May We Have a Word?

We offer our thanks to all who participated in our National Poetry Month celebration this year!

Some participated by putting a word in the window. Thanks to McKinney Realty, Chippewa Valley Bank, the UCC Church, The Velo Cafe, Redbery Books, Whispering Pines Gift and Gallery, The (new!) Sweet Exchange, Cable Lumber, The Cable Cafe…and, of course, the Forest Lodge Library and please accept my apologies if I missed anyone. Thanks, also to residents that put a word in the window: Trudi Rebsamen, Carla Peterson, Katie Hancock, Brook and Eric Jaeger, Kristine Lendved and Mary Love. (who may or may not have intended it as part of the Poetry Challenge)

We also celebrate those who celebrated poetry by writing one, using words collected from the windows. We’ll share them, below. We have three submissions from Donna Post, and one each from Nancy Douglas, Katie Hancock, Mary Hancock, Jennie Hancock, Diana Randolph and Claire Parker. Director Kristine Lendved even came up with a poem, and, if we were going to give her a prize it would be for using the most words in windows! Top marks go to Mary Hancock in the adult category and Claire Parker in the juvenile category, but, there will be prizes for everyone. Except Kristine! Well, she prizes having had the opportunity to create this contest and to enjoy the enthusiastic participation and outstanding results.

Here are the poems! Underlined or bolded words are those “collected” from around town. Participants were asked to include at least three collected words in their poem.

Mary Hancock

Be kind to yourself

You were made to adapt

To plant your feet firmly

And tilt towards the sunshine

 

Be kind to your mind

For underneath its tireless barking

Lays quiet contemplation

The root of your inevitable growth

 

But if you are growing,

Do your roots set your limits?

Or do they start your journey?

Wait for them to carry you

 

But if you are carried,

Can you burst through confines of isolation?

And can you listen to your sanguine, nomadic spirit?

Perhaps your feet were never planted

 

Be kind to yourself

For you are still free

 

FOREST by Claire Parker

Listen to the birds sing

Isn’t that a sweet thing?

Listen to the bees hum

What a perfect thing

Feel the bark, its rough skin

Is a beautiful thing.

Adapt to the fresh air

Instead of the city stink

Take a hike   it is fun

And it is exercise

Smell the pine

Feel the warm sun

Smell the strawberries and tastes them too, yum

Feel the prickle of the pine

Feel the itch of the mosquito

See the deer bound through the woods

Smell the sweet smell of the apple blossom

Listen to the pitter patter of the rain.

Three from Donna Post

1:

Bark in  Kind

As we adapt

Not positive?

Cool beans!

2:

What rhymes with agape‘

It has to be floppy,

my mouth is a gape

so I will use tape

as my mask is too floppy

I don’t want to look sloppy

sorry sorry.

3:

In my sanguine solitude

I listen, I listen,

I listen for the positive, I listen for the kind

So easy here in Cable

It rests smoothly on my mind.

 

In my sanguine solitude

I listen, I listen,

I listen for the positive

And I listen to my town

It’s easy here in Cable

Where truly love abounds

 

In my sanguine solitude

Adapting to new norms

I love my town of Cable

While overcoming covid storms.

Nancy Douglas

Hark, hark, we dogs do bark,

Positive all strangers in masks

Are not cool human beans.

We shall not adapt, we shall bark!

Katie Hancock

Went for a walk around town today

A sign in the window read Closed until May

We’ll adapt in sunshine and solitude.

We’ll listen and we’ll bark with gratitude.

We’ll plant a “seed” to start at “home”

Called two friends from across the street,

With words in quotes, for an end to my poem.

MAY by Jennie Hancock

As we adapt from colder to warmer weather

Plants emerging new and green

Rays of warm sunshine filling the days

While the nights are filled with the chorus of spring peepers

We know that the promise of summer is not too far away

Awaiting Their Arrival by Diana Randolph

In the solitude of late April

trying to adapt during the pandemic

I listen to a regular guest on WOJB-FM–

an activist and avid bird watcher.

He’s usually glum and serious

but he ripples with excitement

reporting that rose-breasted grosbeaks

have just arrived in his backyard

in Southern Wisconsin.

 

I’ve been hoping they’d have a safe journey

from their winter grounds so far away–

the West Indies, Mexico, or perhaps

all the way south from Peru–

what a mystery!

 

Thrilled to know they’re heading north.

Last year– a brown brown-streaked female arrived May 7,

followed by three vivid males the next day.

Then more flew in, staying all spring and summer.

 

I’m awaiting their arrival

with bird baths and feeders filled.

Anticipating my joy

when the rose-breasted grosbeaks

bring their vivid, tropical colors

and parrot-like beaks

swooping down to our backyard.

My Pandemic Poetry Month Poem by Kristine Lendved

In my solitude

I wine, adapt.

I bark

Or perhaps that is the dog.

 

I listen

Sometimes despair

But hope

For all the world

And all its people

That a new consciousness will be born

Or an old consciousness reborn

 

I am positive that this must be

Agape

A love so wide

It flows across all the oceans

Sanguine in belief that joy

Will be understood as kindness

As laughter

A determination that all shall thrive

 

Thank you

All

Who wait at home

Who mask

Who dream of a new day

When we may, cool beans

Return to each others’ company

In health and not in sickness.

 

Peace.