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Category: poetry

April 12, 2020

April 12, 2020

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Sunrise through the woods

April 12, 2020

Late winter snow blankets the ground
Vernal pools lie still and frozen
But the sun rises …

Existential dread blankets the globe
Self-isolating households hunker down
But the sun rises …

Doubts claw at the edge of consciousness
What if what we have known what we have been what we have loved
Will never be the same
But the sun rises …

An Easter dawns like no other Easter
Subdued, unravelled, disoriented
No gathered voices raised in alleluias, the shadow of death lingering into morning
But the Son rises …

Tim Ensworth
April 12, 2020

Coronavirus

Coronavirus

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Coronavirus

coronavirus
        invisible ravager of bodies and economies
        ineluctable disrupter of culture and the social fabric
        insidious sower of dread and despair
what you can’t see can hurt you

you and me
        shown to be like by our common vulnerability
        choosing to be like in listening carefully, thinking wisely, acting bravely
        reacting, adapting, embracing life as it is now for hope of what it will be
what you can see can heal you

Roque Island Haiku

Roque Island Haiku

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Encouraged by members of the Deer Isle Writers’ Group, I am trying my hand at writing haiku. Here is a series of ten haiku describing a circumnavigation of Roque Island that my son, Matt, and I did together several summers ago.

Roque Island

Fair day gentle wind
We launch from shore aflutter
A new adventure

Crescent beach tall cliffs
An astonishing vista
Even better shared

Sun on the water
Twin kayaks bob and glisten
Crossing Shorey Cove

Great Head looms starboard
Eight miles of voyage complete
Gratifying day

Sudden wind cold mist
Two miles of open water
Dare we make the crossing?

Dense fog obscures all
Clenching compass in my teeth
I paddle forward

Son in the water
Kayak upended by waves
Grim brume fills my heart

Rushing to rescue
We get him back in his boat
Brief lifting of fog

A glimpse of shoreline
Taking another bearing
We paddle with hope

Kayaks touch the beach
Alighting and approaching
Sharing happy hug

Soul

Soul

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Another poem, written today …

Soul

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul

          what if soul is not contained within me
but me within soul?
          what if soul does not belong to me, “my soul”
but I belong to soul?

          what if I am what I appear to be
animated body: breathing, moving, lifting, eating, thinking, feeling, writing,
swimming, hoping, crying, laughing, reaching, growing, aging, dying, being?
          what if me is not some hidden, ethereal, immaterial , immortal soul
but what you see is what you get is me
          and soul, far from hidden, ethereal, immaterial, immortal
is like me, made of the same substance, made like me or me like soul?
          what if we are made not merely of the soil of the earth
but of the soul of the earth?

          when I look out from the outcropped granite on the southern flank of Blue Hill
          I do not merely see a view that pleases me
I see me,
          the me that is part of something much larger than me
soul
          and I am not merely in a place, but of a place
of this place

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul
          in this moment, in this place, woods, pond, boulder, tree, you, me,
soul
          alike made of the soul of the earth
          in the image of God

Little Splat

Little Splat

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A poem I wrote today …

Little Splat

silent and still and slow,
    very slow
        is this what it is like to die?
silent and still and slow,
    very slow?

I am here for joy
    for the joy of emerald water
        pouring and twisting among grey boulders
        churning over drops and plunging into holes and piling up in frothy mounds
    for the joy of the dance
        pas de deux, me and the river
        lean, glissade, pirouette
    for the joy of comradeship
        eight days and eight of us, two thousand miles of road and sixty miles of stream
        paddling and paddling some more, talking paddling and dreaming paddling
    for the joy of the adventure
        Zoom Flume and First Island, Little Splat and Wonder Falls, Wonder Falls!
        launching boat and body over the lip of eighteen-foot Wonder Falls, exult!

and now,
silent and still and slow,
    very slow

not able to breathe, but able to see
    seeing only the subaqueous darkness
not able to move, but able to feel
    feeling canoe and me stuck, stuck between rocks, between foot pegs and saddle
able to think, but silent and still and slow,
    very slow
no panic, no terror, no dread, no self-pity, no despair, no regret
    only silence and stillness and slowness
and watching, watching myself, watching myself from outside myself
    and wondering, wondering, wondering
        is this what it is like to die?

