Photo by Shari Wagner
The poems on this page were submitted in 2016-2017, during my years as
Indiana Poet Laureate.
Poems from November's "Theater Prompt"
Above: The Lerner Theatre, Photo by Shari Wagner
George Kalamaras, Allen County
Friday Nights at the Palo
We’d drive four and a half miles south from Rural Route 3,
Box 27 to see a show at the Palo in Lowell.
Yes, we said show back then and not movie or film,
as if something would be given us, revealed, opened
inside. Those were the days of hound dogs and woods,
of canary grass ringing in our throats. Sassafras.
Sycamore. Elm. All that Indiana growth bowing
in the breeze, showing me how to revere the world.
But Friday nights at the Palo’s single screen, and all the shows
of the early 60s, made me want a white horse to prance
with Prince Valiant, or to have a six-gun like Yul Brenner,
Robert Vaughn, Steve McQueen, and their compadres
in The Magnificent Seven. My grandmother’s red and white ’57 Ford
Fairlane with its own roaring horsepower, carrying us here to there,
past Lake Dale, to watch the good guys save the Mexican peasants
from badass, Eli Wallach, and his passel of banditos.
How could a theatre so small possibly house five hundred seats?
How could each seat, cramped in those days, hold our breath
so large? We were there not only to see the show but to breathe
the prairie gusts of galloping horses in and out of one another.
A flurry I’d bring home to my brother’s Sheltie, who’d wag and fluff his tail,
and into my dream of having hound dogs one day to help me find myself
in coon hollers. Who would run the woods with me the following morning,
if not a redbone or bluetick? Who would bring me through the beckoning
brome? What did the show show me of myself? Was the Palo
part palace in disguise, even though it was simple
rectangular brick on Mill Street as you crossed the bridge into Lowell
before T-ing onto Commercial where The Toggery men’s store sat
up the street from the thunderstorm of the bowling alley housed
in the American Legion? I wanted a Davy Crockett musket
with John Wayne at the Alamo but didn’t want to die
there like he and Jim Bowie had, with Bowie wounded
but throwing knives from the bed. I wanted a hunting camp
in Kentucky with Daniel Boone, staring across the Ohio into the dip
of Indiana hills with a pack of bawl-mouthed hounds. I wanted them
to show me with their baying the marsupial whisks of possum wind
pouched in midnight, a wind the show at the Palo blew into me and wanted
me to breathe—how I could sit in and sift the theater’s Friday dark
as the projector clicked and clacked, just as the hounds I breathed into
my future would one day lantern-dance the moon. How such a small brick
building just four and a half miles south of our woods could show me each week
how to be and not be myself. And how both together were the world.
Indiana Poet Laureate.
Poems from November's "Theater Prompt"
Above: The Lerner Theatre, Photo by Shari Wagner
George Kalamaras, Allen County
Friday Nights at the Palo
We’d drive four and a half miles south from Rural Route 3,
Box 27 to see a show at the Palo in Lowell.
Yes, we said show back then and not movie or film,
as if something would be given us, revealed, opened
inside. Those were the days of hound dogs and woods,
of canary grass ringing in our throats. Sassafras.
Sycamore. Elm. All that Indiana growth bowing
in the breeze, showing me how to revere the world.
But Friday nights at the Palo’s single screen, and all the shows
of the early 60s, made me want a white horse to prance
with Prince Valiant, or to have a six-gun like Yul Brenner,
Robert Vaughn, Steve McQueen, and their compadres
in The Magnificent Seven. My grandmother’s red and white ’57 Ford
Fairlane with its own roaring horsepower, carrying us here to there,
past Lake Dale, to watch the good guys save the Mexican peasants
from badass, Eli Wallach, and his passel of banditos.
How could a theatre so small possibly house five hundred seats?
How could each seat, cramped in those days, hold our breath
so large? We were there not only to see the show but to breathe
the prairie gusts of galloping horses in and out of one another.
A flurry I’d bring home to my brother’s Sheltie, who’d wag and fluff his tail,
and into my dream of having hound dogs one day to help me find myself
in coon hollers. Who would run the woods with me the following morning,
if not a redbone or bluetick? Who would bring me through the beckoning
brome? What did the show show me of myself? Was the Palo
part palace in disguise, even though it was simple
rectangular brick on Mill Street as you crossed the bridge into Lowell
before T-ing onto Commercial where The Toggery men’s store sat
up the street from the thunderstorm of the bowling alley housed
in the American Legion? I wanted a Davy Crockett musket
with John Wayne at the Alamo but didn’t want to die
there like he and Jim Bowie had, with Bowie wounded
but throwing knives from the bed. I wanted a hunting camp
in Kentucky with Daniel Boone, staring across the Ohio into the dip
of Indiana hills with a pack of bawl-mouthed hounds. I wanted them
to show me with their baying the marsupial whisks of possum wind
pouched in midnight, a wind the show at the Palo blew into me and wanted
me to breathe—how I could sit in and sift the theater’s Friday dark
as the projector clicked and clacked, just as the hounds I breathed into
my future would one day lantern-dance the moon. How such a small brick
building just four and a half miles south of our woods could show me each week
how to be and not be myself. And how both together were the world.
|
Barbara B. Bonney, Dearborn County
Twelve Dad decides we'll break a church rule but only in another town, as the Bible advises. My uncle's family does the same. We meet halfway, indulge our sin together, where nobody knows us. We walk from cars, look over our shoulders, our guilt like bull's eyes for God, for believers in that unsuspecting town where fathers are just fathers. I follow my cousins through the heavy doors, slink into the dark lobby. Ornate gold plaster makes me think brothel, casino, Catholic church. I have never been inside any of them but at twelve, I know enough. Red velvet drapes like blood, death, secret thrills that could flame under God's omniscient eye. But nothing happens. We take our seats like everyone else and watch The Sound of Music. From In My Father's House, (Kattywompus Press, 2014) Michael Donohue, Bartholomew County
Forever Crump Forever trapped on this creaky, vacant stage. Sentenced to gaze upon the faded gold striped proscenium from this dusty, webbed dais. My line I forgot. Et tu Brute! Simple to laughing critics without a column. Sitting high in the air in their cozy seats while the spotlight's on me. Jeers echo inside. Footprints of dust run over my soul as I repeatedly recite the same soliloquy. Performing, while white plaster sheets plummet, coloring my cloak. An orchestra of empty seats before me. Cracked gold and pink ceilings pitch over my voice as red, plush boxes dangle sharply above each side of my wreath. But the marque shines again. My name beaming light. Revitalized, The Crump renovated to a new generation for the curtain to fall upon once more. The show must go on. Hail Caesar! Unlock the doors. The audience circles the sector. Fools! Still don't know their admission is damnation. I am the star here. Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Performer dressing for her debut as dancing star of the Senior Class Play brought nerves to the surface she fainted recovered rose performed with great aplomb to the cheers of the roaring crowd then fainted again the Vagus Nerve Rosemary Freedman (Hamilton County)
Belmont Theater Indianapolis, circa 1976 My friend Amy and I looked for spare change in the couch cushions and turned in empty deposit bottles for 5 cents each until we had the exact amount for our movie tickets, two drinks and one popcorn. When Donald Sutherland stood there in Invasion of the Body Snatchers while banjo music played and a dog with the head of a man ran forward, then licked his man-face with his dog tongue, the decision was made to stay in our frayed burgundy velvet seats at the Belmont Theater for a few more hours. Always the same two seats on the left side of the theater. Amy’s long black hair almost touching the floor. Our laughter can still be heard there, at the corner of Belmont and Washington, though the theater was torn down years ago. Our laughter and our shrieks with a hint of the Soundtrack to Jaws and The Sound of Music. We would sit for hours watching the same movie over and over and only paying once. Regular Al Capone gangsters, taking turns getting the popcorn refills, too young to realize that no one cared about our life of crime. At the Tibbs Drive-In Concession Stand
Tibbs Drive-In, 480 S Tibbs Ave. The only drive-in still in Indianapolis, opened in 1967. Once, when I was 11 and we were at the Tibbs Drive-In watching Planet of the Apes, and eating fried bologna sandwiches and drippy grilled cheeses with tomato seeds dripping down our arms and onto our quilts, I went to the Concession stand bathroom to wash my hands. There on the sink was the biggest most beautiful ring I had ever seen. The colors fell against the light like what snow-flakes made of peacock feathers would look like. I put the ring in my pocket. I wore it to school for a week. Everyone said how real it looked. The next week-end at the Tibbs theater there were flyers on the wood-log posts. An award was being offered for a lost ring. I took the tear off number hoping I had found the right ring. I called the number the next day. The man answered and asked to meet me at my home. I told him I could meet him at the drive-in the next week. There, beside the hot-dog toppings stood a guy with a hat and a big nose. He had an envelope. I knew there was a red watch at Brock’s pharmacy that I wanted. I was hoping there would be at least enough to cover the eight dollars plus tax. “Do you know what you have there lady? That ring belonged to my mother. My wife has been losing sleep. That is from the “belle epoque period.” He handed me the envelope and I hated parting with the ring even more after he had described it like that. There was 500 dollars in that envelope. I put it in my mother’s purse. I never did get that watch. M. June Yates, Montgomery County
The Strand Theater Crawfordsville's pride,”the Athens of Indiana,” Houdini, hypnotists, the vaudeville circuit, Dimpled darlings in patent leather taps And Shirley Temple curls, Sing and shimmer in the footlights, Talkies flicker and women squeal, Mary Pickford's on the tracks, Fire reduces brick and velvet dreams, To rubble and ashes, Ghosts of bygone glory, Now a parking lot. Shari Wagner, Hamilton County
The Lerner Theatre, 1953 Elkhart, Indiana When my mother purchased high heels at Ziesel's Department Store and then crossed Main Street toward a white terra cotta wall with a marquee that announced, From Here to Eternity, it was the beginning of the end. When she fell head over heels in love, not just with Burt Lancaster, loping, bare-chested across the beach, but with the click of her blue stilettos on terrazzo stone, it was the end of the world as a good Mennonite knew it. The girl who made a necklace from safety pins to wear beneath her dress to school marveled at the extravgance of beaded chandeliers. She saw dancing maids and griffins, pipes, harps and Grecian urns, the Turkish screens behind box seats, the plush gold, pleated curtain. All of it was worldly. All of it was good. Outside, the city was an oven, but she slouched in a sanctuary cooled by the river's pumped water sprayed as fine mist into fans. She loitered with hundreds of other sinners in a dome of darkness where she could see distinctly the complications a romantic life could take. There she was: on the deck with Deborah Kerr, tossing her lei upon Pearl Harbor, watching a wave, like a cursive swirl, sweep the flowers out to sea. From The Harmonist at Nightfall: Poems of Indiana (Bottom Dog Press, 2013) Poems from the October "Sports Prompt"
Above: Photo by Shari Wagner Noel Bewley, Marion County Beginning Baseball Our shortstop fills his cap with dirt. Center and left fielders stand side by side watching a golden retriever chase a frisbee. Second base tosses up his glove delighted with the cloud of dust it creates. The right fielder jogs back and forth kicking dandelion puff balls. First base chews blades of grass, drops green spit on an ant hill. Third base (the coach's son) keeps up a steady "hey batter, batter hey batter batter." The pitcher scrapes a dusty hole with his cleats then fires ball four behind the batter. The catcher flings his mask off and chases the ball to the backstop. Batter, turned baserunner, one hand on his helmet, the other holding up his pants jogs to first base. He laughs and points as the shortstop dons his cap. Dan Carpenter, Marion County
Saturday A.M. Youth League, Tabernacle Presbyterian Coach calls the boys over folds himself into petals of numbered T-shirts yellow and black yellow black shirts numbers faces white guy the kneeling stamen holding somehow for once all their eyes all this 10-year-old attention all this moment before tipoff before they're pitted in madcap combat for the amusement and honor of roaring uncles shrieking moms Coach thrusts his hammy fist for their tender hands to layer upon 1-2-3 Team! he calls to his yellow/black rose 1 as it bursts 2 wide and thirsting 3 for this day's light TEAM! M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Jonathan’s Dream The bounce of a basketball, Thud of a backboard, One hundred times, Morning and evening, Tender visions of the NBA Fill the imagination of a ten year old boy. In one afternoon--- A sledding accident, Dreams and bones are shattered, In one afternoon--- A guitar in a black case, Propped in a forgotten corner, Is dusted off, As fingers are skilled and strengthened, In one afternoon--- Beautiful music floats, From a darkened room, Dreams of a prodigy, Discovered. John D. Groppe, Jasper County
Instincts of Grace The ball came toward me, a one bouncer, and I bent slightly, reaching almost without looking, knowing the glove would meet the ball just as it bounced, still knowing that move after thirty-five years, knowing it, following it and feeling the runner so that I could throw to my brother at first or Gillen at second to start the double play, but today there was no runner-- only my son at bat and me pitching in a far away field. My brother, Gillen, Kenny, Mahon and all the rest, I trust, can still make a sure handed catch and have all the instincts of grace we learned as boys. Cathy Meyer, Monroe County
On Skiing and Life To make a turn, To change directions, Requires a risk. One set of edges, stable and secure Must be released, The center of mass, of being Projected into the future Down the hill Toward what is desired, Without support Or any way out Except to fall / fail. Crossing over. A leap of faith. Yet with practice Comes confidence That if the heart leads The feet follow And progress is made. Life changes. Without the courage To lean Into the unknown Nothing changes. The course stays the same. Stuck on old edges Clinging to the safe The familiar, the known. Ethan Pieples (Age 6), Hamilton County
Skating I put my roller derby shoes and gear on. I put my helmet on. I see all the other skaters. I feel tall in my skates. Swimming
I go into the deep end. I jump off the diving board. I go under the blue-green water. Pat Kopanda, Jasper County The Greatest Spectacle of Racing-- The Day Bob Won "Greatest Spectacle of Racing"--Bob turns on his transistor to hear Sid Collins' booming voice--Since '65 he hasn't missed it-- At 12, Bob's heroes were the gladiators--the Knights of the Indy 500-- Mario Andretti--Al and Bobby Unser in their G-force racing gear and shiny super racers Parade over--in his backyard--Jim Nabors leads with "Back Home Again in Indiana"-- still in his Boy Scout uniform--with hand over heart-- at attention--"O say can you see . . . ." Sitting in the grass--he hears--"Gentlemen, start your engines"-- mesmerized-- his Scout uniform becomes G-force racing gear with helmet-- a gilded dream-- strapped in--he's behind the wheel of Mario's race car waiting for the Green flag-- a yellow '69 Chevy Camaro leads the pack--he's right behind-- Bob turns the key--the crowd roars--exhilaration--the pace-car-- the Yellow flag--antsy--itching--ready for take-off He hears the crowd and engines' roar over announcers Sid Collins and Paul Page Some three hundred and fifty thousand fans cheering for him-- The Green flag--a thundering roar--he's off--fans and engines-- whirring-- whizzing--crowding--jostling--speeding--crashing--flaming-- Red flag--a reminder--racing is a sport--not a game Crowd quiets--watching--hoping--praying--Yellow flag-- the rumbling roar-- always the roar--the crowd or the engines--or both--Green flag-- he's off again Bob leads--lap after lap--the checkered flag--Bob in orange racer #2-- the winner--the victory lap--cheers from the crowd--milk dribbling down his chin-- a young boy's dream--He did it! He won! His mother's words waken him--"Today Indiana is the center of the world" Forty years later, as he attends the race--he finds youthful memories of fantasy are best left untouched--'69 was a good year-- Cameron Pieples (Age 4), Hamilton County
Golf Golf is always cool, because I always get a hole in one. Soccer
It is 71 degrees. I put my soccer shoes on. I kick the ball to the goal. The green grass turns to mud because there is rain. Thomas Christensen, St. Joseph County
Baseball at the Park I would watch the pitcher's hand, With my eyes keen as a hawk's, As he released the ball. Great was my anticipation with my bat As I watched the rotation of the ball's path, Then the uncoiling spiral of my stance. And the whiff of the ball That went past my mighty swing As I swung around, "Strike three!" the umpire blasts. Was it a slider or a curve? I knew it was down and out. How could I miss what I had seen? Did I swing way before? Or after the pitch had crossed the plate? Tis next time for me. I will hit the ball and place it into the field of green Away from the outfielder's reach, And run the bases liberally, And maybe even cross the plate. Love of the Game of Baseball
