Monday, July 29, 2013

Meant to Be


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


It only takes a moment
to see the light

as it’s crossing your path,
like quail to the apricot tree.

It only takes a moment—
and fifteen years later you know

it still is.
  


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


Tomorrow my husband and I will be celebrating our 15th Anniversary.  I have been absent from the blogging world for a bit…vacationing where there is not much internet connection and will be absent a bit more for celebrating our Anniversary.  I hope summer is treating you all well!






Saturday, July 20, 2013

Pinwheel






I don’t miss raindrops;
they’ve had their day.

I don’t miss March,
April, or even May;

especially when I see
the sweat

trickling down your back
and hope you

pick me
to throw into your sack.


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


For two prompts.  Margaret Bednar at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads wants us to drip with heat…err summer.  This gorgeous photo is hers.  If you’ve gotta have more go here.  You won’t regret it!  And Peggy Goetz wants us to Feel the Heat in ten lines or less at Poetry Jam.  She’s an excellent photographer as well.  Go here to see more.  Happy summer!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Nightjar


You can hear them,
like little ghosts
haunting the air at night,
though we don’t have
the blue note whippoorwill
in our evergreens.

If you’ve ever hummed a dry, lonesome aria
from your own warbling wind struck throat
you can hear them—
in the hollowed out whisper-choke,
strummed endless in black on wet pillowed nights,
haunted and hidden.

Yes, you can hear them, even here,
always, when you’ve known lonely,
so ink-dark and bled deep to bone.

Or maybe they can hear you.


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner



At dVerse host Tony Maude has invited us to write to any FFA or MTB prompt they’ve offered in the past.  I chose Victoria Slotto's Literary Allusion.  One of my all time favorite short stories is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.  I also love the haunting song Midnight in Montgomery by Alan Jackson.  Each work references the beautifully eerie call of the nightjar bird, the Eastern Whip-poor-will.  I have alluded to each work in my piece.  Happy year 3 dVerse! 

Friday, July 12, 2013

Brandywine


Organic Brandywine Tomato Sprouts



I’m going to buy an orchard
and pick fruit, waving flies away.

I’ll wear a straw hat
and a sleeveless shirt.

I’m going to garden
and bake pies—

thick ones, full of hearty chunks of tart fruit.
And I am going to walk in the evenings,

when it’s still light,
after grilled chicken and sliced tomatoes.

And I’m going to forgive myself
when I remember all the things I never did.


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


 

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Thief


Steller's Jay


plumage
in silver blue,
sooty crest of charcoal
worn like a thief’s mask, and it’s true,
she will
rob the songbirds’ freshly twigged nests
of eggs and chicks when seeds
and ash berries
run low


© 2013 Jennifer Wagner


A butterfly cinquain for Poetry Jam:  A Bird’s Eye View.  I don’t have my own photo of a Steller’s Jay but we see them often around here.  They are beautiful, loud and predatory.  For more about the Steller’s Jay go here.