Poems of the Week by Robin, Julian and Frank

It is time to listen to the men again, my friends. Today we have poems written by Robin Kimber, our Old Egg, who blogs at Robin's Nest,  Julian  Clarke, of Pen to Poetry, Guernsey, and Frank Tassone, of  American Haijin.   I was so happy to gather them together and offer them to you today to celebrate our love of poetry. Enjoy!                      

A Long Summer

It was a long summer
While sun smirked down on us
Like an errant uncle
Outstaying his welcome

We needed a shaman
To sing a song for us
We needed the dark clouds
To pour rain down on us

Oh sincere singer sing
Spirit the days to change
Muddy our paths for us
Flood the roads, we don't care

We've lost our dignity
We've forgotten our pride
We lose much more each day
The raven shakes his head

It was a long summer
Clouds darken the night skies
We listen to the rain
Watching from the window

Now just who do we praise?
We had cursed and ranted
Thunder booms, lightning strikes
Someone is not happy


Sherry: I love the shaman, singing his song. As our summers grow hotter, year after year, we are all feeling this kind of heat and thirst, Robin. You have described it well.

Robin: The poem “A long summer” is quite typical of my poems about Australia, where the seasons are not always kind. When first settled, South Australia (the Australian state where I live) was the only British colony in the continent of Australia that was not settled with convicts from England being the main occupants. The colonists here decided to settle by a river, which is now the state capital of Adelaide, and spread out from there, farming first the plains to the north and hilly areas to the east and south.

At first farming was very successful, which encouraged more to come to the state and spread out much further north, and at first the harvests were fine. Then a few years of drought, and the soil now drained of nutrients, crops failed and settlers found they could not make a living anymore, went broke and abandoned the settlements. A government surveyor named Goyder visited the areas and worked out that many farms were too far north or in fact outside the 10 inch average rainfall line, which was the minimum agreed standard for cropping.

Abandoned farmhouse

As farmers went broke and left their farms, they left the stone houses they had lived in, which now dot the countryside and are a photographer’s delight!  The former settlements were, however, suitable for rearing stock. So grazing was adopted instead but not before many farmers went bankrupt and left the land, leaving evidence of this in the empty abandoned stone houses that still dot the scenery far north of Adelaide. 

Old Silverton farmhouse

Goyder’s line however, was not a straight line across the state but rose and dipped in latitude according to the 10 inch average rainfall that was the accepted standard. Now having bored everyone with that, I have often written poems about farming illustrating the difficulties faced and feelings it brought to settlers in those early days. In fact a few days before you asked me about this post I wrote “Swarms of flies” published on 13 May, then there is “Goyder’s Line” published 16 Sep 2015, “Across the gibber plains” 28 Nov 2015, “The country wife” 12 June 2016, and “My vision splendid” 4 Jan 2017. 

I was lucky enough to work 150 miles north of Adelaide many years ago, so had to drive through the area I have written about countless times, as well as exploring even more desolated settlements which are so poignant to see.

Sherry: It must be poignant indeed, seeing those abandoned homes - and dreams. This is such interesting history, Robin. Thank you for giving us the back story of this poem. Those must have been hard days for the settlers, in an unforgiving climate. I checked out the poems you mentioned, and they tell the story so well.

Julian recently posted a beautiful poem about a song carried on the wind. Let's take a look.

I hear your song

Gone, gone: on the west wind I hear your song,

The breath of your soul sweeps through to my heart

As winter leaves danced and scattered, then settled,

Lay frozen, crystallised in pure white snow.

Your life had reasons laid out in a line

Many of them good ones bearing no lies.

Spring exudes beauty, only you compare

Like nature nurtures new life to the world,

And smiles, with sun flowers of summer;

Gone, gone: on the west wind I hear your song.

Sherry: So beautiful, "On the west wind, I hear your song."

Julian: However you decide to interpret my poem, it is not one of sadness, but full of wonderful memories of an exceptional person. that person being my father who passed ten years ago. It amazes me how poetry can take you from feeling quite melancholy, which is how I felt before writing this poem, of which was not planned, and flowed easily from my pen, (that's a rarity in itself). The end result left me feeling warm and in a far better place at the wonderful memories I hold dear.

Sherry: Golden memories indeed. It sounds like you had a remarkable father. Thank you for sharing this poem, Julian. I love it, especially the beauty of your closing line. Sigh.

Let's take a look at Frank's contribution, shall we?

ESSENTIAL

“In the beginning was the word…”

Logos. The essence of consciousness, the embodied will of creative Love, from which the universe began with a Big Bang. An utterance of voice so tender and loving that potential gave birth to actual. A voice so awesomely heartbreaking, and heard now only in the heart of silence.

thunder

and the rain’s rattle …

frog croaks

Who would the Logos call to share the presence? Who would point the finger at the moon, steal the fire that would light the way of humanity, salve the wound festering from ancestors’ egoistic mistakes? 

Who else? Call us Bards, for the verses we craft bare true stories. Call us Troubadours, for our songs shatter hearts. Call us Warrior-poets, for through our art we eviscerate the lies that ensnarl all. Call us Pathfinders, for we show the way. What else would you call teachers?

“Taoing …

the way you can go

isn’t the real way”

Sherry: I love the whole idea of Warrior-poets and Pathfinders. Indeed, I believe we are! A wonderful write, Frank!

Frank: I am honored to offer you my permission to republish "Essential".

This haibun evolved out of two prompts: a bridge prompt from  dVerse Poets’ MTB–Bridging the Gap and Real Toads’ Job Title. I felt inspired by the opening verse of both John's Gospel and Ursula K. Le Guin's rendition of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, so I used them. Logos, the Greek word for word, and Tao, the chinese word for Way, share a similar connotation. I have always been fascinated by the symmetry, so that informed the poetic prose of the first stanza. 

I wanted to complement that with an ordinary haiku grounded in my experience at the moment of writing. Next, I wanted to do justice to my own profession. I have used the titles in a previous haibun, and they resonate as a part of my own vision statement. I rewrote them in this stanza, adding new contextual descriptors that tied in with the heights I introduced in the first prose stanza. I then ground the haibun again in that final haiku.

Sherry: This poem is wonderful on so many levels. I have been enjoying the format of your poems lately, Frank.

Frank: I'm not sure what you mean by a new format. I've written haibun in single prose-haiku or multiple prose-haiku "Stanzas" before. I've also written tanka-prose, often sandwiching a prose portion between two tanka. As for voice, I let the subject inspire me, and I write in response to that inspiration. I chose to personify water in Aqua, for example, because that's what felt right when I reflected on water. I thought of its importance in our lives, and how every culture has Gods of different aspects of water, and the poem called for water as the narrator.

source

Sherry: I loved "Aqua". It was a tossup which poem I wanted to feature. But the warrior-poets won out! Smiles.

Frank: Thank you for your invitation to feature "Essential". I've enjoyed discussing it with you.

Sherry: And we are enjoying the conversation, Frank. Thank you.

Well, my friends, wasn't this delightful? Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing your thoughts about your very wonderful poems with us. 

Do come back and see who we talk to next, fellow poets. Who knows? It might be you!