While sitting on the bench in little league I would watch the pitcher pitch To the other members of our team, And time his pitches to the plate, For I did not want to swing too late. And I would watch the hits our hitters hit and to whom For sometimes I could tell When an opposing player was not playing very well, And place my hit in his direction, And turn a single into extra bases. Baseball was an equalizer for me. And it made me very confident indeed Because the big and tall boys would look up to me When our team needed that big hit I would go to the plate in anticipation of it. Usually, I would hit the ball And clear the bases. Oh, how I loved to play baseball. It could be 95 degrees outside But I would stay and play all day. Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Some Things I Gathered From His Room For my nephew Richard Lawson who lived every day of his 15 years. I'm haunted by the backsides of basketball boys at the side of the road. His face might be on the other side, hiding like it does in my bathroom mirror and the limbs of trees outside my window. His trophies line my cherry dresser, silver bat boys posed on blocks of wood beside a leather glove with a scratched up ball inside its palm. These are things he touched, things I gathered from his room: a copy of a book I'd done my senior speech from, all the letters and photographs I'd sent him in a shoebox along with a genealogy chart, a clipping from the paper of him dressed as a fireman when he was six, helmets and jerseys marked with pirates. Cross-country certificates and a memory of his made bed. When I pass by boys playing football, I see him running away, then turning his head in slow motion. He's smiling but he cannot see me. Poems from the September "School Prompt"
John D. Groppe, Jasper County The Vigils At Saint Joseph's College After the Operations of the College Were Suspended The cheers no longer reverberate, the students gone, the faculty dismissed. Dumpsters await the haulers, full of the impedimenta of college. Only statues stand vigil-- Father Augustine Seifert, defiant, “Daddy” even to his priests, in front of the building wearing his name protecting all his boys from the world beyond his cloister; Sister Katherine Drexel, stout, smiling, looking beyond the empty buildings toward the college in New Orleans she built to prepare black students for the world; Mary by the highway, her head bowed with one more sorrow to ponder; Joseph with his strong arm over the shoulders of his teenage son, both looking east with expectation, ready to move forward into some new dawn; Francis nestled by a pine tree, holding a basket, scraps for squirrels and birds, he with the wisdom of many winters and springs knowing the poor ones still need to be cared for. Photographs of statues by John D. Groppe From the top: Fr. Seifert, Katherine Drexel, Mary, and St. Francis Marilyn Ashbaugh, St. Joseph County
school girls clean the chalk erasers on one another From Jumble Box (Press Here, 2017) Mary Redman, Marion County Written in Stone--1958 The painted brick school, set in concrete fenced by chain link, broods with the Church over working class turf. Out front, the sidewalk bears a reminder of its history--a single poured square with six-inch letters willfully drawn: K-K-K. Years ago, this spot was claimed by fanatics urging Catholics to know their place--alongside Negroes and Jews. Children intrigued by the former threat, now no longer physical, choose to make it part of their games--a tacit warning: Stay away! A latch pops, wide bars on double doors clunk--and out race hordes of children eager for recess. The playground, devoid of grass, is overrun. Squeals of joy, calls of "you're it," "my turn," and "throw it to me" drown out birdsong. The youngsters, like nestlings competing for food, vie for one another's attention. Faces shine, squinting eyes adjust to brightness, and grins spread as friends together inside reunite as if months have passed since they saw one another--or the sun. On the sidewalk near the taboo square, a group of girls prepare for hopscotch. Avoiding it, they chalk their board and gather markers for play. One by one, they toss their stones, hopping on one leg then two, up the grid and back again. A dark-skinned classmate with braided hair watches wordless at the edge of that square whose meaning she knows best. No one invites her to join their game--she does not ask to play. It seems the gulf between their lives is still too wide to leap. Thomas K. Christensen, St. Joseph County
Grade School Genius Whirlwind clouds of thoughts, The genius enjoys Daydreams / in and through The classroom's windows, For it is his theater screen To view his visions, With his inner eye. When the teacher with a wooden ruler Cracks his left-hand knuckles, In surprise, the grade school genius looks The nun in her eyes, With a child’s questioning “Why?” As she then says, very loudly, “Mr. Christensen, would you like join us?” Isomorphic Art of a Child A child has drawn A circle Makes a face. Makes it round. Makes a roundness Of the thing human. Then again another circle, In a circulatory vastness reads: A cat, a dog, A tire red round, In simplicity, The circle is Universal In the child's works of art. Previously published in The Word Play Anthology (2017) Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Memories of WWII Our 6th grade class was eager to do our part for the war effort. The year was 1942, war was raging. Several students had brothers off to war. St. Joan of Arc School displayed patriotism by collecting newspapers. Excitement built when Sister suggested our class make scrapbooks to send to cheer our soldiers. Sister Estell instructed us: “interesting articles, comic strips, uplifting stories and personal letters could be included.” The day came, we presented our books wide open on our desks for Sister to inspect. My scrapbook contained mostly Sunday comics, Terry and the Pirates, Lil Abner with Daisy May and Little Lulu. I knew my brothers enjoyed those comic strips with the funny stories and the curvy girls with skimpy outfits, they helped choose the pages, put the book together. I was proud, I hoped my book would be a hit. With a quick swipe and a ‘hah’ Sister threw out page after page, crumpling and dropping pages in the wastebasket. My scrapbook was nearly blank, only Little Lulu remained. My disappointment showed as I asked Sister, “Why?” She replied, “These comics lead to ‘impure’ thoughts, the occasion for sin. We mustn’t lead the boys astray.” The afterschool-clean-up-boys were seen picking through the wastebasket, stuffing their pockets with crumpled papers while their buddies waited outside to see ‘occasion for sin comics.’ June Yates, Montgomery County
Greene Township School The pride of Greene Township in 1924, made sturdy and tall with brick and varnished oak, freshly washed faces, young with hope, chant with hands on their hearts, the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, heads bowed in morning prayer, reading stories intertwined, with honor and valor-- it will serve them well. For brown-shirted boys and Fräuleins across the ocean are chanting too. As yet the Nazi war machine is only a dream, the Sleeping Giant not yet awakened. Today these stoic bricks testify of their courage, while weeds and scrub trees work to forget. But a memory lives on, in the hearts of their children. Maureen O'Hern, Hamilton County
My Favorite Classroom Carpeted canopied playground scuffed-up buckled shoes corduroy, red sweaters snug and safe worldviews. Kicking through the dunes of autumn’s drifting gold recess in the oak grove adventures manifold. Treasure hunts intense oh, the lucky-born who tenderly unearths the beanie-topped acorn. Larry of the snowblonde hair freckled mightily struts amid the dapples and stands on his head -- for me. Trees like grandma, grandpa seasoned, gentle, wise watching our shenanigans winking old oak eyes. Adorned with leafy crumbles like prized phylactery we deem our first-grade recess quite satisfactory. Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Locker Locker, you are the same green as the uniform the boy put on after emptying you out one last time. You had a way of knowing that when he left for Vietnam his mother would be left unwrapping Christmas ornaments he had made year after year. Her tears would be the same silver as propellers. Her heart the same gold as the bullets that cut through that boy. That child. And he is gone. Locker, you are the keeper of secrets, You had a way of knowing when applications neatly stacked to local colleges, community colleges, fancy colleges, were going to be accepted. You read all the notes. You smelled all the lunches. Locker, you knew when the hearts of young girls were broken by the news of babies unplanned. You housed the stained clothes of girls growing into women. You witnessed joy and sorrow, and your rust is proof of your tears--like some ancient grandmother trusting her children to enter the wide world. The Weekly Reader In fifth grade I learned about the Sphinx. When I was 37 I went to Egypt. In third grade I learned about the Loch Ness. When I was 50 I went to Scotland. In fourth grade I learned about the Taj Mahal. When I was 30 I went to India. I need a subscription to the weekly reader-- or just to know that all I see from my front porch is enough. Poems from the August "Insect Prompt"
Above: Photograph by Rosemary Freedman Pat Kopanda, Jasper County Kaleidoscope It is the pungent continuity of all my seasons, this last day of summer alone in Townsend Park. Startled grasshoppers rise with path dust on our way to the pond, their yellow-banded wings fanning us along. Their legs spring into awkward flight as they drop just ahead of me at each step. Odor of dried weeds and decaying cattails greet us at the near end of the pond. A pair of delphinium-blue damsel flies sparkle as he courts her across the water, skimming the surface, their wing tips barely touching as they skirt the marsh edge and come to rest, timeless jewels on a blade of sedge. Now comes the crimson cousin darting backward, forward, maneuvering easily to land gracefully on a flat stone, another chip in nature's brilliant kaleidoscope. At the water's edge, frogs resent my intrusion, plop into the murky shallows broadcast a rippled mirror of trees in full dress. From the buckthorn, a yellow black-capped warbler flings one more song and streaks into the sun, taking summer along. Terri Gorney, Adams County
Winged Creatures In Memory of Gene Stratton-Porter Birds of all kinds were her passion, hours spent patiently observing, then planning the perfect photo. Gene loved all the winged creatures of her Limberlost home. She was aware of dragonflies darting and butterflies floating on the breeze. At night she communed with the owls. She was aware of other graceful winged creatures of the night, mysterious and beautiful. A new passion arose inside her. "Moths of the Limberlost" became a loving tribute to those shadowy winged creatures of the moon. Dr. Tom, of Bug Bowl fame, would give Gene the moniker Bird Woman by Day, Moth Woman by Night. Collaborative Poem from Shari Wagner's Limberlost Workshop,
"Inside Gene Stratton-Porter’s Cabin," July 22, 2017 Poets: Phyllis De Smet-Howard, Luther Eberly, Terri Gorney, Rosemary Freedman, Jennifer Hurley, Lisa Kirk, Kelley Nebosky, Wanda Sobota, Mary Quigley, M. June Yates, and Kathleen Yeadon Buckeye Butterfly Headless, it smells of dust with eyes like peacock feathers or the eye of the Magic Eight Ball. It’s imprinted with the Mystic Eye. It’s a wooden pin hand-carved by a master carpenter. To me, it’s the gossamer cape of autumn and tattered like wind-shredded leaves. Though dead, there’s a passive fluttering, an earthbound spirit, when once we remember the glory of spring. Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Connie Kingman, Jasper County Collaborative Haiku: Insects shrewd crows stash crickets in the birdbath overnight for early breakfast pk striped caterpillars soon to become swallowtails strip parsley stems bare ck the praying mantis on the glass between the doors gigantus scaribus pk tiger swallowtail flutters atop Joe-Pye weed binoculars rise ck an attack spider drops from the gutter on me hoochie-coochie dance pk large Daddy longlegs from garden through kitchen door rides upon my back ck waving fields of white August's gift of queen anne’s lace a cloud of pesky gnats pk temperature drops cicadas sing evening songs muffling the bull frogs ck clings to the windshield at thirty miles per hour the mosquito hawk pk in noonday sunlight she studies the goldenrod a bee studies her ck John D. Groppe, Jasper County
Coming Out of Its Shell The cicada pushes itself through a slit in its crisp coating, once a support, a defense, now a constriction. Extricating its front legs, gripping the dry crust of its old cell, it pulls and pushes, a creature in labor to free itself, to expand, to move freely. Beside the delicate, transparent shell, the cicada grabs the tree bark, and, immobile, waits out a new peril, succulent prey until its body fills with fluid, until the lace of its wings unfolds. Safe now within a new constriction, it is free to roam, to sing, to mate, once again protected within an encasing constraint. What might Aesop have made of this? |
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Michael Donohue
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photos of bat and basketball hoop by Shari Wagner
Photo by Dan Carpenter
Photo by M. June Yates
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Iona Wagner
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Stock photo
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Farver School, Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Rick Yates
Photo by Maureen O'Hearn
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo of Praying Mantis by Shari Wagner
Photo by Gene Stratton-Porter
Photo of Buckeye Butterfly by Shari Wagner
Photo of Swallowtail Caterpillar by Connie Kingman
Cicada and Twig by Connie Kingman
Cicada Discarded Exoskeleton by Connie Kingman
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Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Ruth Dwyer, Morgan County
Make a Wish
Lady bugs are tiny little round bugs
that often make children happy
as they play. Running, laughing,
swirling, while trying to catch them,
then releasing them as they
make a wish.
I can still see the happy faces
of my brothers and sisters holding the
lady bugs and blowing them into the
wind, anticipating the wishes to come
true.
Make a Wish
Lady bugs are tiny little round bugs
that often make children happy
as they play. Running, laughing,
swirling, while trying to catch them,
then releasing them as they
make a wish.
I can still see the happy faces
of my brothers and sisters holding the
lady bugs and blowing them into the
wind, anticipating the wishes to come
true.
Moth by Rosemary Freedman
Jonathon L. Mills, Marion County
Lightning Bugs
They come out at night,
They make the night glow.
Lightning Bugs are good luck
I hope everyone knows.
Lightning Bugs
They come out at night,
They make the night glow.
Lightning Bugs are good luck
I hope everyone knows.
Photo by Rick Yates
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
My Miracle for a Moment
“Patience will show you a miracle”,
my father said,
As he sat me on our concrete step,
In the summer of my seventh year.
He placed a leathery notched cocoon,
Atop a weathered clothesline post,
A tiny life emerged with a tremble,
Wet wings crumpled, rice-paper thin.
I shinnied up to reach,
Eyes welled with sympathy,
“If you help now, it will never fly.
Struggle will give it strength.”
Undaunted, my butterfly stretched and folded,
Stretched and folded,
Driven by some inner hope,
Drawing strength from the sun,
A miracle fluttering,
to the sky.
My Miracle for a Moment
“Patience will show you a miracle”,
my father said,
As he sat me on our concrete step,
In the summer of my seventh year.
He placed a leathery notched cocoon,
Atop a weathered clothesline post,
A tiny life emerged with a tremble,
Wet wings crumpled, rice-paper thin.
I shinnied up to reach,
Eyes welled with sympathy,
“If you help now, it will never fly.
Struggle will give it strength.”
Undaunted, my butterfly stretched and folded,
Stretched and folded,
Driven by some inner hope,
Drawing strength from the sun,
A miracle fluttering,
to the sky.
A true bee by Rosemary Freedman
Katie Simmons, Marion County
disguised as bees
pesky hover flies in August--
sheep in wolf's clothing
disguised as bees
pesky hover flies in August--
sheep in wolf's clothing
Praying Mantis by Rosemary Freedman
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Sending Food Back at the Last Supper
Once, at the last supper,
because two of the guys with tickets
had car trouble,
my grandmother
picked me up in her light blue Ford Falcon
and took me to lunch.
Apricots, eels and bread
were served. And there was a lamb.
“Lord have mercy,” she said.
“If I knew they was going to have
wine I would have never brought you here.”
We had sweet tea like good Pentecostals.
I knew that when grandmother
spoke quietly to the server she was
making sure that if she had
to pay they would give the ten percent
senior citizen discount.
“Don’t get anything you’re not going to eat,”
I remember her saying.
And the guy beside me
was such a phony.
A big line of fat long
ants, the kind that climb on peonies,
walked right across our
plates. So, she sent the food back. I could
hear the cooks talking about us.
“We should have just gone to Golden Corral,”
she whispered to me. She wrapped some of the bread
and an entire bunch of grapes in a napkin
and stuck it in her purse. Then she took a dollar
and tucked it under the edge of her plate.
Sending Food Back at the Last Supper
Once, at the last supper,
because two of the guys with tickets
had car trouble,
my grandmother
picked me up in her light blue Ford Falcon
and took me to lunch.
Apricots, eels and bread
were served. And there was a lamb.
“Lord have mercy,” she said.
“If I knew they was going to have
wine I would have never brought you here.”
