold.

It is confusion now and clamor.

Information much like lotus leaf

Is touted, but it  leads to grief.

But run, there‘s strength within.

Where truth is hidden, it must  out!

Look in and listen,

For all our human foibles are the same

That history has seen in costume strange

To us; but still, new ways lead back

To old beginnings, where lies the trail

Well watered with the sweat and tears

Of centuries.  You have the feet to trod

The highway that leads back to God.

REFLECTION

Seeing lights lining darkened streets on rainy nights

Gives rise to expectations

Whose roots are lost in long ago homecomings.

Memories are blurred

As windshields swept by rain

Still stir the heart

With a childlike hope

That we will soon be there.

11/07/00

LATE SUMMER

There is still the scent of Aster

Clinging softly to my fingers,

Recalling to my mind, the morning walk

That brought me home

With flowers in my hand.

Stepping out into the big wide world

This week marked an important step.  Gerry submitted "Tis in the Blood" for consideration to Poetry Magazine.  We are hopeful that they will see it as essential to publish.  Some response should be back about mid-December.   Isn't that cool!

Tis in the Blood

Tis  in the blood, you know,

Seamen they were, long ago,

And built the ships that bore the sails,

Sent them down the ways

And when they tied them by the rope,

Around the capstan  went they  many times,

To hold that hull……

Around I pull, with muscle fed by DNA

(Tis in the blood they say)

And  pulling, stretch the  hose,

The bloody  hose laid out in sun

And left  to catch  a heel among the leaves;

Oh, must reel it in, not mind the wind,

Heave ho, it comes around again,

And laugh I, thinking of those men

Who worked on ships, and I on land.

Tis in the blood you understand.

GBP  10/17/07     (inspiration in a garden hose)

The One Page Short Story

It was cold and a little windy, but the temperature had moderated since Sunday.  Lottie was delighted to find the rubber ice on the puddles as she made her way home from school.   It promised to be dark soon, but it was delicious fun to traverse the puddles hearing the squeak of the rubbery ice and seeing the water moving beneath it.  The ice would give and never crack like the sheet ice on the puddles in the cold mornings.

She felt quite alone in the late afternoon light.  It was oddly pleasant to be so by herself.  She knew it was partly in anticipation of her mother's greeting, knowing she was close to home that added to her pleasure.   The stress of the school day had evaporated in the fresh air when the bell rang,  the doors opened,  and she and her schoolmates spilled out into the smoky afternoon.

She wasn't one to go play at a friend's house.  She was likely to aim for home like a bird coming back to its nest.  Home was warm and safe- though she  carried her fears with her even there.  Fear of the dark,   but not fear of the cold.  She loved the cold on her cheeks.  Even if her hands were cold,  it was a thing to be put up with- not a thing to be regretted.   

When she was smaller, it wasn't the cold that made her beg to come inside.  Her mother patiently bundled and booted the small figure,  hatted and mittened her and then sent her outside to play in the beautiful snow.  But she immediately cried to come in,  not because of the temperature but because of the dog.  The big police dog who bounded down the alley from the house next door was her nemesis then.

In later years she slept out on the screen porch long after her siblings had left for the warm beds upstairs and she never gave up until she awaked with snow on her blankets.   Then she moved in reluctantly.

She was dozing again, she knew.  The television chatter was interrupting her mother's voice welcoming her in the back door.  It washed out the sight of the afternoon snow and powdered trees,  and the rubber ice dissolved into the green carpeting beneath her slippered feet.

("I think I indicated that I'm fond of it myself--it is based on my own walk home from school on winter days--except for the ending, it is autobiographical--several years ago (can't remember how many) some magazine--maybe Good Housekeeping (strangely enough) featured one page short stories." )

A Philosophical Reflection

History is the nagging hand of the past
pulling at the sleeve of our reality
To keep us in perspective
And remove the common notion
We are gods.

AT NISQUALLY WILDLIFE REFUGE (1988)

TO THE NORTH AND EAST A HIGH PEAK STANDS

WHOSE FLANKS ARE BLANKETED IN ICE,

AND WHOSE MEADOWS, OFFERED MOMENTARY SUMMERS

BLOOM BENEATH A SKY THE EARTH THERE TRIES TO REACH.

BENIGN SUN DOES NOT PREVAIL FOR LONG,

AND SO A LITTLE TRICKLET SLIPS AWAY

AND SLIPS AWAY ANOTHER,

UNTIL ALL TOGETHER TUMBLING DOWN

THEY FORM A HURRYING CASCADE;

DOWN THROUGH VALLEYS RUSHING, GROWING

INTO A RIVER THERE COMES RUNNING

A KISS FROM THE MOUNTAIN

DEPOSITED WITH LOVE

UPON THE SOUND.

GERALDINE BYRNE PORTER

(Good Saturday afternoon...Here is another poem, not written elsewhere  except on a scrap of   paper, and had it not been saved by Dave, could have disappeared.  Here goes before I lose it again.   8/28/09)

Beatrice

Her whiskers are wider by far than her face,

Antenna, I guess,  to measure her space.

Her tail is as long as her body it seems, 

And can fly up like a flag,

Or wrap round her for dreams .

Her almond eyes gaze into mine

Serene in her sense

That together  we’re fine

2009

Day on the Deck

I thought someone was humming,

A plaintive sort of tune,

And briefly wondered, who?

The voice  seemed strong

And carried through  green leaves,

And fir and pine surrounding

My retreat.

Subsequent, my curious ear

Recognized what I did hear.

Twas tire -whine  on dampened  street

Where those who hurry, rush by

Impelled by feet attached to levers

Reaching engines using fuel to turn their wheels.

How kind, if life would let them sing a tune along the way

And bless the  air with music and

Relax with me some day.

    

Geraldine Byrne                                                 

DAYCARE

Everything is lit by fluorescent light

Which seems quite bright,

And you can see the outdoors

On the windowed side

Where glass doors slide.

Playground (fenced)

Calls cheerfully enough

And teachers’ smiles

Are warm to doubting hearts.

They reassure the fears 

Of those whose ears hear mother’s feet retreat.

So why worry, grandmother,

That it is not the same as you remember?

Shining  morning hours with little ones

Whose every  breath and want you knew,

Watched grow and bloom….

Ah, grandmother  

Are you so old, so soon?

COAST RANGE (Written at Yachats)

Conversation ripples
Down the hall,
rushing here, bubbling there
Like coastal mountain streams.
I chance to hear musical
Names like Alsea, Tillamook,Shasta, Rogue.
Somewhere in the misty hills
The firs brush the wind along
Singing a sighing song,
Yakona, Sixes.Twenty miles by ninety long.
This part's for you said Boston men.
(The first 100 years, Lincoln County.
Little log church by the sea.)
Like restive children
They were gathered in
And taught to farm,
To live in houses, and
Their children sent to school,
Were on the way to being "civilized".
But we're here now,
Walking down the hall
Saying where we're from
Or where we've been
And on Portland's crowded streets
Far from the sea and the forest
Walk strangers named only Indians.

On Reading the Book Beth Gave Me

9/01/08

What great gifts have been to me
Given.
What love abounds, what part of
Heaven
Has been bestowed by Grace and
Care
Upon my soul, God’s love
To share
From others, surely, God’s good
Friends
Bestow on me, and for my
Lack
Make amends and hasten me
Back.
Amen.

Though more than a writer...

This blog has been created for Geraldine Byrne Porter, woman, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, writer, poet, pageant producer, world traveler. Mostly the purpose of the blog is to allow her to share some of her work.