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.