We had sweet tea like good Pentecostals.
I knew that when grandmother
spoke quietly to the server she was
making sure that if she had
to pay they would give the ten percent
senior citizen discount.
“Don’t get anything you’re not going to eat,”
I remember her saying.
And the guy beside me
was such a phony.
A big line of fat long
ants, the kind that climb on peonies,
walked right across our
plates. So, she sent the food back. I could
hear the cooks talking about us.
“We should have just gone to Golden Corral,”
she whispered to me. She wrapped some of the bread
and an entire bunch of grapes in a napkin
and stuck it in her purse. Then she took a dollar
and tucked it under the edge of her plate.
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The Geneva Convention
All of this is true. I hitched a ride with a Benedictine nun to Geneva, Indiana. The next day I visited my sister Ruth in her garden in Martinsville. I saw swallowtails, monarchs, and hummingbird moths leaping from zinnia to zinnia. I told her about the egrets and heron and the eagle on the rock and how I was drawn to Geneva. “I went to Geneva,” she said, “to courier a letter, 34 years ago, in December, when Barbie was eight and David was ten. I took them with me because of Christmas break.” Snow fell. The gas line to the car froze. They were stuck, not even on a road, but in a field. She had a vision of freezing to death. Then the stranger came by, and took them to the Geneva fire station. It was there that her “Karen Carpenter” problem was disrupted by constant offerings of the community--chili, deserts, chicken and noodles. The nice people she could not say “no” to. Their gentle ways and their continuous stories. She told her children they were on vacation. Three nights and four days, they ate and slept on cots. They rode on snowmobiles and later wrote in essays that they had been on the best vacation of their lives. Not knowing, all the way home, that nothing would match those days, where there was no charge for the bread or the cheese or the fast rides through closed roads with firemen all laughing. That unassuming place where she was protected and immune and saved. I believe she left some of her laughter there, in Geneva, and when I visit, the echo of that joy chases after me like a child with a butterfly net. Youtube Video of Hummingbird Moth by Rosemary Freedman |
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Tent Worms by Shari Wagner
Cassie Caylor, Wells County
Nature’s cafeteria
Walking through Loblolly Marsh
I thought I saw a spider’s web
But the tiny caterpillars inside weren’t victims--
This was their tent,
Keeping predators off their juicy leaf.
Those Eastern Tent Worms looked
Like kids in a school cafeteria
Clustered together, crazily gobbling
Climbing all over each other
Not sitting still for nothing.
Overhead a drop of water hung
Like a chandelier
Reflecting sunlight
From the ceiling.
Such a big tent for such a tiny worm
But it’s a huge crowd
Feeding, growing, dreaming
Of the day they take flight as moths.
Nature’s cafeteria
Walking through Loblolly Marsh
I thought I saw a spider’s web
But the tiny caterpillars inside weren’t victims--
This was their tent,
Keeping predators off their juicy leaf.
Those Eastern Tent Worms looked
Like kids in a school cafeteria
Clustered together, crazily gobbling
Climbing all over each other
Not sitting still for nothing.
Overhead a drop of water hung
Like a chandelier
Reflecting sunlight
From the ceiling.
Such a big tent for such a tiny worm
But it’s a huge crowd
Feeding, growing, dreaming
Of the day they take flight as moths.
Praying Mantis by Maureen O'Hern
Maureen O'Hern, Hamilton County
Can you do this?
he seems to sniff
arrested mid-ballet
as though I'd want
(how aberrant)
to dine in endless plié.
Can you do this?
he seems to sniff
arrested mid-ballet
as though I'd want
(how aberrant)
to dine in endless plié.
Bee by Rosemary Freedman
Cameron Pieples (age 4), Hamilton County
Honey Makers
Bees sting you
and they make honey
out of pollen.
Honey Makers
Bees sting you
and they make honey
out of pollen.
Leaf Boat by Rosemary Freedman
Ethan Pieples (age 6), Hamilton County
Lightning
There are lightning bugs,
but there is no
lightning in the sky.
Lightning
There are lightning bugs,
but there is no
lightning in the sky.
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
KJ Anderson, Tippecanoe County
Killing a Fly
The fly follows me through
the door left open
while I haul in groceries,
buzzing enthusiastically,
like a pet happy to see me.
It lands on a window.
I pick up the nearest weapon to hand,
a Daedalus book catalog, roll it up and use it,
missing, of course.
Who can avoid the glances
from compound eyes
that see your intent
before you do?
Now the continuous buzz
expresses anger tinged with panic,
as the fly climbs up under
the half-drawn shade, inaccessible.
Seeking a route back outdoors,
it throws itself against unyielding glass,
then falls back into a cobweb whose spider
has long since left the premises.
It carefully clears the silken web-bits
from its slim legs, its crystal wings,
its eye-dominated head, its mouthparts,
using all six limbs, unlike a cat washing itself.
It repeats this sequence of events
over and over, pauses,
disoriented,
in the middle of the window.
In this brief ebb of effort,
my Daedalus catalog swoops out of the sky,
crashing against its complex being –
it floats down to the floor, its buzzing
silenced forever.
Killing a Fly
The fly follows me through
the door left open
while I haul in groceries,
buzzing enthusiastically,
like a pet happy to see me.
It lands on a window.
I pick up the nearest weapon to hand,
a Daedalus book catalog, roll it up and use it,
missing, of course.
Who can avoid the glances
from compound eyes
that see your intent
before you do?
Now the continuous buzz
expresses anger tinged with panic,
as the fly climbs up under
the half-drawn shade, inaccessible.
Seeking a route back outdoors,
it throws itself against unyielding glass,
then falls back into a cobweb whose spider
has long since left the premises.
It carefully clears the silken web-bits
from its slim legs, its crystal wings,
its eye-dominated head, its mouthparts,
using all six limbs, unlike a cat washing itself.
It repeats this sequence of events
over and over, pauses,
disoriented,
in the middle of the window.
In this brief ebb of effort,
my Daedalus catalog swoops out of the sky,
crashing against its complex being –
it floats down to the floor, its buzzing
silenced forever.
Photo by Connie Kingman
Poems from the July "Deer Prompt"
Above Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
Little Fawn
During morning watch,
you appear outside my window,
no farther away than a stone’s throw,
cautiously navigating the vast sea of damp grass
surrounding the pond.
Your compass is set,
your destination logged,
territory I would rather you not explore--
and such a long maiden voyage
for this first time out,
testing your sea legs.
Had it been your mother,
I may have tapped the glass
and shouted, “ Ahoy, there!”
aware of her appetite for crisp apples.
To this she would have raised her white tail,
reversed course, and bounded for safer waters.
Your father, a six-masted frigate in these waters,
would have stood his ground,
stared me down,
stomped his hoof, and snorted insults,
daring me to tap again.
But it is you, little fawn,
that passes windward by my window,
on your own for the first time,
steady on your legs now,
plotting your course to the orchard.
Very well, be underway.
To you I grant safe passage.
Help yourself to those few low-hanging pomes.
A pint or two less of this season’s applesauce
will not leave me wanting.
Above Photo by Rosemary Freedman
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
Little Fawn
During morning watch,
you appear outside my window,
no farther away than a stone’s throw,
cautiously navigating the vast sea of damp grass
surrounding the pond.
Your compass is set,
your destination logged,
territory I would rather you not explore--
and such a long maiden voyage
for this first time out,
testing your sea legs.
Had it been your mother,
I may have tapped the glass
and shouted, “ Ahoy, there!”
aware of her appetite for crisp apples.
To this she would have raised her white tail,
reversed course, and bounded for safer waters.
Your father, a six-masted frigate in these waters,
would have stood his ground,
stared me down,
stomped his hoof, and snorted insults,
daring me to tap again.
But it is you, little fawn,
that passes windward by my window,
on your own for the first time,
steady on your legs now,
plotting your course to the orchard.
Very well, be underway.
To you I grant safe passage.
Help yourself to those few low-hanging pomes.
A pint or two less of this season’s applesauce
will not leave me wanting.
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Joyce Brinkman, Boone County
Dancing with Deer Like Sandburg I want to "ask a shadow to dance." Like Po I want to embrace the moon. Each night as I step into the drape of darkness that settles on the scene outside my window, I look for the foraging deer, harboring an ache within, to join their run across green and browning fields. To jump the creek and glide between the oak and elm. To leave only a white trace of exit. |
Photo by Iona Wagner / Fort Harrison State Park
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Photo by M. June Yates
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
The Encounter
In hushed, sun-dappled twilight,
forest images make kaleidoscope shifts,
of sunshine and shadow.
Leaves overhead whisper devout prayers,
carried in the breeze,
as a tawny deer gazes with pious, brown eyes
of a mystic,
and continues its pilgrimage,
to High Places--
The Encounter
In hushed, sun-dappled twilight,
forest images make kaleidoscope shifts,
of sunshine and shadow.
Leaves overhead whisper devout prayers,
carried in the breeze,
as a tawny deer gazes with pious, brown eyes
of a mystic,
and continues its pilgrimage,
to High Places--
Photo by Shari Wagner
Marcia Conover, Madison County
For Just a Moment
Sitting in solitude
Watching intently
Beautiful fawns
New born Twins
Eagerly feeding
The Mother doe
Standing motionless
Ears at attention
Listening closely
Ready to protect
Lifting her head
Smelling the air
Holding my breath
Paralyzed in thought
A magnificent sight
For a moment
Each heart beat
Echoes in unison
among the trees
Free from harm
surrounding us
only momentarily
In this vastness
we call home
For Just a Moment
Sitting in solitude
Watching intently
Beautiful fawns
New born Twins
Eagerly feeding
The Mother doe
Standing motionless
Ears at attention
Listening closely
Ready to protect
Lifting her head
Smelling the air
Holding my breath
Paralyzed in thought
A magnificent sight
For a moment
Each heart beat
Echoes in unison
among the trees
Free from harm
surrounding us
only momentarily
In this vastness
we call home
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Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Deer Tale Yesterday, I searched for deer who frequently appear in a clearing in the wood across the way. There upon a rise, much to my surprise, grazed a herd of six or so. I stood out in the open, too late to hide behind a tree, I froze hoping they wouldn’t notice me. Of course, they did, the flags went up, all eyes were focused on me, they didn’t run they sniffed the air and wondered how I caught them unaware So quizzical, especially one, I know he was the teenage son, he circled in for a closer look, half-hid behind a tree, he poked his head from side to side not quite believing I was me. He stood quite still, he stared me down, when I didn’t move he stomped the ground to scare me off, no doubt. Pubescent nubs for antlers, feet splayed in awkward pose, a braggadocio swagger, a bumbling young buck boast. It amused me so, this woodland show, I almost burst out laughing. He circled once, he circled twice, to him I was most baffling. Brown velvet eyes, ears standing at attention, stately, splendid, even as he stood in his comical stance, an image forever sculpted, on my privileged eye, all by happenstance, that morning in the wood. Cameron Pieples, Hamilton County (age 4)
The Deer With The Bird on Its Head The deer with the bird on its head is in the grass. It ate your plants. It is brown. The bird is black. They are friends. They dance together. They eat together. They play together. Ethan Pieples, Hamilton County (age 6) The Bunny Carrot I see a bunny. The Bunny eats a carrot. He cuts up the carrot, then he sees me. He does not share his carrot With his friend the deer. He eats it off the ground. Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
The Deer Bowls I hated eating from those bowls with the small deer beside a pine tree with red mushrooms. "If you finish your spaghetti, you get to see the deer." 7 bowls, one for each grandchild. Every 2 weeks grandmother had a slumber party and we would all get a sandwich baggie full of peanuts to put out for the birds. Even in winter. We thought she was happy. Later when her mind was slipping like a rock-spill in a mine the canary flew out of her. She cried and said those were not Her bowls. They had belonged to grandfather's first wife. She had wanted something for herself. Now I eat my poor imitation of her chicken with rice, tomato, onion and hot sauce, with foolish urgency. She is there, I am certain, behind the pine tree. The Picture Window
Now she has her bed pulled next to a picture window in the country. Her days of walking have fallen away. There are fawns, "small as dogs" that visit and kick at the squirrels. Sometimes they panic when their mother gets out of sight. "Do you think those hummingbirds are your father visiting me?" "I'm certain of it I answer," and I believe my words. She used to be a city woman. Now her life is nature and woodpeckers and deer, this she says, is all she needs. Cathy Meyer, Monroe County
I Saw You First You, meandering through the sun dappled woods Chewing a bite of jewelweed with Rain spangled leaves. Me, still as the trees as you Tiptoed closer, Ears swiveling, nose twitching With the human scent. You stamped your foot, Craned your neck and Almost touched my hand, Snorted, turned and walked away, Looking over your shoulder, White tail at half-mast. |
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Shari Wagner
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
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Poems from June's Bridge Prompt
Beeson Bridge (above): Photo by Jackie Huppenthal, Lake County Terri Gorney, Adams County The Last Covered Bridge The last covered bridge has witnessed 157 Indiana summers Summers of watching the Wabash meander to the Ohio Summers of simple living, of lazy days fishing, of paddling and swimming The last covered bridge stands proudly painted in red over Rainbow Bottom The place Gene Stratton-Porter made famous in Song of the Cardinal The place where Horseshoe Bend wraps the Sycamores The last covered bridge is tucked into southern Adams County A place that echoes of the sounds of horses and carriages rolling by A place where footpaths invite one to explore hidden secrets The last covered bridge is part of the richly woven tapestry of the Limberlost Along with the bald eagle that once again soars over the Upper Wabash, And regal Tall Thistle that greeted the first pioneers at the Loblolly Marsh Note: The Ceylon Bridge in Geneva is the last covered bridge on the Wabash River. |
Photo of Ceylon Bridge by Shari Wagner
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Joseph S. Pete, Lake County
Requiem for the Nine-Span Bridge Hammond's Nine-Span Bridge was a modern marvel of steel trusses. A bridge of that length could have spanned the mighty Ohio River. Instead, the wide truss bridge crossed the expansive Gibson Rail Yard. Riveted, latticed beams bore the brand of Inland Steel just up the road. The Inland Steel Mill, once a cast-iron certainty, is no more. The epically trussed bridge it birthed is no more. Rickety, rust-dappled aesthetics of yesteryear are no more. |
Photo by John J. Watkins, courtesy of The Times
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The penny-pinching Indiana Department of transportation
Replaced the postcard-worthy bridge with the most generic concrete stretch you could imagine.
Driving over the lengthy span,
You can no longer see the river of railroad lines,
The industrial waterway, the steel-plated channel of commerce.
Concrete barriers block the once-divine view.
There are no trusses, no spans, no nothing.
There's only unimaginative functionality
Stifling the life out of great but unlikely vistas.
Replaced the postcard-worthy bridge with the most generic concrete stretch you could imagine.
Driving over the lengthy span,
You can no longer see the river of railroad lines,
The industrial waterway, the steel-plated channel of commerce.
Concrete barriers block the once-divine view.
There are no trusses, no spans, no nothing.
There's only unimaginative functionality
Stifling the life out of great but unlikely vistas.
