Poetry Stretch Results - Love Letters to the World

The challenge this week was to write a poem about the thing(s) you love. Wow! This one seemed to really inspire a lot of folks. Here are the somewhat lengthy results. Enjoy!

Jane Yolen left this poem in the comments.

This Thing I Love in My Yard

I loved that great fir tree,
watched it growing for thirty-eight years.
It kept walkers on School Street
from staring into my bedroom windows
and a resident Downey full of bugs.
Now there is an empty space
where a lightning strike
killed what wind and rain and snow and ice
and three climbing children
had never damaged at all.
But this new space, where the wind blows
red and gold leaves about
like crazed autumn dervishes
is inviting in its own way.
Dear One, it says, make a stone garden here,
a place to sit, read, enjoy the sun,
to contemplate the rambling house
now that husband and children have left it.
Put statues here—an owl perhaps, or a plaque,
slate stones with phrases from poems.
Emily Dickinson might be best:
“A word is dead, when it is said,”
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,”
“I’m nobody, who are you?”
Short, pithy, like the space
now that the tree is gone.
Make a monument, a statement,
make a taradiddle, a fantasy.
You are good at that.
And you have less time to do it,
than the tree that has given you the place.

© 2009 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved

Diane also left a poem in the comments.

Appreciating the Rarae Aves

Winter afternoons...
cold, gray, joyless
until a flash of cardinal
red opens my eyes.

Spring mornings...
chirps, twitters, love
songs of early risers gently
awaken me to possibility.

Summer dusks...
in the dash dart of swallows,
finding proof that every
creature is a piece in the puzzle.

Fall evenings...
far off honks of geese,
reminders that the
trip is all worthwhile.

Shutta Crum left this poem in the comments.

Sea Song

I had a life as simple and full as the sea.
And out of the surf I carried stories—
wet, and unraveling.

I had a man who dove into water
and cradled my heart like a prize.
I had a child with tides to travel,
and another with kelpie eyes.

I had land on a windy cliff,
and a house that danced as it sang.
I had cats and dogs that spoke my tongue,
and a bird that proclaimed my name.

I had a strong hand clasped in mine,
and hallowed work to craft.
I had little hands that followed,
and mysteries that made us laugh.

I had a piece of floating ribbon
plucked from my mother’s hair.
I had a word of wisdom my father
found pooled in a magical year.

I had a friend who died too soon,
and another who died too late.
I had brothers and sisters and strangers,
who waved as they rounded the cape.

I had a place in my own time,
and a joy for the labors I sing.
I had a son, a daughter, and a man,
and hearts to set a-cradling.

So make me a promise will you?
If you should ever speak of me,
remember what I’ve said:
I had a life as simple and full as the sea.

And out of the surf I carried stories—
wet, and unraveling.

Julie Larios of The Drift Record shares a poem entitled A Love Poem To.

Harriet of spynotes left this poem in the comments.

The Things You Love

The things you love are harder to hold
Than the things you don’t.
The things that aren’t bore their way in,
and fix to a place you can’t scratch away
to worry over later.

But the things you love, the things that are,
seep in and out of your very pores,
fill your nostrils and cushion your head:
the sound of a sleeping child,
and the way the light falls on the page of
your favorite book
in your favorite chair.

They are your architecture,
like the house you know so well
you can see it better blindfolded,
like the crease of a lover’s elbow,
the soft damp hollow
in the base of your son’s neck,
like the view from the roof
on the Fourth of July.

They travel with you, the things you love.
You take them when you walk in the woods
in the fall, to smell the leaves underfoot,
and maybe pick an apple
or two.

They soar over your head,
scudding like clouds, which
taunt you with shapes that disappear
when you look at them.

They wrap around you,
Curl you up inside
when you go to sleep at night.

The things you love are your worst sorrow
and your greatest joy at once.
They are your breath, your eyes.
They live in your blood and
just below
your speaking place
before your lips pronounce, “joy.”

Susan Taylor Brown of Susan Writes shares a poem entitled Four-legged Love.

Laura Purdie Salas also left a poem in the comments.

My October Wish List

Please give me
dogs leaning out cars, ears flapping like windy-day laundry
clattery leaves to shuffle through
clear x-rays

And I’d like
the chunk-click of a glossy red stapler
tang of smoky cheddar and bonfires
and a singer’s voice breaking as 8,000 hearts break with it
While you’re at it, may I have
cinnamon tea and mattress warmer
thumbs kneading my back, stony pleasure rippling outward
while winter’s white bees swarm the window

and shorter days to make October moments endless

--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

Kate Coombs of Book Aunt left this poem in the comments.

Greens I Love

The wave's green curl, more temporary
and translucent than a snowflake.
The small crisp face
of a green onion, sliced.
Rough green of my couch,
where I read, looking up
to see green vibrating
outside the glass doors.
The green of my mother's eyes,
faded like a fence
after years of rain.
The green giggle of a meadow
tickled by bees.
The brash green of plastic—
raincoats and sippy cups,
toy monsters, balloons,
pretending to be real.
The show-off greens
of a June tree juggling sunlight.
Frog green stretching
across air like a shout,
then gone
into green water.
The smallest shoot bursting
through a concrete crack
like a skinny kid
karate-chopping six boards.
Green!

Jone of Check It Out shares a poem entitled Early Morning Things I Love.

I stopped and started several times, but couldn't get my childhood home out of mind, so that's what I wrote about.

Still Loved

I miss the clothes line
sheets snapping in the wind
smelling of sunshine and lilacs
though that lilac bush is long gone

I miss the crabapple, mulberry,
weeping willow and white birches
yet it’s the Rockefeller Center-worthy
firs that hold my imagination
My brother once jumped his pony over them
now they tower far above the house

I miss the lily of the valley,
white trilliums, black-eyed Susans,
Queen Anne’s lace, pussy willows,
cattails and silver dollars
flowers of my youth

I miss the wafting scents of manure,
fresh cut grass, spring in bloom,
summer rain, leaves in fall,
fires in winter

I miss the snow,
the blank canvas
wrought by each new storm

I miss the uneven slate floor,
naked baseboards,
drafty hall, narrow stairs
squeaky closet doors,
the wabi sabi of the home
my father built

I miss who we were there

It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.