In the hollow of my hand, a pool is born
of an April downpour, the sudden flood
filling every crevice of pinkish skin,
the lines of life and heart and mind engulfed,
a breeze etching the surface with ripples
that push against shores of padded flesh
around the palm, some overflowing the bank,
others sliding back toward the deep center,
the wrinkles on the bottom of the pool
brightening, as the rain that fell so fast
passes, and sunlight pierces the water
settling at the end of my outstretched arm.
Greetings from Manhattan. To observe the leaves changing on the trees from April to December, is to see, in a vivid way, the pattern of life that governs us all. Here is the poem “Late Autumn at Centerport,” from my 2009 collection, Green Vistas.
Greetings from Manhattan. It is surprising how far you can travel, just by sitting quietly at home in a favorite room, surrounded by familiar objects. Here is the poem, “A Room in New York,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes, Charles Pierre
A Room in New York
As I sit at my desk, the morning sun begins
to fill this room with slow-moving planes
and angles of light. They glitter my windows
with Atlantic waters and whiten the shades
with New England snow, brightening
my blue sofa to a field of wild asters
in Nova Scotia, and my varnished table
to a forest of yellow pines in the Carolinas.
Rays skim the spines of a thousand books,
where peaks of an Alpine mountain range
shimmer on my shelves. When beams reach
my oriental rugs, the colors of Central Asia
shine up at me. As I write, city and wilderness
move in unison with the sun’s slow passage
through this room: each flame-suffused image,
each act of attention to the way light works,
leading outward to a world beyond walls.
Greetings from Manhattan. In almost every town and city of the country, one can see a Civil War monument, usually with a lone soldier in uniform at the top, his rifle by his side. Now, one hundred and fifty years after the end of that war, many of these statues show signs of deterioration from long exposure to the elements. Here, for Memorial Day, is the poem “Statue in the Park,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
Gen. G. K. Warren, Union Army. Standing on Little Round Top at Gettysburg National Park. Official Park photo.
Greetings from Manhattan. At this in-between time of year, when winter slowly becomes spring, nature reveals itself in the starkest of terms. Here is the poem “Hickories,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
Hickory in winter. Flickr.com. Photographer unknown.
Greetings from chilly Manhattan. For those of us stuck in the ice and snow of the Northeast, idyllic days in Florida are, at best, the stuff of warm dreams. Here is “Northern Reverie,” a poem from my 2009 collection, Green Vistas.
Greetings again from Manhattan. The surface of the ocean, as it changes from hour to hour through the day and night, through different seasons and all kinds of weather, can suggest an endless variety of images. Here is my poem, “Library,” from a new collection-in-progress, Circle of Time.
A retired English professor from Ocean Grove shared this poem with us. She partly did it in response to my telling her that a Blogfinger reader complained that our posted poems do not rhyme and could, therefore, not qualify for the designation : “poem.”
About “Forgetfulness” , the professor says that it is one of her favorites. She also sent a link which has an audio file where the poet reads his poem. You should listen to it as you read along. Here is the link:
I have always felt that some of the most profound experiences in life occur before conceptual mind jumps in and muddies the waters, so to speak. This “before-the-mind” experience happens in a flash. The nature of the feeling is almost primordial. There is movement in our being!
Snow is not on my mind on this beautiful beach day in Ocean Grove, but Mary Oliver in her poem “Snowy Night” has succeeded in conveying this feeling so well.