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Josh A. Brewer, Montgomery County Eosinophilic Esophagitis Your mother's milk was your first poison. Your body attacked your throat, my boy, but you smiled even when You stopped eating. A feeding therapist asked us, "You've heard that toddlers won't starve themselves to death? That is incorrect." You lost weight--your ribs visible, eventually skin sunk in dark furrows. You couldn't hold your malnourished head up while playing, lolled it on the ground. You wore a bandage around your head like something from a bad horror movie. You endured needles, shocks, lights, and cameras sent into your esophagus. Your breathing mask looked like a dragon or a firefighter. Your elbow braced so you couldn't touch your nose, pull out the tube. You smiled before passing out--in your mother's arms--my frail, dying boy. You asked with your eyes. Our mouths couldn't answer. Cannot. You ate air. |
Photo by Shari Wagner
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Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Dunns Bridge Dunn's Bridge, full of tales and lore, was built in the late 1890's by farmer J.D. Dunn whose land was bisected by the Kankakee River, who wanted ease in crossing for cattle grazing and field farming. The Bridge, one of the first in the area to cross the River, was built with trussed arches from the tear-down of the 1893 Columbian Exposition Fair in Chicago, not from the famous Ferris Wheel as once thought. The Bridge provided easy passage across the Kankakee, connecting residents of Jasper and Porter Counties. Wildlife was abundant, including bobcats, eagles, sandhill cranes and more. Vacation cottages and lodges began to appear on the Jasper side for fishing, river-boating and fun. Then came the dance halls, on the Porter side with music, dancing and liquor. Named "The Devil's Playground" by locals. Parents warned their daughters and sons, "Don't cross the Bridge, lest the Devil get you, you'll NEVER return." A lodge and a few cottages remain, the Bridge, now a 'walking bridge only' is a reminder of early settlers who left us rich history and more pages of lore to uncover. Bridge of Possibilities inspired by a painting by Doris Myers The young man packs his few personal belongings, hops in his jalopy and heads down the dusty country road to the bridge. The bridge of possibilities. The bridge to everywhere. Behind him is country life, with corn fields, trees, open spaces, evening stars and people he loves. happiness and sadness enter his heart also expectation Ahead is the bridge. Crossing the bridge represents possibilities beyond his imagination. Cities, offices, sidewalks, traffic lights, museums and shops, but most of all it represents opportunity with people of every design to expand his knowledge of the world to help him find a focus for life. big dreams fill his waking hours and sleeping hours M. June Yates, Montgomery County Covered Bridge There is a rusty, red majesty to this Deer Mill's Bridge, Suspended over murky Sugar Creek, It's entrance warns "Walk your horse. Do not trot," Secret memories from one hundred years ago, Young boys with cane poles and faded hitched up bibs, Playing hooky from one room school, Young lovers stealing kisses in the dark. A black buggy country Doctor rushing to the rhythm of a woman's birth pangs, Making horse hooves echo through time like thunder. Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Stone Bridge Across the ocean we stood on the wily boat looking out at the Atlantic Ocean. Our line snagged two small silver mackerel at once. Near the stone bridge in the far distance I could see death waving at us like a grandmother beckoning her babies. Her large breasts comforting and her apron covered with red sauce. We sailed on, toward the place of sheep and moss, and had strangers fry up those small morsels—never knowing the quick escape we made—the fleeting turn we took. The bridge we did not cross-- The terror we evaded, the vision faded and the mist of rain did lift and the stone bridge dissipated. Where the Creek Was
We gathered eggs, the green, the brown and father let me sip his coffee and once he sat me on his knee-- but just that once—I remember still-- that solitary moment—iron skillets filled with gravy and sausage and eggs-- I remember it still—and how we drove across Indiana bridges-- mother warned me not to aim my camera in any direction of the Amish-- we need to respect those people with their faceless dolls and their banana bread and their perfection in wood, and we followed slowly with their orange caution “slow” emblems across all the dark bridges headed toward crawfish and shallow water to where the creek was. 
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Dunns Bridge
Dogface Bridge by Doris Myers
Photo by M. June Yates
Photo by Shari Wagner, Goshen bridge
Photo by Jackie Huppenthal, West Union Bridge
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Connie Kingman, Jasper County the bridge at midday they stand on opposite sides he takes the first step |
Photo by Connie Kingman / Bicentennial Park Pedestrian Bridge, Rensselaer
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My uncle and aunt's barn in LaGrange County
Poems from May's Barn Prompt
Allen Brenneman / Elkhart County
Life of a Barn
there is a sense of loss
when I step into the arms
of the old barn
the silence deafening only
creaking of the timbers
no sound of animals or of bird
it used to be a place of life
the cows and sheep and pigs
hay and pigeons in the loft
the odor remains combination
of hay and grain and animal
and i miss those days
before the barn retired
Allen Brenneman / Elkhart County
Life of a Barn
there is a sense of loss
when I step into the arms
of the old barn
the silence deafening only
creaking of the timbers
no sound of animals or of bird
it used to be a place of life
the cows and sheep and pigs
hay and pigeons in the loft
the odor remains combination
of hay and grain and animal
and i miss those days
before the barn retired
Photo by Shari Wagner
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
Oh, Barn
Oh, barn,
to gaze upon your weary structure,
I feel the years come in on me.
Each of us time-worn,
entropy our task master,
as foundations crumble,
shingles gray and fall away.
Then, in the blink of an eye,
bold streaks of sunlight
burst through your deteriorating frame.
You appear as though made of light
in weightless splendor.
I am overcome,
once again hopeful,
aware of my own spirit,
created of light,
held in this mimicking vessel
Oh, Barn
Oh, barn,
to gaze upon your weary structure,
I feel the years come in on me.
Each of us time-worn,
entropy our task master,
as foundations crumble,
shingles gray and fall away.
Then, in the blink of an eye,
bold streaks of sunlight
burst through your deteriorating frame.
You appear as though made of light
in weightless splendor.
I am overcome,
once again hopeful,
aware of my own spirit,
created of light,
held in this mimicking vessel
"Neier Barn" / Painting by Doris Myer
Doris Myer, Jasper County
History Restored
The stooped and elderly figure
stands in the open doorway
of his newly restored barn.
Though missing the traditional red paint,
he smiles, knowing its brown steel roof and siding
will preserve the historical structure
for many future generations.
Inside remains original stanchions and stalls.
The raw wood walls retain barn smells
of animals, straw, and hay.
A collection of well-used but obsolete tools,
hanging on the walls and displayed about,
create his personal museum.
History Restored
The stooped and elderly figure
stands in the open doorway
of his newly restored barn.
Though missing the traditional red paint,
he smiles, knowing its brown steel roof and siding
will preserve the historical structure
for many future generations.
Inside remains original stanchions and stalls.
The raw wood walls retain barn smells
of animals, straw, and hay.
A collection of well-used but obsolete tools,
hanging on the walls and displayed about,
create his personal museum.
Photo by Shari Wagner
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Shadows of Yesterday
Across an open field,
stood a shadow of yesterday.
A barn of the past
in abandoned disarray
in a fallow field.
The barn stands deserted
sheltered by a stately old sycamore
its softly mottled trunk
blends with faded paint, forlorn
in bright bleaching sun.
No milk cows graze the pasture
or follow nose to tail to the barn for milking.
No farmer calling to his herd
Only cricket songs are lilting
Otherwise a quiet summer day
In my mind's eye, I see
the image of a man
his bib overalls seem to
imply a task at hand
a young boy walks beside him.
A mirage appears in the distance,
small children are running after
a dog with a bushy tail
I hear their merry laughter
wafting on the summer air.
Only shadows of yesterday!
Shadows of Yesterday
Across an open field,
stood a shadow of yesterday.
A barn of the past
in abandoned disarray
in a fallow field.
The barn stands deserted
sheltered by a stately old sycamore
its softly mottled trunk
blends with faded paint, forlorn
in bright bleaching sun.
No milk cows graze the pasture
or follow nose to tail to the barn for milking.
No farmer calling to his herd
Only cricket songs are lilting
Otherwise a quiet summer day
In my mind's eye, I see
the image of a man
his bib overalls seem to
imply a task at hand
a young boy walks beside him.
A mirage appears in the distance,
small children are running after
a dog with a bushy tail
I hear their merry laughter
wafting on the summer air.
Only shadows of yesterday!
My grandfather's barn in LaGrange County
The Arboretum
Acres of property were ours to explore.
There was a wading stream, a pond with ducks,
a bridge to cross where we came upon a barn.
Should we go in? Why not.
No one was in sight so we stepped inside.
Bravado increases with group size.
We were all laughing and joking until
the boys got out their matches and cigarettes.
Jimmy offered us one. Imelda accepted.
Violet began by saying, first quietly, then louder,
"No smoking in the barn." The boys paid no attention,
the girls, laughing, the boys and Imelda, smoking.
The fragrance of freshly baled hay fills my nostrils yet,
as a slant of sunbeams brightens the faces of
Laurie and Jimmy as they sat backs to a bale, a
Norman Rockwell painting in the making,
framed in my brain all these years later.
A spark fell unnoticed, until a wisp of smoldering smoke
spiraled. Panicked, Laurie ran to find water,
told Jimmy to stay and pee on it. The girls ran outside.
When Laurie got back with a pail of water, no smoke,
the fire was out. He dumped the pail on the hay and we
scurried out unseen, never to return. Never spoke of that day again.
Acres of property were ours to explore.
There was a wading stream, a pond with ducks,
a bridge to cross where we came upon a barn.
Should we go in? Why not.
No one was in sight so we stepped inside.
Bravado increases with group size.
We were all laughing and joking until
the boys got out their matches and cigarettes.
Jimmy offered us one. Imelda accepted.
Violet began by saying, first quietly, then louder,
"No smoking in the barn." The boys paid no attention,
the girls, laughing, the boys and Imelda, smoking.
The fragrance of freshly baled hay fills my nostrils yet,
as a slant of sunbeams brightens the faces of
Laurie and Jimmy as they sat backs to a bale, a
Norman Rockwell painting in the making,
framed in my brain all these years later.
A spark fell unnoticed, until a wisp of smoldering smoke
spiraled. Panicked, Laurie ran to find water,
told Jimmy to stay and pee on it. The girls ran outside.
When Laurie got back with a pail of water, no smoke,
the fire was out. He dumped the pail on the hay and we
scurried out unseen, never to return. Never spoke of that day again.
Photo by Shari Wagner
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Barn Wood
The table where my family gathers
for every special occasion, is made
of reclaimed barn wood. Who knows
what lovers leaned against this wood--
what storm visited in the alternating heat
and cool of May. What pileated woodpecker
looked towards this wood, then luckily for us
was distracted.
Barn Wood
The table where my family gathers
for every special occasion, is made
of reclaimed barn wood. Who knows
what lovers leaned against this wood--
what storm visited in the alternating heat
and cool of May. What pileated woodpecker
looked towards this wood, then luckily for us
was distracted.
Gene Stratton-Porter's childhood barn
The Lost Art
The Saint Francis of Assisi
statues were made inside that barn.
Back then we only had one mold.
I wish I had paid more attention.
I was told to sit on the yellow
vinyl step stool that faced an old easel.
I was given tips on painting--
teeth are not white.
Inside that barn, mother would
make statues, and I would paint.
We would predict all the wonderful owls
that would move into that barn to keep us company--
they never came.
We would talk about all the money
we would make selling statues,
but some weeks we made enough
for the family to go to Dairy Queen.
Mother was unsentimental.
Even then I understood my art
would not be saved. The one time
I saw her cry was when the lambs
were stillborn. This afternoon,
I drove out there, moss was growing
in large patches on the roof.
I discovered I was wrong.
There, on a shelf, wrapped in a plastic
tablecloth were some of my drawings.
My art was not like I remembered--
I was certain the Masterpieces
must be kept someplace sacred.
Perhaps placed inside the statues
to keep all the gardens safe
and to watch over all the
lost lambs of the world.
The Saint Francis of Assisi
statues were made inside that barn.
Back then we only had one mold.
I wish I had paid more attention.
I was told to sit on the yellow
vinyl step stool that faced an old easel.
I was given tips on painting--
teeth are not white.
Inside that barn, mother would
make statues, and I would paint.
We would predict all the wonderful owls
that would move into that barn to keep us company--
they never came.
We would talk about all the money
we would make selling statues,
but some weeks we made enough
for the family to go to Dairy Queen.
Mother was unsentimental.
Even then I understood my art
would not be saved. The one time
I saw her cry was when the lambs
were stillborn. This afternoon,
I drove out there, moss was growing
in large patches on the roof.
I discovered I was wrong.
There, on a shelf, wrapped in a plastic
tablecloth were some of my drawings.
My art was not like I remembered--
I was certain the Masterpieces
must be kept someplace sacred.
Perhaps placed inside the statues
to keep all the gardens safe
and to watch over all the
lost lambs of the world.
Cope Woods / photos by Shari Wagner
Poems from April's Bird Prompt
Above: Painting by Father Gregory de Wit in the Chapter Room
of St. Meinrad Archabbey, St. Meinrad, Indiana
Jacqueline Dickey, St. Joseph County
Big Heron Water
The blue moon veil arrives high
between the trees; lingers.
We sit near embers
that pulse in the fire,
like fireflies in a jar,
a heart throbbing inside ribs,
a thousand-petaled sky
concealed under clouds.
There are deep-throated frogs
who don't stop at midnight,
peacocks in the distance
who cry like cats
burning with instinct.
Summer wind on skin
is something I wish
to take with me when I die--
and the evening fragrance
of those lilies by the door.
You woke up feeling dizzy
this morning, left your harmonica
by the fire next to your gloves.
After you left for bed,
I thought of plows and mules.
I tell you, I bled the smell of your earth
through my pores. I laughed thinking of
your stinging nettle story--
you, shirtless on a bike . . . me, gathering
them in bags to dry for soup.
There is a womb we were both
born from--not our mothers'--
a place we gestated in
to wait for one another.
You hear spring peepers there,
I wrote you a poem
about the moon.
I touch the photo you took of the grackle
who flew over our bed squawking,
its wings arched open over us
like a shaman's cape
unfolding and scattering possibilities
too big to imagine.
I followed bear tracks in search of you.
You heard my beagle hoot like an owl.
How is it that we ever stumble upon
what we look for
with these odd tracks,
these obscure markers?
We can long to find a blue heron,
sit quietly, scan the horizon.
But all of life is just a gesture,
a hopeful rowing of the canoe
toward what lies still
in the brush.
Above: Painting by Father Gregory de Wit in the Chapter Room
of St. Meinrad Archabbey, St. Meinrad, Indiana
Jacqueline Dickey, St. Joseph County
Big Heron Water
The blue moon veil arrives high
between the trees; lingers.
We sit near embers
that pulse in the fire,
like fireflies in a jar,
a heart throbbing inside ribs,
a thousand-petaled sky
concealed under clouds.
There are deep-throated frogs
who don't stop at midnight,
peacocks in the distance
who cry like cats
burning with instinct.
Summer wind on skin
is something I wish
to take with me when I die--
and the evening fragrance
of those lilies by the door.
You woke up feeling dizzy
this morning, left your harmonica
by the fire next to your gloves.
After you left for bed,
I thought of plows and mules.
I tell you, I bled the smell of your earth
through my pores. I laughed thinking of
your stinging nettle story--
you, shirtless on a bike . . . me, gathering
them in bags to dry for soup.
There is a womb we were both
born from--not our mothers'--
a place we gestated in
to wait for one another.
You hear spring peepers there,
I wrote you a poem
about the moon.
I touch the photo you took of the grackle
who flew over our bed squawking,
its wings arched open over us
like a shaman's cape
unfolding and scattering possibilities
too big to imagine.
I followed bear tracks in search of you.
You heard my beagle hoot like an owl.
How is it that we ever stumble upon
what we look for
with these odd tracks,
these obscure markers?
We can long to find a blue heron,
sit quietly, scan the horizon.
But all of life is just a gesture,
a hopeful rowing of the canoe
toward what lies still
in the brush.
Lake Michigan
Joseph S. Pete, Lake County
Seagull
Skittish seagull,
Easy to startle, quick to take flight,
You pick upon the carrion of beach detritus,
Pluck your sharp bill upon careless refuse,
And react to every passerby
As though they're an existential threat.
Oh squawking scavenger,
Plumed and ivory-splendored sky rat,
You travel in mobs.
You plunge-dive and hawk live prey.
You get ferocious in feeding frenzies,
But treat every lackadaisical, sandalled beach-goer
Trying to snap your pic on a smartphone
As an apex predator.
Dearest seagull,
You clearly lack perspective.
You circle around mall parking lots
Miles and miles from Lake Michigan,
Mistaking a sea of asphalt
For a viable, sustaining ecosystem.
Seagull
Skittish seagull,
Easy to startle, quick to take flight,
You pick upon the carrion of beach detritus,
Pluck your sharp bill upon careless refuse,
And react to every passerby
As though they're an existential threat.
Oh squawking scavenger,
Plumed and ivory-splendored sky rat,
You travel in mobs.
