At Four AM- October 99

Venus
Hangs in the morning sky
thrilling the drowsy eye
that lets lingering go of sleep.
Closing lids suspect the dawn
Struggle to open again upon 
That gathered gleam that ends the night.
It's there!
Kindling dreams 
in the clear morning air.

revision of 11-5-2000

August Morning 8-14

The deck is cool today.
The sun seems busy elsewhere.
So coffee is my 
Companion at the table, 
And I leave the door 
A bit ajar to 
Accommodate the cat.

Outside, the breeze is playing
Hide and seek among the leaves
Where squirrels play.
They sometimes seem to say
"You come too!".

a most recent work from the pen of
G.B.P. She's got bits and pieces in the 
hopper, so check back.

A new poem from Mom

A simple addiction

Coffee is such a bad habit.
The color poses as appetizing
Even with cream and sugar for some.
A wake up choice for early morning
Or lagging lunch.
Perhaps dessert will be
the perfect touch
At dinner's end
With brandy added
Or Irish cream.
Somewhere in the world
A small bean grows
And, harvested,
becomes your drug 

Geraldine B Porter
4-6-14

Lemon Meringue

Lemon Meringue

 

               Awakens a memory as bright

 

                   as yellow and white

 

walls, and flowers, and 

flowers on the dresses  

that I wore when I was young.

Delicious is  only a word, until  

it bursts from an oven

 

And comes to rest in remembrance

On my tongue.

 

                                 GBP    612/ll

 

 

 

My Teacher

The sun, just above the  horizon,
Leaves only a pale yellow wash in the evening sky.

An airplane makes a sound that fades away.

I think it is a holy night, that if

I dared, I'd stay to see the darkened sky

Lit with stars, and constellations hidden by the sun in day,

And listen, look and seek the answer

to the sometimes silence of my planet earth.

The dog in the yard below speaks up.

The frogs stop.  A pause. A solitary bark.

The cat has gone to seek out the secrets of the shadows.

And I, lonely for my teacher who no longer shares with me each day,

Feel  his presence, his joy in living, and put my fears away.

GBP

2011

January!

Where had this warm day been wandering 

Under a sky of blue resembling May or June?

 

The sun moves past the chimney

 

And shines through the leafless trees.

 

The deck chair beckons, and a small bird

 

sings repeatedly in the Pine.

 

My busy cat returns, inquiringly seeming to say

 

"Are you just going to sit here?"

 

What to answer?

 

There is no other way except by pen and paper

 

To save this day.

 

GBP  20ll

 

January!

Where had this warm day been wandering?
Above, in a sky of blue resembling May or June
The sun moves past the chimney and
Shines through the leafless trees.
The deck chair beckons, and a small bird
Sings repeatedly in the pine.
My busy cat returns, inquiringlyg seeming to say
"Are you just going to sit there?"
What to answer?
There is no other way except by pen and paper
To save this day.


GBP

Notes on a Napkin at the Bakery.

Near 7:00 AM

The universe is out beyond the whirling world

 

despite the fact we think it here.

Yet this table was once the center of my earth.

 

                      ******

 

Eating an egg-and-bacon bolo breakfast

illustrates the possible origin of the phrase:

"egg on your face".

 

                      *******

Every day's miracle:  God is here,

but He hasn't ordered yet.

 

GBP

After much too long an hiatus....She's back!

"Little Miss Muffet  sat on a tuffet,

eating her curds and whey

Along came the spiders, who wrapped up Miss Muffet

And carried her far away.

This could only happen in Oregon in August of 2010.

 

Please do not read this to little children.

Aunt Maureen when she was much younger, was mortified by Rudyard Kipling (!) when she read "How the Elephant got his trunk"....

She has travelled light ever since--bad pun--just to keep this all in the family......children have tender hearts, or at least they used to before they had games and I pods and movies, and who knows what all electronic devices to demonstrate--oh, I fear to imagine.

Love to all--back to the garden and the house.  Company is coming!!!!!!!!!!!yikes."

Lullaby

All are at peace.

 

They sleep.

 

They neither mourn nor weep

 

Nor vigil keep.

 

If they should dream

 

May it be sweet.

 

The song repeat .

 

Sleep, baby, sleep.

3-10

                                               

January Afternoon

The raggedy tree,

Old Doug Fir,

Standing high above the land

Flings its boughs about

Holding on to earth below it,

Roots spread out with only

surface depth for tenuous purchase,

Is showing us the  history of the winds,

Written by the bare patches

On the long straight pole.

It towers over all the woods about it

And marks the road, and reads the moving air

As those who live below mark the rain,

And wonder when this storm will pass

And spring will come again.

GBP 1/13/10

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)