FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: GRASS LEAVES Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words grass and/or leaves, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PST on January 17th. No PDF's please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Grass Leaves will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, January 25th between 3 and 5 pm PST

Friday, January 17, 2025

R Romea Luminarias

OAK LEAF 


The grace of an Oak leaf resides

In her being so ungraphable -

    Because intentional? -

   Rather random, fractal

Veins akin to a Kallima’s wing.

 

She is one of a kind, besides,

   Being shaped in ways unlaughable;

   She is phenomenal:

   Such beauty, to think that all

She does is catch the sun and rain.

 

As seasons turn, she falls on the side

   Of a deserted anthill or a swale.

   Yet I, a dreamer, will

   Carefully keep her, preserving Fall

Between pages of my book – unpained

 

    Where your letter is -- unanswered --

Now turned brittle, bright like Amber.

 



TOAST!


If sunlight had never kissed the face of Earth there 

Would have been no word “breathe” or “mirth.”

No Spring to rouse the old Cherry blossoms,

No breeze-blown pappi of Dandelions.

 

Red Roses would not have been born at all,

No salve from honey for Snake-bites fatal.

What a plight for us without photosynthesis!

No hay, no Cats chasing Mice, no cheese. 

 

No salads to crunch, no female giving milk,

No chocolate, no ice cream, no dream of Elks.

No Cucumber pickles, no Coffee, no Kimchi;

No armies waging war against the Nazi.

 

Parks - quite dismal, no Tai Chi in view

Like dusk-shadow dances, no Edison crew.

No campers trek through California Redwoods, 

No gardener’s fork or spoon or jade sod.

 

No Penguins playing on vast Arctic slopes,

No fire truck siren, no two-year-old “Nopes!”

No poems, no tales, in this sunless scape. 

No fireflies for white phosphorus to trade.

 

How blessed we are by the sun’s golden thread!

Birds sing through the seasons, our hearts warmly fed.

Raise your glasses of red wine (or green Tea),

Toast to our Glorious Sun and Emerald Canopy!


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