You plunge-dive and hawk live prey.
You get ferocious in feeding frenzies,
But treat every lackadaisical, sandalled beach-goer
Trying to snap your pic on a smartphone
As an apex predator.
Dearest seagull,
You clearly lack perspective.
You circle around mall parking lots
Miles and miles from Lake Michigan,
Mistaking a sea of asphalt
For a viable, sustaining ecosystem.
Cope Woods
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
Self Portrait
I am like that small sparrow
perched on a delicate branch
high in the oak tree
that with abandon
sings an inherent song,
as if for the first time,
beholding its world from that lofty height
aware of One perched yet higher.
Self Portrait
I am like that small sparrow
perched on a delicate branch
high in the oak tree
that with abandon
sings an inherent song,
as if for the first time,
beholding its world from that lofty height
aware of One perched yet higher.
Seagull / photo by Jeanne Schkeryantz
Jeanne Schkeryantz, Hamilton County
The Dunes
my heart doth beat
the score complete
a gull flying by
and in his pursuit
he finds I suit
his curiosity.
The Dunes
my heart doth beat
the score complete
a gull flying by
and in his pursuit
he finds I suit
his curiosity.
Cattails along the Goshen Millrace
Riverside
you, feathered friend
the only way to be
you come and go
leave a note
wander on your way.
The joy you leave
a constant companion
hear the melody?
Away, down yonder
where the cattails play.
The heart longs to stay.
you, feathered friend
the only way to be
you come and go
leave a note
wander on your way.
The joy you leave
a constant companion
hear the melody?
Away, down yonder
where the cattails play.
The heart longs to stay.
Sunset in Grant County
Mari Lommel, Monroe County, Unionville Elementary School
Grade 4, "Why I Love This Wild Animal" First Place Winner
Sponsored by the Indiana Nature Conservancy
Little Cardinal
Little cardinal,
Soaring through the sky,
Your feathers are the sunset,
Your golden beak in the sunlight I spy.
Please accept this crumb of bread
So when you go to bed,
You'll feel happy and fed,
Like me.
Little music maker,
Tweeting like a machine gun,
You stand proud as a red flamingo
Bolding singing like a flute
There alone in the sparkling snow.
Grade 4, "Why I Love This Wild Animal" First Place Winner
Sponsored by the Indiana Nature Conservancy
Little Cardinal
Little cardinal,
Soaring through the sky,
Your feathers are the sunset,
Your golden beak in the sunlight I spy.
Please accept this crumb of bread
So when you go to bed,
You'll feel happy and fed,
Like me.
Little music maker,
Tweeting like a machine gun,
You stand proud as a red flamingo
Bolding singing like a flute
There alone in the sparkling snow.
Fort Harrison State Park
Lilah Reed, Monroe County, Unionville Elementary School
Grade 4, "Why I Love This Wild Animal" submission
Sponsored by the Indiana Nature Conservancy
Wild Woodpecker
You hang on trees,
Don't mess with bees,
But insects are your meat.
Bark is not what you eat,
But pecking it leaves your mark.
You have a spiky red head,
A nest is what you call bed.
You are mostly black.
When you hit your head on bark,
It makes a curious crack.
Grade 4, "Why I Love This Wild Animal" submission
Sponsored by the Indiana Nature Conservancy
Wild Woodpecker
You hang on trees,
Don't mess with bees,
But insects are your meat.
Bark is not what you eat,
But pecking it leaves your mark.
You have a spiky red head,
A nest is what you call bed.
You are mostly black.
When you hit your head on bark,
It makes a curious crack.
Olin Lake Nature Preserve
John Groppe, Jasper County
The Crow and the Rabbit
A crow dropped from a poplar branch
into the strewn dead grass of a nest below
and scattered the grass with his beak--
quickly, thoroughly--and flew away
leaving tufts of soft, grey hair
mixed with the grass and a small burrow
in a root mound at the base of the tree.
A rabbit came and stopping
stared at the grass and fur.
Neither the crow nor the rabbit have returned.
Should the crow be praised for making sure
he got all his prey in his earlier raid
or the rabbit's loss lamented?
The wind blowing away the grass and fur
leaves only the scar of the burrow.
The Crow and the Rabbit
A crow dropped from a poplar branch
into the strewn dead grass of a nest below
and scattered the grass with his beak--
quickly, thoroughly--and flew away
leaving tufts of soft, grey hair
mixed with the grass and a small burrow
in a root mound at the base of the tree.
A rabbit came and stopping
stared at the grass and fur.
Neither the crow nor the rabbit have returned.
Should the crow be praised for making sure
he got all his prey in his earlier raid
or the rabbit's loss lamented?
The wind blowing away the grass and fur
leaves only the scar of the burrow.
Rosemary Freedman (Hamilton County)
Bird Feeding
Mitchell Indiana, during the depression
Dirty feet, sitting on the bottom step
making circles in the dirt with a stick-
this was the way it was-- boiled onions
for dinner, and whenever something
bad was about to happen, his father
would tear a handful of bread, and
say “bird feeding time.” This meant
go outside. Go outside and stay outside.
In the house one of the younger children
was taking a last breath, from Scarlet Fever,
or something of the like.
He remembers that one Christmas
someone left oranges on the porch.
There were five bird feedings. Five boxes.
His one wish, to stay inside, to be near
when they crossed over. Forever after,
when he sees birds, he feels the lids have been lifted
from those pine boxes, and he is comforted
by the chirping that seems to say “We’re ok.”
When he brings bread to his lips,
it is a sort of communion.
Bird Feeding
Mitchell Indiana, during the depression
Dirty feet, sitting on the bottom step
making circles in the dirt with a stick-
this was the way it was-- boiled onions
for dinner, and whenever something
bad was about to happen, his father
would tear a handful of bread, and
say “bird feeding time.” This meant
go outside. Go outside and stay outside.
In the house one of the younger children
was taking a last breath, from Scarlet Fever,
or something of the like.
He remembers that one Christmas
someone left oranges on the porch.
There were five bird feedings. Five boxes.
His one wish, to stay inside, to be near
when they crossed over. Forever after,
when he sees birds, he feels the lids have been lifted
from those pine boxes, and he is comforted
by the chirping that seems to say “We’re ok.”
When he brings bread to his lips,
it is a sort of communion.
Redbud and Cardinal
Hawks and Hummingbirds
It is just me
sitting after the rain.
The hawks fly overhead
and I can faintly see
that they have caught
something. I am at peace
with the sound I hear,
something being eaten
and in between
birds of all sizes
and colors, eat the free dinner
I have just set out.
A hummingbird
flits by like
a relative popping their
head in just long
enough to say they
visited. The smallest
and the large
crossing over my red
bee-balm, with its lovely smell.
I would say that I sit peacefully--
but you all know I’m trying to
record every moment with my I-Phone.
It is just me
sitting after the rain.
The hawks fly overhead
and I can faintly see
that they have caught
something. I am at peace
with the sound I hear,
something being eaten
and in between
birds of all sizes
and colors, eat the free dinner
I have just set out.
A hummingbird
flits by like
a relative popping their
head in just long
enough to say they
visited. The smallest
and the large
crossing over my red
bee-balm, with its lovely smell.
I would say that I sit peacefully--
but you all know I’m trying to
record every moment with my I-Phone.
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Spring Poem
In Spring's mud wonder,
A blue jay,
that dandy
with his jaunty chest
and vivid coloring,
spies his rival
reflection
in a rainbow puddle
and
Squawks!
Spring Poem
In Spring's mud wonder,
A blue jay,
that dandy
with his jaunty chest
and vivid coloring,
spies his rival
reflection
in a rainbow puddle
and
Squawks!
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
To a Marsh Hawk
You didn't see me watching you
from the window
you didn't know I saw you swoop in
to the middle of the birdbath to
stand warily eyeing your surroundings
now and then dipping and sipping
You began to splash,
first timidly
then with abandon
spreading your tail to
umbrella-size
scooping a tail full of water
flipping it onto your head and back
rocking head to tail in wild splashes
shimmy-shaking off the water
until your breast feathers looked like eider down
rolling side to side with wings lifted
for a wing-pit freshening
all in Marsh-Hawk-glee
a high old time in this small pool
for this large bird
for twenty-five minutes the show went on
to my unblinking eyes
To a Marsh Hawk
You didn't see me watching you
from the window
you didn't know I saw you swoop in
to the middle of the birdbath to
stand warily eyeing your surroundings
now and then dipping and sipping
You began to splash,
first timidly
then with abandon
spreading your tail to
umbrella-size
scooping a tail full of water
flipping it onto your head and back
rocking head to tail in wild splashes
shimmy-shaking off the water
until your breast feathers looked like eider down
rolling side to side with wings lifted
for a wing-pit freshening
all in Marsh-Hawk-glee
a high old time in this small pool
for this large bird
for twenty-five minutes the show went on
to my unblinking eyes
Goose Pasture with Sandhill Cranes
The Cranes of Jasper County/Goose Pasture
The cornfields now are ripe with harvest.
The stalks are crisp and dry.
Overhead the Sandhill music
Floats across October skies.
Beautiful as prairie flowers,
Gray as the clouds of winter,
The cranes seek out Goose Pasture
Where they roost in quiet hours.
Then at first light they flood the fields
In spiraling, graceful flocks
To glean the grain from farmer’s plots.
But the magical time is sunset.
Wheel after wheel of circling cranes
Drops down upon the sod. Parachuting and landing on
Pendulum legs, amid the
Clamor of garbling squads,
They call to their young and mates.
Each year some ten thousand
Stop off to cast another set of
Footprints on the landscape of the past.
What ageless spirit embodies these
Lovely cranes as they gather,
Bowing and flap-dancing their
Human, primitive dance?
It’s twenty years since first I saw these
Ancient birds spread six-foot wings to preen
And flap-dance. Twenty years of
Listening for their mystic calls across
The flyway’s great expanse.
Much has changed these twenty years.
Now unhurried footsteps mark a slower gait as
Life becomes more measured time and pace.
One day in late November, I’ll wake
And follow them as they leave their haunting
Ethereal music to drift out over time and space.
The cornfields now are ripe with harvest.
The stalks are crisp and dry.
Overhead the Sandhill music
Floats across October skies.
Beautiful as prairie flowers,
Gray as the clouds of winter,
The cranes seek out Goose Pasture
Where they roost in quiet hours.
Then at first light they flood the fields
In spiraling, graceful flocks
To glean the grain from farmer’s plots.
But the magical time is sunset.
Wheel after wheel of circling cranes
Drops down upon the sod. Parachuting and landing on
Pendulum legs, amid the
Clamor of garbling squads,
They call to their young and mates.
Each year some ten thousand
Stop off to cast another set of
Footprints on the landscape of the past.
What ageless spirit embodies these
Lovely cranes as they gather,
Bowing and flap-dancing their
Human, primitive dance?
It’s twenty years since first I saw these
Ancient birds spread six-foot wings to preen
And flap-dance. Twenty years of
Listening for their mystic calls across
The flyway’s great expanse.
Much has changed these twenty years.
Now unhurried footsteps mark a slower gait as
Life becomes more measured time and pace.
One day in late November, I’ll wake
And follow them as they leave their haunting
Ethereal music to drift out over time and space.
Photo by Shari Wagner / Above: Helen Link Hill near Booklyn, Indiana
Poems from the March Flower Prompt
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Ox-eye Daisies
While clinging to a roadside edge
dauntless Ox-eye Daisies pledge
bountiful enchanting blooms,
despite the auto's toxic fumes.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Ox-eye Daisies
While clinging to a roadside edge
dauntless Ox-eye Daisies pledge
bountiful enchanting blooms,
despite the auto's toxic fumes.
Stock photo, Tussilago
Coltsfoot
in the bare foothills
of the Laurel Mountains
on a cold March day
between dripping layers of shale
one blooming coltsfoot.
in the bare foothills
of the Laurel Mountains
on a cold March day
between dripping layers of shale
one blooming coltsfoot.
Stock photo from Pixabay
Peonies
How could I have missed the peonies?
They’re gone for another year.
Hard rains came by and shot them down
Like a practiced bombardier.
The stately stems lay on the ground,
Their muddy blossoms wilted,
Fragrance gone till another June
Leaving admirers jilted.
How could I have missed the peonies?
They’re gone for another year.
Hard rains came by and shot them down
Like a practiced bombardier.
The stately stems lay on the ground,
Their muddy blossoms wilted,
Fragrance gone till another June
Leaving admirers jilted.
Photo by June Yates
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Winter Poem
In too late Winter
a purple crocus
peeps forth
beneath a gossamer blanket
of snow
to proclaim
undaunted
the coming of Spring.
Winter Poem
In too late Winter
a purple crocus
peeps forth
beneath a gossamer blanket
of snow
to proclaim
undaunted
the coming of Spring.
Photo by Shari Wagner, Garfield Park Conservatory
Christine Schmitt, Hamilton County
OH! Pretty Purple Orchid
Oh! Pretty purple orchid
Majestically free
Captivatedly aromatic
Standing tall
Bravely, courageously
Against all adversity
Unencumbered
Uninhibited.
With your fragrant medley
Of divine opulence
Lingering, wafting
Like angels riding a feathered cloud
Blissfully, safeguarding humanity.
Your petals silently beckoning me
To touch your tantalizing silky smooth petals
Powdered with seductive pollen
Sensually alluring to my fingertips
Oh! Pretty purple orchid
You are a temptress in disguise.
OH! Pretty Purple Orchid
Oh! Pretty purple orchid
Majestically free
Captivatedly aromatic
Standing tall
Bravely, courageously
Against all adversity
Unencumbered
Uninhibited.
With your fragrant medley
Of divine opulence
Lingering, wafting
Like angels riding a feathered cloud
Blissfully, safeguarding humanity.
Your petals silently beckoning me
To touch your tantalizing silky smooth petals
Powdered with seductive pollen
Sensually alluring to my fingertips
Oh! Pretty purple orchid
You are a temptress in disguise.
Photo by Iona Wagner
Freda Pitman (Morgan County)
When Sherman Trampled Mommy's Flowers
My father worked the second shift and went to bed about 2:00 am.
We could tell by looking at him if it was going to be a bad day.
We were not allowed to call him father. We had to call him Sherman.
The only good thing about him is he worked like a dog.
He built our house by hand with a mold that made two blocks at a time.
Mommy would garden. She could plant any flower, and get a pinch off someone else's flower
and grow more.
He trampled her flowers, because she loved them.
This was Wolf-creek road. The only wolf on the road was my father.
She grew purple and yellow iris, and roses. There were flowers everywhere.
Sherman would trample them and she would grow more.
We had three cherry trees, black cherries, three plum trees, and apple trees.
Hollyhocks were lavender. We had blue-jays, redbirds, and hummingbirds buzzing.
The only thing I miss about that whole place is my brothers, Tom and Troy and Bob.
The man across the road knew my father would tear things up just to be mean, so for years after
Sherman went to work, Mommy would cross the street and tend a big vegetable garden, and I
guess he thought somebody gave us all those vegetables. My last trip home I stopped by the old
place and took some cuttings off the old rose bushes.
I can see them now.
When Sherman Trampled Mommy's Flowers
My father worked the second shift and went to bed about 2:00 am.
We could tell by looking at him if it was going to be a bad day.
We were not allowed to call him father. We had to call him Sherman.
The only good thing about him is he worked like a dog.
He built our house by hand with a mold that made two blocks at a time.
Mommy would garden. She could plant any flower, and get a pinch off someone else's flower
and grow more.
He trampled her flowers, because she loved them.
This was Wolf-creek road. The only wolf on the road was my father.
She grew purple and yellow iris, and roses. There were flowers everywhere.
Sherman would trample them and she would grow more.
We had three cherry trees, black cherries, three plum trees, and apple trees.
Hollyhocks were lavender. We had blue-jays, redbirds, and hummingbirds buzzing.
The only thing I miss about that whole place is my brothers, Tom and Troy and Bob.
