Poems of Thanks and Praise

 Christy Lee Rogers 

Susan Rich

Unexpected Song

Thank-you for sending me back
to the page, the open notebook,

Sarajevo’s unfurled tail
along the table’s edge.

Thank-you for apricot blossoms,
beach rose and blackberry vines;

that allow bright divinations
along the nearly-absent mind.

And hats off to the green
and white ferries over-riding

time-tables, taxes, spring tides;
to the brants’ triumphant choir

casually premiering each April
along the waters of Beach Drive,

above Vashon, Bainbridge, Blake,
like a flyway to the heart.

Outside this raised window
lie early morning charms

traveling the air on blue lilac ~
terrestrial and round:

the notes we are meant to sing
the possibility in each slight thing.

from The Alchemist’s Kitchen (White Pine Press, 2010)
 

Richard Jones

Nocturne

At day’s tired end
when the children
have gone to bed,
Laura lifts the wing
of the grand piano
to its fullest glory,
sits perfectly poised
before the keyboard,
and with delicate fingers
and gentleness of touch,
fills all the house with
music, each note born
of hope, the melody
a serene flowering
so quietly intense,
so lucidly palpable
that one imagines
the children in their beds
holding their breath,
eyes shining in the dark,
and in the stillness
of a shadowed
and lamplit study,
their bookish father
sitting at his old desk,
his face raised, listening.

Maureen E. Doallas

We’re used to giving

everything
thanks —

the river
for receding

after it’s left
behind

the storm;
the wind

for whistling
the signal once,

for all that’s not
so clear;

the yellow jacket
giving warning

of the wasp
before its sting.

We’re used to praising —

the surgeon’s hands,
each robotic move

to cut
what grows

in place
and scars;

the dose,
pinpointed red,

a beam precisely
for the cure,

no evidence left
reclaimed.

We want
in giving

thanks and praise

for what’s not
seen —

the work
below, in ground;

the roots
that channel deep

and hold
what binds

us. What works
long past our fear

feeds what love
must draw from time.

Robert Lee Brewer

i’m learning to listen

to the swirling winds of my awkward life
& not be held prisoner by the sound
of my own voice. every time, a ghost
takes my body. i am your loose cannon.

bless this night that won’t end until the sun
rises. bless this conversation headed
everywhere & nowhere & don’t spare
me one more inch or let this fire burn out.