Three Poems by Lynne McEniry

kemp ridley

kemp ridley, I see you
with my dream eyes      braving New England
waters         so early in the season
I see you

swimming in the deep here with
right whales and jellies       although
freezing, you flock to  chockfull
feeding grounds--neither of us
can spare the worry of why we traveled

to these forbidding waters        so far
from the welfare of warmer shores       neither
the time to wonder whether it's courage
or cowardice that leads more quickly
toward extinction



birdsong

do you like to listen
to the birds?  I ask as we lie
quiet in the morning light

I'm listening
to at least six different
birds, I think--warble, whistle
and caw, a chatter,
a trill and a tweet--
songs and calls that carry me

back to Mr. Weitz's seventh
grade Listening to Today's
Music class          my desk
on the third   step up   my eye's
closed, ears open to the sound
booth         all its mysterious
knobs and boards that somehow
flooded our classroom with sound.

Mr. Weitz played a game with us
where we had to pick out each
instrument we could hear in the song.
When he said, needle to vinyl now we knew
we really had to listen.
He's start us out slow with acoustic
vs. electric in Ramblin' Man, maybe move
on to the brass ensemble in some
Chicago song before quizzing us
on the Orchestra Baobab, a melting pot
of sounds that carried me into
a world outside the classroom walls.

I like to listen, too, you whisper as
the yellow-bellied sapsucker   pecks
busily at some bark just outside
our window     I wonder how
I'd missed his sound earlier, and
I wonder where the birdsongs and calls
had carried you in that quiet morning light.



A Fractured Sand Dollar, A Sliver of Sponge

On the window sill at the Villa Caprice rests
a fractured sand dollar
a sliver of sponge like a hand signing peace
a crew of coquinas stripped to delight
each bathed clean

of sand, of salt.  A fractured sand dollar
a sliver of sponge demand their own attention
in spite of coquinas striped to delight.  Each
bathed clean they rest refreshed upon the sill.
Window screen dew drops

envy the sliver, envy the fracture that rest
refreshed upon the sill, so they drip down
to striped crew of coquinas, bathing them
in a dazzling glaze.  Now dew drops do envy
the crew of coquinas, knowing that sun will shine

will claim praise for the gift they gave.
Palm fronds wave in the sun, scatter
dew drops, dry up envy,
a fracture, some dazzle,
a hand signing
peace:  life:  window:  Villa Caprice.

Lynne McEniry has poems and reviews published or forthcoming in 5 AM, Adanna, The Stillwater Review, Paterson Literary Review, The Lake Rises Anthology, The Wide Shore, and others.  She won honorable mention for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  She is a regular guest editor for Adanna Literary Journal for which she edited several special issues including, "Hurricane Sandy:  Students Speak Out"  and "How Women Grieve."  Lynn earned her MFA in Poetry from Drew University and works at the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, NJ.