I try again to move
    and I am out

there will be no dying today
    no second-guessing or rueing or wishing myself somewhere else
because I am here
    because I am here
because I am here for joy!

Timothy Ensworth

 

(In April 1991, I traveled to West Virginia with seven other members of the Maine Appalachian Mountain Club whitewater canoeing group. Along the way, we paddled the Indian and Hudson rivers in New York, and Stony Brook and Dark Shade and Shade Creeks in Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, we ran the Shavers Fork of the Cheat, the Middle Fork of the Tygart and Tygart Gorge, the Upper and Lower Big Sandy River, and the Cheat River. This poem comes from my descent of the Lower Big Sandy and a capsize at Little Splat.)

Dimpled Eye

Dimpled Eye

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dimpled eye

I look into your dimpled eye
        and it draws me
out of myself and into a place
        inscrutable and haunting and full of yearning
but for what?

You’re not like your “brother”
        who Tigger-like is everywhere at once
out there, in your face, ring around the rosie
        here’s my duck! here’s my ball!
wanna play?

You are alpha, first, but not last, in our hearts
        Stonington Bear
named for a most favorite place
        cold water and hard stone
                grey granite ledges clung by spruce and cedar and rugosa
        granite boulders, huge beyond imagining
                tossed and tussled on Little McGlathery’s outer shore
        solitary erratic just there, as if it were always there
                as if it will always be there, heedless of tide or my stare
        Lynne captured a harbor porpoise mid-leap
                frozen in her frame, but glistening, pulsating, wild
        once we paddled in mist, water’s surface quiet and uncanny, like glass
                troubled only by the dip of our blades or the rising of a porpoise
it draws me, draws me out, draws me away … and brings me home

I look into your dimpled eye
        and it draws me
is it wistfulness, resignation, distress, just old-body weariness?
        or do you just want to be loved, without seeming too eager
to draw me, draw me away, draw me in … to you?

A Place to Call Home

A Place to Call Home

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From one of my favorite poets and good friend, David Walters, a poem written while ministering some years ago to a small New England congregation …

A Place to Call Home
In New Hampshire’s Baker River Valley a small country church
Brims with friendly people who savor common sense,
Neighbors ready to laugh or share a garden’s bounty with another,
Surrounded by big churches preaching hell-fire and damnation.
At Sunday services with the gathering of its faithful people,
He arrives early and waits, rain, shine or bitter snow storm,
Finds his favorite spot as he rests in the center aisle,
Like the church he’s brown and a friendlier dog can’t be found!
Greets those arriving as he wags his busy tail,
Dreams peacefully through sermon and liturgy,
Doesn’t mind if you scratch his ears, demands nothing,
Helps visitors or those hurting know they’re invited!
Furry, breathing parable who lives at the bottom of the hill,
Brings us gentle calm, soothing weary bodies and spirits,
He knows he’s loved and loves right back,
We leave assured of a home in heaven’s mansions.

david walters

David shared this poem with the national office of the United Church of Christ in response to a request for stories about local church life and they made a video of his poem! You may view the video here:

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March for Our Lives

March for Our Lives

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A poem I received today from my friend, David Walters …

March for Our Lives

Students lost their childhood! walk with parents and us old codgers,
Won’t wait for official declarations or that lonely bugle’s call,
Side by side they rise up strong celebrating the right to live,
United in country heartlands and busy cities, onward we march!

We remember proud native Americans cut down like tall grass,
Living alongside noisy buffalo roaming free on endless prairie,
Made nearly extinct by long guns and, greed the ammunition,
Oh, how we white newcomers tried killing their hope in a future.

No, it’s not too late! the time is right now!
Refuse to die one by one, school after school,
America, awaken! death’s hands knock at our door,
Ban those damn rifles built for war aimed at our babies.

Gather persons who love children more than their guns,
Leave fear behind, free your heart’s courage, rise up!
Let our brave, precious youth whom we love be the guide,
Will you join the kids as they march for their lives?

david walters ©2018