Tag Archives: Poem

August Rain

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The year has turned
to the round month,
the orange one,

month of steam and droning bees,
time when we first remember
the end is tumbling near.

Green and yellow hang in the air
and we bask in the sun’s fullness
like sweet, plump raisins

curving toward a scarcer heat,
the crust of summer
sun-buttered and baked to a crisp sheen.

Some mornings, mist hangs so heavy
a solitary heron blends with the water’s edge,
grey

into grey.
This afternoon, thunder strikes a pose,
proves itself rain’s herald

and swallows the sun. Rain pours heavy
along the river. Later, in the opening air,
thick with humidity and a soft

elegance,
leaves drip with relief and a deeper green
moves from the centre of things

to hover at the edge
of the trees’ dark spaces. Silence
moves aside for the first bird.

 

“August Rain” first published in Economies of Gratitude by Ellen Symons. Penumbra Press 2007

~~~

Sadness, I instruct you

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For my dear friend

And now, sadness,
I instruct you
to be still.

Let these bones rest. Marrow
pale and depleted by memory
and forgiveness,
they are weary and cannot stand your shaking.

Let the exhausted heart
encased in this bombarded cage beneath my skin

jarred by your gnashing and clamouring

float in the buoyancy of you forgetting

for a moment

to squeeze it dry.

Do not bewilder
me with your wailing.

Now I tell you:
Let me be.

~~~

Five Reasons to Love the Long Nights of Winter

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This poem is one I wrote maybe a decade ago, but it still expresses something important to me about the beauty, peace, and comfort of this time of year.

Ellen Symons

After a bright afternoon’s quickening light
To be cradled by dusk,
Its slowly sit-down darkening

To contemplate the softening outline of the old cat
Curled warm on your grey-trousered lap

To watch the women and men with briefcases and backpacks
Walk from the bus toward darkened houses

To see a glow appear here or there and know
The tired homecomings have begun

To unravel the mysteries of your heart
That can only be glimpsed when the busy sun
Pulls up its thick shadows
And the arms of the evening encompass all

____________________

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Ark

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All night the wind filled with snow howls against our walls.
What happens to the animals,
or people still outside
I do not know.

Small ship on a vast ocean our house sails alone through the gale.
Carries us fretting to the borders of morning,
the furnace and the radio
land ahoy.

~~~

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Small offerings

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The night’s small offerings to the road
are easy to lift: wrapped in a leaf
or carried on a bier of two stout twigs
an empty drink cup in the ditch will do
if a scoop is needed

Their still, often neat bodies
of feathers and beaks
of claws and fur
tiny red stick legs and translucent wings
or simple uncoiled lengths
finally agree
to settle
deep into the long grass
and wait for the seasons.

But some
if I come too late
cannot be pried from the asphalt
black as a clean slate
they are too small
the load that felled them
too exact:
these, after a few soft words, I leave
their diminishing flesh and precise skeletons
recording history

~~~

The fabric of the world

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in the hammock
in the shade
in the clearing
in the woods

with me
a small mosquito, two birds nearby
a shushing wind

the bleats of sheep
car on the road
woodpecker knocking:
rooster crows

30 feet above my head
four maples meet and swing their greens
in a blue sky the sun shines through,
a dappled pattern on my knees

the buzz of bees
the smell of hay
in the hammock
in the shade

the fabric of the world
envelops us
in the clearing
in the woods

~~~