The man across the road knew my father would tear things up just to be mean, so for years after
Sherman went to work, Mommy would cross the street and tend a big vegetable garden, and I
guess he thought somebody gave us all those vegetables. My last trip home I stopped by the old
place and took some cuttings off the old rose bushes.
I can see them now.
Photo by Shari Wagner, wild sunflowers at Prophetstown SP
Cameron Joseph Pieples (age 4, Hamilton County)
Planting Flowers
Look at this seed.
I planted it and then
grew one big flower
like this. It was a
yellow sunflower.
I liked it.
It was taller than me.
Planting Flowers
Look at this seed.
I planted it and then
grew one big flower
like this. It was a
yellow sunflower.
I liked it.
It was taller than me.
Ethan Xavier Pieples (age 6, Hamilton County)
I Grew a Flower Too
I grew it.
It is really beautiful!
Do you like it?
Yes, I like it.
It looks like a red flower.
The stem is blue.
I Grew a Flower Too
I grew it.
It is really beautiful!
Do you like it?
Yes, I like it.
It looks like a red flower.
The stem is blue.
Photo by Shari Wagner
Rosemary Freedman (Hamilton County)
Flowers by the Sea on Isla Negra
Growing old his belly grew too,
the way an umbrella unfolds.
The way a picnic blanket
widens when it prepares to
be sat upon.
As a mouth yawns.
But that is overlooked
because of the arrangement
of words, because the love,
because the way the flowers
grow imperfect through
rocks near white sand.
The wildflowers cannot
help but multiply.
Flowers by the Sea on Isla Negra
Growing old his belly grew too,
the way an umbrella unfolds.
The way a picnic blanket
widens when it prepares to
be sat upon.
As a mouth yawns.
But that is overlooked
because of the arrangement
of words, because the love,
because the way the flowers
grow imperfect through
rocks near white sand.
The wildflowers cannot
help but multiply.
Photo by Rosemary Freedman
When Tulips Were Used as Currency
They say that in 1593 Carlos Clusius’s tulips were stolen.
The result is that in the next several decades tulips became rare.
Extremely rare, being traded for beds, and eaten mistakenly as onions.
They were so valuable that some people never planted them, but displayed the bulbs.
They were traded for currency. They were like stock options.
Two orphans inherited bulbs and traded them for 58,ooo US current dollars.
There were times when the bulbs were sold multiple times without even passing through
the hands of the buyers and sellers.
In 2015 I went to Walmart in Carmel, and due to an
ordering mistake, I bought bags of tulip bulbs for 10 cents a bag- that’s 30 tulips for 10 cents,
as opposed to 58,000.00 current US dollars for one bulb in 1637.
Between 1636 and 1637 in the Netherlands Tulipmania
was the thing. Some tulips at that time were traded for 12 acres of land,
thousands of pounds of cheese, fine clothes and sheep.
There were auctions and trades. And then suddenly the market died.
When I look at a tulip, I see simplicity, except
for the rare tulip, the one by the big tree in my side garden bed.
It is whitish-green and simple and profound.
They say that in 1593 Carlos Clusius’s tulips were stolen.
The result is that in the next several decades tulips became rare.
Extremely rare, being traded for beds, and eaten mistakenly as onions.
They were so valuable that some people never planted them, but displayed the bulbs.
They were traded for currency. They were like stock options.
Two orphans inherited bulbs and traded them for 58,ooo US current dollars.
There were times when the bulbs were sold multiple times without even passing through
the hands of the buyers and sellers.
In 2015 I went to Walmart in Carmel, and due to an
ordering mistake, I bought bags of tulip bulbs for 10 cents a bag- that’s 30 tulips for 10 cents,
as opposed to 58,000.00 current US dollars for one bulb in 1637.
Between 1636 and 1637 in the Netherlands Tulipmania
was the thing. Some tulips at that time were traded for 12 acres of land,
thousands of pounds of cheese, fine clothes and sheep.
There were auctions and trades. And then suddenly the market died.
When I look at a tulip, I see simplicity, except
for the rare tulip, the one by the big tree in my side garden bed.
It is whitish-green and simple and profound.
Poems from February's "Indiana River" Prompt
Gwynn Wills, Montgomery County
Ardeas Herodias
I trembled when the shrieking beat
flew past and landed
in the cocoa foam of White River
Solitary
Silent
I watched as she dipped her dagger
into the river, washing the catch
down a drainpipe neck.
A plume, flaring backward,
adorned her narrow head
Grey mistress of the morning,
namesake of the Baptist killer,
safe in the camouflage
of the foggy arbor.
Gwynn Wills, Montgomery County
Ardeas Herodias
I trembled when the shrieking beat
flew past and landed
in the cocoa foam of White River
Solitary
Silent
I watched as she dipped her dagger
into the river, washing the catch
down a drainpipe neck.
A plume, flaring backward,
adorned her narrow head
Grey mistress of the morning,
namesake of the Baptist killer,
safe in the camouflage
of the foggy arbor.
Mark Williams' father
Mark Williams, Vanderburgh County
Targets
Dawn, a November day, 1943
In the nose, bent across his bombsight,
the bombardier is first to see the river,
first of ten crewmen to cross it,
to leave Kentucky and enter Indiana--
a training run from Dyersburg, Tennessee,
to Evansville, his hometown. The bombardier,
or bomber as he likes to call himself,
dials the air speed, wind, and altitude
into his sight. He engages a clutch
and now controls the plane’s direction,
bending with the Ohio, keeping
the LST shipyards between cross-hairs,
ten thousand feet above the city--
barges the size of tree trunks
he had seen jam the bank when,
as a boy, he stepped from tree to tree upriver.
The bombsight calls for bombs.
Training cameras click. The pilot
retakes the plane, circling the town.
The bomber sits upright, looking down
through Plexiglas that bulges like a lens.
He makes out Bosse Field, Garvin Park.
He thinks he sees his mother’s restaurant.
He imagines her wearing her pale blue apron,
pouring coffee at the horseshoe counter.
There’s a jukebox in the corner playing
a country-and-western tune. Beside
the jukebox stands The Sinking Sun machine.
It shoots light rays at a Japanese soldier
who weaves through tiny palm trees.
Someone fires. The soldier spins.
Across the room the bomber sees himself,
sipping coffee, reading the paper,
even as four Wright engines
push him farther from his home.
From this moment, he will later tell his son,
he never doubts that he’ll return.
Safe. To all of this.
--Previously published in The Evansville Courier & Press
Marilyn Ashbaugh, St. Joseph County
one St. Joe summer
a dare to swim across
five dissolve to four
Elizabeth Krajeck, Marion County
On the Side of the Wabash
The Wabash, Indiana’s official river,
over 475 miles, free-flowing as if a highway
from northwest Ohio, then downstate
where the river is the Indiana-Illinois border.
Usually a gentle stretch, it flows through Vigo
to Posey County, where this story begins.
June 2008, a heavy air mass
over the Wabash, cooled and dumped
up to 10 inches of rain. The worst
flooding in 100 years covered one square mile
after another, until 1700 acres of farmland
became an island on the Illinois side.
Raging water re-carved the riverbank,
redacted the farmland, roads became islands
forcing flexibility between the states
and among the deer swimming across
to Illinois and swimming back to Indiana.
Rerouted the Wabash attracted tourists
but worried farmers. The surveyor insisted,
“Land cut off by the river will belong to Indiana.”
But, the surveyor measured only distance,
and in four short years drought exposed
the riverbed. Children yearning
for tall grass wept, fearing it plowed under,
and yearning for the forests,
they cried for a habitat, cried for creatures,
large and small. Divided into two states,
Indiana and Illinois, the river down the middle,
it must be true, that when prairie was plowed
and the woods logged, the river wept too.
On the Side of the Wabash
The Wabash, Indiana’s official river,
over 475 miles, free-flowing as if a highway
from northwest Ohio, then downstate
where the river is the Indiana-Illinois border.
Usually a gentle stretch, it flows through Vigo
to Posey County, where this story begins.
June 2008, a heavy air mass
over the Wabash, cooled and dumped
up to 10 inches of rain. The worst
flooding in 100 years covered one square mile
after another, until 1700 acres of farmland
became an island on the Illinois side.
Raging water re-carved the riverbank,
redacted the farmland, roads became islands
forcing flexibility between the states
and among the deer swimming across
to Illinois and swimming back to Indiana.
Rerouted the Wabash attracted tourists
but worried farmers. The surveyor insisted,
“Land cut off by the river will belong to Indiana.”
But, the surveyor measured only distance,
and in four short years drought exposed
the riverbed. Children yearning
for tall grass wept, fearing it plowed under,
and yearning for the forests,
they cried for a habitat, cried for creatures,
large and small. Divided into two states,
Indiana and Illinois, the river down the middle,
it must be true, that when prairie was plowed
and the woods logged, the river wept too.
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Iroquois River Princess
For 43 years I had waited quietly
for Aunt Eleanor to pass away.
I had greedily coveted the green canoe
she promised to bequeath me.
When I was 8,
I spent 2 weeks in Rensselaer
with her and my cousin Ruthie.
For 14 days straight
we went out every day and climbed into that
small boat and rode along the shallow Iroquois River.
I never remembered the sun blazing
or the mosquitoes,
or having to pee,
or the wet shoes.
I remembered the swamp milk weed
and the blue butterflies,
and the baby skunks.
I remembered the young men with ropes
pulling logs that threatened to jam up
the river, and how they smiled and waved,
waist deep in the dirty water.
I recalled the bottles of Coca Cola and
the egg salad sandwiches,
and the Washington Street Bridge.
And how before we’d take off,
Auntie would braid our hair
and tie bric-a-brac
around the crown of our heads.
She would clear her throat and say
“You are an Iroquois River Princess
and you are an Iroquois River Princess.”
She did all the rowing.
When I left I cried and
I asked her if I could have that canoe someday.
For 43 years I traveled back down that river in my mind,
and now the call had come.
I drove my husband’s big truck
and brought tie downs.
Ruthie and I went back to the house after the funeral
and it had shrunk in that way things do as we grow older.
“Hey,” I said casually,
“whatever happened to that green canoe your mother promised me?
I think I have room in the truck for it.”
“We can go look at it, but you won’t want it” she said.
And there by the side of the water was this tiny canoe
with the paint peeling away, the wood rotten and a huge hole.
“Somehow I imagined you and Auntie
going out every day in that canoe. How crazy --
for 43 years, I imagined the two of you getting in that boat."
“Every day?” She exclaimed and laughed.
“Yes” I said, “I figured that I had to go home
and you were here every day being happy
and being the Iroquois River Princess.”
“Girl, my mother only did that
because your father paid her
and our electric had been shut off.”
Iroquois River Princess
For 43 years I had waited quietly
for Aunt Eleanor to pass away.
I had greedily coveted the green canoe
she promised to bequeath me.
When I was 8,
I spent 2 weeks in Rensselaer
with her and my cousin Ruthie.
For 14 days straight
we went out every day and climbed into that
small boat and rode along the shallow Iroquois River.
I never remembered the sun blazing
or the mosquitoes,
or having to pee,
or the wet shoes.
I remembered the swamp milk weed
and the blue butterflies,
and the baby skunks.
I remembered the young men with ropes
pulling logs that threatened to jam up
the river, and how they smiled and waved,
waist deep in the dirty water.
I recalled the bottles of Coca Cola and
the egg salad sandwiches,
and the Washington Street Bridge.
And how before we’d take off,
Auntie would braid our hair
and tie bric-a-brac
around the crown of our heads.
She would clear her throat and say
“You are an Iroquois River Princess
and you are an Iroquois River Princess.”
She did all the rowing.
When I left I cried and
I asked her if I could have that canoe someday.
For 43 years I traveled back down that river in my mind,
and now the call had come.
I drove my husband’s big truck
and brought tie downs.
Ruthie and I went back to the house after the funeral
and it had shrunk in that way things do as we grow older.
“Hey,” I said casually,
“whatever happened to that green canoe your mother promised me?
I think I have room in the truck for it.”
“We can go look at it, but you won’t want it” she said.
And there by the side of the water was this tiny canoe
with the paint peeling away, the wood rotten and a huge hole.
“Somehow I imagined you and Auntie
going out every day in that canoe. How crazy --
for 43 years, I imagined the two of you getting in that boat."
“Every day?” She exclaimed and laughed.
“Yes” I said, “I figured that I had to go home
and you were here every day being happy
and being the Iroquois River Princess.”
“Girl, my mother only did that
because your father paid her
and our electric had been shut off.”
What the River Saw
The River was there before my father.
Before me. This was long before I-Phones,
when pictures were special occasions.
God will show me someday-- the pictures he took.
The pictures of the small boat I sat in (or moved around in).
I like to imagine rivers, like a photo of the Hudson.
The gold glimmering like a 1920 Art Deco piece.
Designed for all the collected richest
and most famous women, and that one odd girl
who is only there because of her spinster aunt’s will.
Gold as though Gustav Klimpt scraped all of his paintings
and threw gold leaf into the water.
I like to imagine Rivers like the Loch Ness, which I discovered
on the front cover of the Weekly Reader. Always having Faith
that the monster exists. I know now for certain monsters exist.
My river is the White River
and a small boat.
God has pictures of what the river saw.
Long past my dead father’s memory.
Long past my memory. God will say to me,
“Look, the river could see that even though your father
was cussing, and chewing on newspaper,
and terminally impatient,
and a philanderer,
he sometimes smiled in passing while he took you for granted.
The river saw the heroin addicts.
The river saw that they had mothers somewhere not sleeping.
The river saw the elderly couple swimming naked.
The unwanted kittens drowning.
The joy of so many children catching their first fish.
The river saw the gold cape that covers us all.
It catches all the Loch Ness Monsters.
Big Foot walks on the heavy stones near the shallow end.
The river endures the long spells between
ordinary and extraordinary.
When I die, maybe God will friend me
and show me pictures of fleeting glances
which I did not notice, pictures of
what the river saw.
The River was there before my father.
Before me. This was long before I-Phones,
when pictures were special occasions.
God will show me someday-- the pictures he took.
The pictures of the small boat I sat in (or moved around in).
I like to imagine rivers, like a photo of the Hudson.
The gold glimmering like a 1920 Art Deco piece.
Designed for all the collected richest
and most famous women, and that one odd girl
who is only there because of her spinster aunt’s will.
Gold as though Gustav Klimpt scraped all of his paintings
and threw gold leaf into the water.
I like to imagine Rivers like the Loch Ness, which I discovered
on the front cover of the Weekly Reader. Always having Faith
that the monster exists. I know now for certain monsters exist.
My river is the White River
and a small boat.
God has pictures of what the river saw.
Long past my dead father’s memory.
Long past my memory. God will say to me,
“Look, the river could see that even though your father
was cussing, and chewing on newspaper,
and terminally impatient,
and a philanderer,
he sometimes smiled in passing while he took you for granted.
The river saw the heroin addicts.
The river saw that they had mothers somewhere not sleeping.
The river saw the elderly couple swimming naked.
The unwanted kittens drowning.
The joy of so many children catching their first fish.
The river saw the gold cape that covers us all.
It catches all the Loch Ness Monsters.
Big Foot walks on the heavy stones near the shallow end.
The river endures the long spells between
ordinary and extraordinary.
When I die, maybe God will friend me
and show me pictures of fleeting glances
which I did not notice, pictures of
what the river saw.
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
River Poem
When the heart-song of the slave sings freedom's call,
Sweet voices from the slave shacks haunt the night,
Peg Leg Joe chants the North Star's way,
From the Tombigee River to the Tennessee,
“When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the Drinking Gourd—”
The Ohio River whispers secrets of a Promise Land,
Heard by Hanover men at a river-town
Compelled to do the work of the Lord--
Precious cargo hidden under burlap bags,
Hearts beat cadence to the splash of the oars,
Breaths let go fast and shallow.
Cross the blue-brown Ohio at the narrows,
Murky undercurrents swift as death--
Hide behind the falls roar 'til darkness comes,
and the moon is a thumbnail sliver,
“On the pathway to freedom,
The riverbank makes a mighty good road.”
