"The Bard" by Terri Lynn Cummings, Frequent Contributor

The Bard

Terri Lynn Cummings

   

Desk lures fingers

to keys of perception

Urges me to open blinds

invite a row of pear trees

into the room, blossoms

sweetened with renewal

Mary Oliver’s words

… They save me; and daily *

embrace us

with grace and grit

resist wind and ice

from storms

Loyal limbs bend

or break and grow back

reach for the sky and sing

an ode to Nature.

Life swirls in rings

of struggle and survival

seasoned by generations

Enlightened

I am still here

* When I am Among Trees, by Mary Oliver.

Poet’s Notes:  “The Bard” bloomed from a writing exercise in poetry group. My colleague and I had just read “The Poet” in The Lives of the Heart by Jane Hirshfield. We decided to visualize the place where we normally wrote poetry, incorporate poetic devices such as the five senses, choose words and phrases from magazines, and so on. When I thought of the window over my desk, the daily scenes, the onset of fall, this poem sprang from the pen.