Sunday, April 12, 2015

What Are You Laureate of Today?

Today’s prompt was to be Poet Laureate of something – a place, a species, a time of day. I chose to be the voice of Bartholomew’s Cobble, a nearby natural landmark, to become the advocate for the trees, the river, the small inhabitants of hedge and meadow so one would know about it’s small miracles and hidden mercies.



In a small eastern town
at a bend in the river,
a curve in the road,
a sign marks the site of
a natural wonder
where, for a nominal fee,
anyone can wander through meadows
and old growth forest,
see ancient rocks cobbled together,
towering monoliths that overlook
a winding flow of duck-speckled water.

Where, in winter’s deep snow
one can track the demise of
some small tunneling creature
at the claws of a silent owl
or the jaws of a hungry fox
while the Hunter’s Moon
watches with indifference.
Or where, in spring,
one can hear the Bobolink call
from the barberry hedge,

where, in summer even the crickets exclaim over the
sweet, soft smell of the meadow grasses
and the way the sun leans against
the trunk of the sycamore and where,
in autumn, leaves are sky bound things,
strangers to the earth
as the wind loosens their moorings
and sends them sailing, lilting
through the air
to rest on grass and hedge,
brook and rill,
road and path.
There they stay
looking up at the sky

until winter closes their eyes.