River Poem
When the heart-song of the slave sings freedom's call,
Sweet voices from the slave shacks haunt the night,
Peg Leg Joe chants the North Star's way,
From the Tombigee River to the Tennessee,
“When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the Drinking Gourd—”
The Ohio River whispers secrets of a Promise Land,
Heard by Hanover men at a river-town
Compelled to do the work of the Lord--
Precious cargo hidden under burlap bags,
Hearts beat cadence to the splash of the oars,
Breaths let go fast and shallow.
Cross the blue-brown Ohio at the narrows,
Murky undercurrents swift as death--
Hide behind the falls roar 'til darkness comes,
and the moon is a thumbnail sliver,
“On the pathway to freedom,
The riverbank makes a mighty good road.”
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Au Ki Ki - - Beautiful River-–The Kankakee
Into this place of beauty
swaying reeds, lily pads
shimmering ponds
wild life in abundance
a place of wonder and mystery
named Au Ki Ki by the Indians
Came outliers to create a life
of peace and harmony with nature,
among them were outlaws whose
diabolical aims were to cause
mayhem and dare to take property
as well as lives. Such was life
in the marsh of the Au Ki Ki in the 1800’s.
Came 1852, pioneer John McIntyre’s
horses pulled a wagon loaded
with his family,
one cow and a pig,
all his possessions
seeking a life of independence
beauty peace, a will to work hard.
His first night in the marsh
his wagon, horses,
all his possessions were
stolen. Residents told
of the lawlessness, of robbers
and murderers in the marsh
Horse thieves, murderers,
counterfeiters preyed on pioneers.
Victims had no defense.
Directly, a vigilante group was formed
named The Jasper Rangers,
men from surrounding counties
Jasper, Newton, Porter, LaPorte
men who were nameless,
remain so till this day. Unknown
even to their neighbors
The men supplied their own arms,
ammunition, did their own
surveillance, lived in the marsh.
Rumors were that John McIntyre
was the leader who later wrote
a paper about The Jasper Rangers.
People said he had to be one of them
as he knew too much.
Justice on the spot was their motto.
Men who were suspects were spied upon,
if found guilty were ambushed,
immediately hanged or shot,
buried in a grave dug by
The Jasper Rangers
in the dark of night
The counterfeiters were slyer,
difficult to catch but suffered
the same consequences.
Life in the marsh again became
a place of peace and beauty
with swaying reeds, lily pads
shimmering ponds
wild life food in abundance for
hard working pioneers.
Peace brought about by
vigilante justice--
The Jasper Rangers
Au Ki Ki - - Beautiful River-–The Kankakee
Into this place of beauty
swaying reeds, lily pads
shimmering ponds
wild life in abundance
a place of wonder and mystery
named Au Ki Ki by the Indians
Came outliers to create a life
of peace and harmony with nature,
among them were outlaws whose
diabolical aims were to cause
mayhem and dare to take property
as well as lives. Such was life
in the marsh of the Au Ki Ki in the 1800’s.
Came 1852, pioneer John McIntyre’s
horses pulled a wagon loaded
with his family,
one cow and a pig,
all his possessions
seeking a life of independence
beauty peace, a will to work hard.
His first night in the marsh
his wagon, horses,
all his possessions were
stolen. Residents told
of the lawlessness, of robbers
and murderers in the marsh
Horse thieves, murderers,
counterfeiters preyed on pioneers.
Victims had no defense.
Directly, a vigilante group was formed
named The Jasper Rangers,
men from surrounding counties
Jasper, Newton, Porter, LaPorte
men who were nameless,
remain so till this day. Unknown
even to their neighbors
The men supplied their own arms,
ammunition, did their own
surveillance, lived in the marsh.
Rumors were that John McIntyre
was the leader who later wrote
a paper about The Jasper Rangers.
People said he had to be one of them
as he knew too much.
Justice on the spot was their motto.
Men who were suspects were spied upon,
if found guilty were ambushed,
immediately hanged or shot,
buried in a grave dug by
The Jasper Rangers
in the dark of night
The counterfeiters were slyer,
difficult to catch but suffered
the same consequences.
Life in the marsh again became
a place of peace and beauty
with swaying reeds, lily pads
shimmering ponds
wild life food in abundance for
hard working pioneers.
Peace brought about by
vigilante justice--
The Jasper Rangers
Photo from Parke County Tourist Information
Poems from January's "Indiana Landmarks" Prompt
Above: Photo from the Indiana Forest Alliance
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Gypsy
Juliet V. Strauss (1863-1918)
There is a soul place where spirits of the Shawnee still echo,
A paradise of rocky gorges, sword moss and waterfalls,
Its lush forests once filled with color flashes of
Carolina parakeets, wild turkeys and passenger pigeons,
So plentiful they darkened the sky---
The patriarch of Lusk Mill hung nets over deep ravines,
Trapping and cramming birds into barrels,
To be shipped to New York and Boston's finest restaurants,
Pigeon squab-under-glass served on starched, white linen tablecloths,
Until they were no more---
In sunbonnet and calico wrap, Gypsy meandered nature cuts,
Where exposed roots of yew trees groped for nourishment,
Trails descended into limestone canyons, deer paths zigzagged among delicate foliage,
Congregations of wildflowers quivered in the breeze,
She rested in shadows of silvery birches, tall, blotched sycamores and wild cherry trees,
The pride of pioneer craftsmen.
Yet the loggers came in saw-toothed greed---
Through tears of resolve, Gypsy, took up her pen to proclaim, “change is not always progress.”
Today hikers pass a monument to Juliet, our Gypsy, a plain country woman
whose words gave us Turkey Run State Park.
She lifts her chalice heavenward and stands,
almost hidden under overhanging crags where cliff swallows roost.
Above: Photo from the Indiana Forest Alliance
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Gypsy
Juliet V. Strauss (1863-1918)
There is a soul place where spirits of the Shawnee still echo,
A paradise of rocky gorges, sword moss and waterfalls,
Its lush forests once filled with color flashes of
Carolina parakeets, wild turkeys and passenger pigeons,
So plentiful they darkened the sky---
The patriarch of Lusk Mill hung nets over deep ravines,
Trapping and cramming birds into barrels,
To be shipped to New York and Boston's finest restaurants,
Pigeon squab-under-glass served on starched, white linen tablecloths,
Until they were no more---
In sunbonnet and calico wrap, Gypsy meandered nature cuts,
Where exposed roots of yew trees groped for nourishment,
Trails descended into limestone canyons, deer paths zigzagged among delicate foliage,
Congregations of wildflowers quivered in the breeze,
She rested in shadows of silvery birches, tall, blotched sycamores and wild cherry trees,
The pride of pioneer craftsmen.
Yet the loggers came in saw-toothed greed---
Through tears of resolve, Gypsy, took up her pen to proclaim, “change is not always progress.”
Today hikers pass a monument to Juliet, our Gypsy, a plain country woman
whose words gave us Turkey Run State Park.
She lifts her chalice heavenward and stands,
almost hidden under overhanging crags where cliff swallows roost.
Burr Oak in Crown Hill Forest. Photo by Paul Richard
Paul Richard, Marion County
A Torn Down Forest
Written from the viewpoint of concerned veterans who do not want urban forest in Crown
Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, cut down to provide burial space for deceased veterans.
For more information: https://indianaforestalliance.org/
Don’t want to be buried in a torn down forest
Or even ashes cast, for what?
Ancient trees defeated …. Construction contraptions rampant, tearing life apart
For Space, not Honor nor Valor
Grave calculator, distance and depth? How many here
How many there? Sell those plots
Forest capital punishment?
Honor forest, mourn death?
Caissons will not renew, not return the woods
The bur oak, the sycamore, the modeled beach, spice tree, beach drops, hickory, tiny creatures disappear, thousands per square, cubic foot, who cares? The Tulip poplar
State tree by the way,
Add the wetland’s vigor, its flowing pulse
Each acorn, beetle, worm, nematode
Each owl, woodpecker, redheaded or pileated
Listen closely, we ancient trees speak wise
How old are you? Now multiply by ten, that’s us.
That’s us, season after season of Life Not Death and you think you are smart.
I am Forest, very, very smart, we talk you know, chattering roots under foot
You make us tremble for some business plan. We hear that damn chainsaw.
From you, the most invasive species
A Torn Down Forest
Written from the viewpoint of concerned veterans who do not want urban forest in Crown
Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, cut down to provide burial space for deceased veterans.
For more information: https://indianaforestalliance.org/
Don’t want to be buried in a torn down forest
Or even ashes cast, for what?
Ancient trees defeated …. Construction contraptions rampant, tearing life apart
For Space, not Honor nor Valor
Grave calculator, distance and depth? How many here
How many there? Sell those plots
Forest capital punishment?
Honor forest, mourn death?
Caissons will not renew, not return the woods
The bur oak, the sycamore, the modeled beach, spice tree, beach drops, hickory, tiny creatures disappear, thousands per square, cubic foot, who cares? The Tulip poplar
State tree by the way,
Add the wetland’s vigor, its flowing pulse
Each acorn, beetle, worm, nematode
Each owl, woodpecker, redheaded or pileated
Listen closely, we ancient trees speak wise
How old are you? Now multiply by ten, that’s us.
That’s us, season after season of Life Not Death and you think you are smart.
I am Forest, very, very smart, we talk you know, chattering roots under foot
You make us tremble for some business plan. We hear that damn chainsaw.
From you, the most invasive species
DeMotte Pioneer Cemetery, Photo by Pat Kopanda
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Pioneer Hill
They sleep the long sleep on Pioneer Hill. As years pass they
see the town grow from a few hundred people to near four thousand.
They hear the train whistle, and remember the first time it
went through town. They can hear the cars pass each day, wonder
if there are kin among them.
Sometimes at night when the moon is full with ground fog
rising, you can see shadowy figures, standing, leaning on
their headstones chatting about their lives.
Acton and Harriet Fairchild, among the earliest pioneers
hold court at times surrounded by children and grandchildren.
You hear them telling stories of the old days, chuckling now
and then, ‘a horse ran off, or an offspring got into mischief.’
They talk about the year crops failed, hard times, about the awful
taste of the water, spring floods, mosquitos, when the corduroy road
went through, dredging the Kankakee River.
But mostly, they talk about the love they received, or didn’t, from
their loved ones or neighbors. Some weep uncontrollably, unhappy
in death, as in life. But locked in as they are, they wait for the newly
dead to bring them news of happenings of the living world.
When they return to their slumber, all conversation is forgotten.
Their only recall is of their living. Their lives are like an old movie,
editing is not an option.
Pioneer Hill
They sleep the long sleep on Pioneer Hill. As years pass they
see the town grow from a few hundred people to near four thousand.
They hear the train whistle, and remember the first time it
went through town. They can hear the cars pass each day, wonder
if there are kin among them.
Sometimes at night when the moon is full with ground fog
rising, you can see shadowy figures, standing, leaning on
their headstones chatting about their lives.
Acton and Harriet Fairchild, among the earliest pioneers
hold court at times surrounded by children and grandchildren.
You hear them telling stories of the old days, chuckling now
and then, ‘a horse ran off, or an offspring got into mischief.’
They talk about the year crops failed, hard times, about the awful
taste of the water, spring floods, mosquitos, when the corduroy road
went through, dredging the Kankakee River.
But mostly, they talk about the love they received, or didn’t, from
their loved ones or neighbors. Some weep uncontrollably, unhappy
in death, as in life. But locked in as they are, they wait for the newly
dead to bring them news of happenings of the living world.
When they return to their slumber, all conversation is forgotten.
Their only recall is of their living. Their lives are like an old movie,
editing is not an option.
A deer at Fort Harrison State Park
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
The Deer Outside The Eiteljorg
I cannot remember them not being there--
Kenneth Bunn’s “Whitetail Deer.”
Strong and bronze, motion--
They survive like Indian spirits.
Rattles full of baby teeth from the long dead--
Your running carries me with you,
the wind suddenly hides behind the forest,
green with long ferns. We travel together
to a place where people were not caught up
in so many things. If you stand there
when the moon eclipses, you can hear
their voices, and you can see them bending to drink.
Click Here to see this statue.
The Deer Outside The Eiteljorg
I cannot remember them not being there--
Kenneth Bunn’s “Whitetail Deer.”
Strong and bronze, motion--
They survive like Indian spirits.
Rattles full of baby teeth from the long dead--
Your running carries me with you,
the wind suddenly hides behind the forest,
green with long ferns. We travel together
to a place where people were not caught up
in so many things. If you stand there
when the moon eclipses, you can hear
their voices, and you can see them bending to drink.
Click Here to see this statue.
The Sylvia Likens Memorial
At Willard Park in Indianapolis
people pass by the stone
with the words of Ivan Rogers,
“I hear a song: relief.”
If death is the only relief
for some who are passed by,
what can that mean?
What could able someone to
carve into your stomach?
A stomach empty and wanting.
The house at 3852 East New York Street
has been demolished, torn apart like you,
little bird. The Indianapolis Police
went home after finding you
and saw their children
for the first time, gathering them
and hiding their grief and deep nausea.
How many people, like you, do we walk
by every day, never knowing?
I wish I had been there to save you.
At Willard Park in Indianapolis
people pass by the stone
with the words of Ivan Rogers,
“I hear a song: relief.”
If death is the only relief
for some who are passed by,
what can that mean?
What could able someone to
carve into your stomach?
A stomach empty and wanting.
The house at 3852 East New York Street
has been demolished, torn apart like you,
little bird. The Indianapolis Police
went home after finding you
and saw their children
for the first time, gathering them
and hiding their grief and deep nausea.
How many people, like you, do we walk
by every day, never knowing?
I wish I had been there to save you.
Photo from Levi Coffin House and Interpretive Center, built in 1839
Shari Wagner, Hamilton County
Levi and Catherine Coffin House
Fountain City, Indiana
This house is a testament
to that which calls a man
to rise from slumber and descend
the dark stairwell, opening the door
to a blast of cold wind
and the fugitive
whose shackled, frostbit feet
he bends down
to rub near the fire.
This house is a witness
to that which moves a woman
to stoke the cast iron stove
in a kitchen below her kitchen,
to haul water from a secret well,
to make each stitch fine and tight
as if the path to freedom
might be secured
by the diligence of her needle.
And this house is a vow
given by a husband and wife
to cleave to the sacred
within the stranger, to sleep
despite threats of a hurled torch,
to enter the desperate dreams
of those who rest a fortnight in an attic,
its door hidden by the headboard
of their own bed.
From The Harmonist at Nightfall: Poems of Indiana
Levi and Catherine Coffin House
Fountain City, Indiana
This house is a testament
to that which calls a man
to rise from slumber and descend
the dark stairwell, opening the door
to a blast of cold wind
and the fugitive
whose shackled, frostbit feet
he bends down
to rub near the fire.
This house is a witness
to that which moves a woman
to stoke the cast iron stove
in a kitchen below her kitchen,
to haul water from a secret well,
to make each stitch fine and tight
as if the path to freedom
might be secured
by the diligence of her needle.
And this house is a vow
given by a husband and wife
to cleave to the sacred
within the stranger, to sleep
despite threats of a hurled torch,
to enter the desperate dreams
of those who rest a fortnight in an attic,
its door hidden by the headboard
of their own bed.
From The Harmonist at Nightfall: Poems of Indiana
This photo and the one above: Indiana State Library, Indianapolis
Poems from December's "Memory of a Library" Prompt
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Dreams from the Attic
In the corner of the attic
a makeshift window-seat
glories in the sunlight,
revealing a leather embossed copy of
Girl of the Limberlost--
Gene Stratton Porter's handiwork,
a library book long overdue,
still partially hidden under
a burgundy velvet cushion
a sanctuary amidst
the clank and clamor
of five brothers and sisters
floors below.
Had my grandmother dreamed dreams
of my grandfather while reading this book?
Had she ascended the same
stone slab steps of the library as I?
Worn in the middle, polished
almost imperceptibly by
years of visiting patrons
high top shoes fastened by shoe hooks,
hobnail boots, sneakers, Jesus sandals and clogs,
grinding and polishing.
