29 November 2021

Sonnet for a friend in a ground-floor apartment on a peninsula in the path of an “Atmospheric River”



May your bed float and your ceilings be high.

May you prepare to teach how you vacate

terror, how you lend your spirit to vast

stormy skies, and how your love lends water

the power to lift cows and other life

up to hills where grass and grain awaits them.


How do you find words for your prayers? I think

you ask familiar elements what they

need to calm down; I imagine they know

you listen.  They want you to translate their

terms so others will hear.  You already

shout out our demons. What else can you do?


Feel our breaths spread the power of your poems.

Know your brief lines carry more light than tomes.



 

for earthweal weekly challenge: DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE

6 comments:

  1. Susan, I am smiling so wide! This has to be my all-time favourite of your poems, and it means the world to me. I love every line, more than you can imagine. I hope my lines do carry some light, though it is harder to remember that during such times. I love the idea of speaking to the elements. Trouble is, I know what they need - the emissions lowered, and the news is full of how to keep pushing the pipeline through. Gah. Your poem made my day. Thank you so much for writing it and linking it at earthweal.

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  2. Oh yes..every word...the spirit, the voice, the unity with all things nature... Sherry takes on more than her fair share and we owe her for that.

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  3. So beautifully moving your well-wishes for a friend, and for the planet.

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  4. So all that spiritual education and celebration has a purpose! I thought so. And who else to sing the story of this current inundation, that we may listen and leverage that music into our poems. Amen and good to see you at earthweal, Susan.

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  5. a wonderful affirmative hand held out with your words

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  6. It's good to be back, everyone. For a while there I wasn't showing up for myself. Thank you all, and especially Brendan and Sherry, for Earthweal.

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