Had she paced the same checkerboard marble floor,
weaving her way through stacks of books
holding answers to questions yet unspoken
and dreams yet to be inspired?
Did she experience the same tranquility
while exploring titles yet shelved?
The near-ancient stone carved library only
welcomes me
knowingly.
Yes, I will return the found book
to its place.
But not until I have discovered
the secrets it holds for me.
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Dreams from the Attic
In the corner of the attic
a makeshift window-seat
glories in the sunlight,
revealing a leather embossed copy of
Girl of the Limberlost--
Gene Stratton Porter's handiwork,
a library book long overdue,
still partially hidden under
a burgundy velvet cushion
a sanctuary amidst
the clank and clamor
of five brothers and sisters
floors below.
Had my grandmother dreamed dreams
of my grandfather while reading this book?
Had she ascended the same
stone slab steps of the library as I?
Worn in the middle, polished
almost imperceptibly by
years of visiting patrons
high top shoes fastened by shoe hooks,
hobnail boots, sneakers, Jesus sandals and clogs,
grinding and polishing.
Had she paced the same checkerboard marble floor,
weaving her way through stacks of books
holding answers to questions yet unspoken
and dreams yet to be inspired?
Did she experience the same tranquility
while exploring titles yet shelved?
The near-ancient stone carved library only
welcomes me
knowingly.
Yes, I will return the found book
to its place.
But not until I have discovered
the secrets it holds for me.
Spades Branch Library, Indianapolis
Alan Daugherty, Wells County
Old Library Sweet Library
Ethereal limestone Carnegie walls like pickets
Mime memorial slabs with old city cemetery pride
Throwing wafting copy optics into plate glass panes
Across Washington Street and a century divide.
Old Library, aged decades ahead of ADA access rules,
Caused a lad to gape up to climb steps to the door,
Like Mt Everest or pyramid Khafre with an adventure
Waiting eagerly, entreating on the main stacks' floor.
Usage success, cause of the death, leaving library rooms
Empty, moved a street-width to modern vastness
Void of floor squeaks, dust puffs, the aroma of classics,
Ancient newspapers on wood sticks now laid to rest.
New Library shines grand as can be, 'till through its glass I see
Old Library forlorn with entry footfalls but nostalgias
Where I met Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson, and
Researched my first essay in an era I now call 'Was.'
New Library sits across from the Opera House on the old jail lot
And Washington Hotel, bulding ghosts of Old Library's coterie.
Too soon my life pages shall end, a life called like a book culled, a
Generation end leaving no one with an Old Library memory.
Old Library Sweet Library
Ethereal limestone Carnegie walls like pickets
Mime memorial slabs with old city cemetery pride
Throwing wafting copy optics into plate glass panes
Across Washington Street and a century divide.
Old Library, aged decades ahead of ADA access rules,
Caused a lad to gape up to climb steps to the door,
Like Mt Everest or pyramid Khafre with an adventure
Waiting eagerly, entreating on the main stacks' floor.
Usage success, cause of the death, leaving library rooms
Empty, moved a street-width to modern vastness
Void of floor squeaks, dust puffs, the aroma of classics,
Ancient newspapers on wood sticks now laid to rest.
New Library shines grand as can be, 'till through its glass I see
Old Library forlorn with entry footfalls but nostalgias
Where I met Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson, and
Researched my first essay in an era I now call 'Was.'
New Library sits across from the Opera House on the old jail lot
And Washington Hotel, bulding ghosts of Old Library's coterie.
Too soon my life pages shall end, a life called like a book culled, a
Generation end leaving no one with an Old Library memory.
Jefferson County Public Library, Madison, Indiana
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Getting Away With Things
When Cynthia Rylant was accapting her Newberry
she told the story of discovering the public library,
and how the books were free. Not free
the way the gifts the Salvation Army people
brought at Christmas--that left a feeling
of shame--just free.
Most of the crimes I have committed have taken
place at the library. I will admit them here
if you will keep them secret.
You know that spot where people park to push things
through the outside slot. "5 minutes allowed." I
have been parking there weekly for years, knowing
full well I'm going inside and may be in there for
30 minutes. It gives me a rush and I'm sure my
blood pressure raises, and I feel like a super-ciminal
and wonder if secret spies record this, building a
case against me.
Once when I was 17 and broke and owed over
5.00, I snuck books back on the shelves and got out
of paying fines. The librarian said she had had no idea
what had happened and apologized profusely.
My worst offense was borrowing the entire
Eleanor Cameron "The Wonderful Flight to the
Mushroom Planet" series with full intent of keeping them,
and paying the fine! Please don't think
badly of me, but that alien, Mr. Bass, was my
childhood friend!
All those nickles spent on xerox copies
when I was in nursing school! My father
told me about an orange being his only
Christmas gift.
These stories I get--the places these books
allow me to go are like that orange given
to my father.
Getting Away With Things
When Cynthia Rylant was accapting her Newberry
she told the story of discovering the public library,
and how the books were free. Not free
the way the gifts the Salvation Army people
brought at Christmas--that left a feeling
of shame--just free.
Most of the crimes I have committed have taken
place at the library. I will admit them here
if you will keep them secret.
You know that spot where people park to push things
through the outside slot. "5 minutes allowed." I
have been parking there weekly for years, knowing
full well I'm going inside and may be in there for
30 minutes. It gives me a rush and I'm sure my
blood pressure raises, and I feel like a super-ciminal
and wonder if secret spies record this, building a
case against me.
Once when I was 17 and broke and owed over
5.00, I snuck books back on the shelves and got out
of paying fines. The librarian said she had had no idea
what had happened and apologized profusely.
My worst offense was borrowing the entire
Eleanor Cameron "The Wonderful Flight to the
Mushroom Planet" series with full intent of keeping them,
and paying the fine! Please don't think
badly of me, but that alien, Mr. Bass, was my
childhood friend!
All those nickles spent on xerox copies
when I was in nursing school! My father
told me about an orange being his only
Christmas gift.
These stories I get--the places these books
allow me to go are like that orange given
to my father.
Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, Columbus, Indiana; "Large Arch" sculpture by Henry Moore
The Bookmobile Lady
There were gray narrow rubber stairs with
thin grooves to keep us from falling.
I always felt like I was on the
subway, but what did I know of subways?
I would migrate to that oversized
pink checkerboard covered book
"The Lonely Doll." I felt so sorry
for any lonely person.
Mrs. Taylor would suggest new books,
always smiling. Always wearing earrings
and necklaces
that looked like something a child
would wear, and brooches
to coordinate with the different holidays.
She would give us all the choice
of a Tootsie Roll or a Chic-O-Stick,
sitting behind the steering wheel,
her breasts the size of watermelons.
I found out that the bookmobile
would not be coming anymore,
because Mrs. Taylor's
husband had started forgetting her name.
She was forced to lock him in the house
with her, and she told my aunt he was
a "handful."
After a few months passed,
I took all the money my mother had
been giving me for the church donation box
and went to Brock's Pharmacy
at the corner of Traub Avenue and Washington Street
to buy her a present.
I walked to her house and took her a shoe-box
full of Tootsie Rolls and Chic-O-Sticks
and a bumblebee brooch that was over three dollars.
She told me that the earrings
and necklaces she wore belonged to her daughter
who had died of leukemia. She showed me the little
jewelry box, you know, the music kind, with the pop-up
ballerina.
The next week I looked
out the school window and there she was
behind the wheel of the bookmobile.
She smiled and waved and pointed
with those long old fingers
to that gaudy bumblebee brooch.
When I climbed onto the bookmobile
she handed me a gift bag with two Chic-O-Sticks
and three small rings. She said, “Those rings don’t fit me,
but I bet you can give them some life.”
There were gray narrow rubber stairs with
thin grooves to keep us from falling.
I always felt like I was on the
subway, but what did I know of subways?
I would migrate to that oversized
pink checkerboard covered book
"The Lonely Doll." I felt so sorry
for any lonely person.
Mrs. Taylor would suggest new books,
always smiling. Always wearing earrings
and necklaces
that looked like something a child
would wear, and brooches
to coordinate with the different holidays.
She would give us all the choice
of a Tootsie Roll or a Chic-O-Stick,
sitting behind the steering wheel,
her breasts the size of watermelons.
I found out that the bookmobile
would not be coming anymore,
because Mrs. Taylor's
husband had started forgetting her name.
She was forced to lock him in the house
with her, and she told my aunt he was
a "handful."
After a few months passed,
I took all the money my mother had
been giving me for the church donation box
and went to Brock's Pharmacy
at the corner of Traub Avenue and Washington Street
to buy her a present.
I walked to her house and took her a shoe-box
full of Tootsie Rolls and Chic-O-Sticks
and a bumblebee brooch that was over three dollars.
She told me that the earrings
and necklaces she wore belonged to her daughter
who had died of leukemia. She showed me the little
jewelry box, you know, the music kind, with the pop-up
ballerina.
The next week I looked
out the school window and there she was
behind the wheel of the bookmobile.
She smiled and waved and pointed
with those long old fingers
to that gaudy bumblebee brooch.
When I climbed onto the bookmobile
she handed me a gift bag with two Chic-O-Sticks
and three small rings. She said, “Those rings don’t fit me,
but I bet you can give them some life.”
De Motte Public Library, Jasper County, Indiana
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Libraries
I did not know libraries
until into the shelves I crept
to a quiet, sacred place
to discover things I never knew
in places I never stepped.
To read of history, people, or outer space
volcanoes, rivers, ancients, or to set the pace
for discovery of medicine,
cures for the human race
to read of heroes, explorers,
examples for living
of those who came before us.
O what you can learn in the library
to set your mind on fire
find ideas to expand your gifts
or follow your heart's desire
be it music or art.
O what you can learn in the library!
Libraries
I did not know libraries
until into the shelves I crept
to a quiet, sacred place
to discover things I never knew
in places I never stepped.
To read of history, people, or outer space
volcanoes, rivers, ancients, or to set the pace
for discovery of medicine,
cures for the human race
to read of heroes, explorers,
examples for living
of those who came before us.
O what you can learn in the library
to set your mind on fire
find ideas to expand your gifts
or follow your heart's desire
be it music or art.
O what you can learn in the library!
Photograph by Iona Wagner / Masthead Photo by Shari Wagner
Poems from November's "A Poem Inspired by Snow" Prompt
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Quiescence
When snowfall
suspended the
season's hustle to a
hallowed stillness
my quiet heart
warmed by crackling logs
aromatic tea
and mama's old rocker
welcomed gifts of
silence and time
to reflect on those
who touch my life with
goodness and joy.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Quiescence
When snowfall
suspended the
season's hustle to a
hallowed stillness
my quiet heart
warmed by crackling logs
aromatic tea
and mama's old rocker
welcomed gifts of
silence and time
to reflect on those
who touch my life with
goodness and joy.
Photograph by Shari Wagner
First Snowfall
Three ragamuffin boys stand in deep snow clinging
to their shared steel-runner-sled, wearing big grins
in an old black and white photo to restore memories
of long ago. At first snowfall, my brothers polished and
waxed their sled runners, and off we'd go to dig out
last year's galoshes, hats, and mittens, head for Cook's Hill,
the alpine mountain of the neighborhood. My brothers
belly-flopped to get a speedy start on the neighbor
kids to the bottom. I was too young to sled down alone,
so I rode double-decker, with me atop my brother Jim's
back, squealing all the way. We stayed out till wet clothes
frozen hair, numb fingers and toes brought us home
to the warmth of our pot-bellied stove. Mom made
hot cocoa while the boys regaled her with their derring-do,
to Mom's delight and the boys' glee.
Three ragamuffin boys stand in deep snow clinging
to their shared steel-runner-sled, wearing big grins
in an old black and white photo to restore memories
of long ago. At first snowfall, my brothers polished and
waxed their sled runners, and off we'd go to dig out
last year's galoshes, hats, and mittens, head for Cook's Hill,
the alpine mountain of the neighborhood. My brothers
belly-flopped to get a speedy start on the neighbor
kids to the bottom. I was too young to sled down alone,
so I rode double-decker, with me atop my brother Jim's
back, squealing all the way. We stayed out till wet clothes
frozen hair, numb fingers and toes brought us home
to the warmth of our pot-bellied stove. Mom made
hot cocoa while the boys regaled her with their derring-do,
to Mom's delight and the boys' glee.
Photograph by Shari Wagner
Rosemary Freedman, Hamilton County
Circles of Peonies
In the time where sunlight turns to dark
I have sneaked out and dug into my yard so that
there is barely any grass, but rows of peonies.
All planted just before the ground freezes.
The mosquitoes are gone and reluctant bluebirds
and red-headed woodpeckers hang out like delinquents.
I climb on hands and knees
or scoot along the cold ground and I dig
just before the snow in Indiana.
The holes become small graves to anything I want to part with.
The circle is the year the old farm owner in Missouri
died--a friend of his wife sold me these for eight dollars a root.
They belonged to his mother.
This circle is the year my father died--
his memory lost like a house key.
And this is the year I met Carrie and she sold me
my first stock from her peony farm,
where she grows wedding bouquets.
There is a risk to getting them late--
just before the snow in Indiana.
You have to sneak them in before
the first good freeze.
And they bloom so short--
the length of time you think your lover is perfect.
The petals are the colors of wishes--soft as whispers
in a deaf man's ear. Each year after planting
I swear off and say--I have enough.
Soon I will need more land.
I hope that someday
there will be long arguments
over them. Small girls I may never meet
will tell their friends,
"These belonged to my grandmother."
For now, I will sit on the front steps
waiting eagerly for the snow to melt,
waiting for them year after aging year.
Small red curly celery looking sticks forcing themselves up.
How did three peony bushes in my side-yard
when I was six or seven, watching the ants
climb on tight balls with pink edges and
circles of dew, lead me to this?
Giant black ants always in a hurry.
Peonies have their own genealogy--
Their red eyes poke up
like long waited for promises,
taking me back to my mother
and that smile of hers. Is this about
the flowers, or about my mother,
her red lipstick brighter than
any bloom?
Circles of Peonies
In the time where sunlight turns to dark
I have sneaked out and dug into my yard so that
there is barely any grass, but rows of peonies.
All planted just before the ground freezes.
The mosquitoes are gone and reluctant bluebirds
and red-headed woodpeckers hang out like delinquents.
I climb on hands and knees
or scoot along the cold ground and I dig
just before the snow in Indiana.
The holes become small graves to anything I want to part with.
The circle is the year the old farm owner in Missouri
died--a friend of his wife sold me these for eight dollars a root.
They belonged to his mother.
This circle is the year my father died--
his memory lost like a house key.
And this is the year I met Carrie and she sold me
my first stock from her peony farm,
where she grows wedding bouquets.
There is a risk to getting them late--
just before the snow in Indiana.
You have to sneak them in before
the first good freeze.
And they bloom so short--
the length of time you think your lover is perfect.
The petals are the colors of wishes--soft as whispers
in a deaf man's ear. Each year after planting
I swear off and say--I have enough.
Soon I will need more land.
I hope that someday
there will be long arguments
over them. Small girls I may never meet
will tell their friends,
"These belonged to my grandmother."
For now, I will sit on the front steps
waiting eagerly for the snow to melt,
waiting for them year after aging year.
Small red curly celery looking sticks forcing themselves up.
How did three peony bushes in my side-yard
when I was six or seven, watching the ants
climb on tight balls with pink edges and
circles of dew, lead me to this?
Giant black ants always in a hurry.
Peonies have their own genealogy--
Their red eyes poke up
like long waited for promises,
taking me back to my mother
and that smile of hers. Is this about
the flowers, or about my mother,
her red lipstick brighter than
any bloom?
Photograph by Iona Wagner
And the snow will keep him
"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves."
--George Mallory
Mallory,
you have grown into
this mountain.
Slept without even a thin blanket
under so many ceilings, all angles
of light and absence of light.
Majestic, the moon
has gathered you.
You have heard, for years, the voices of
nearby climbers, just missing you, and have longed
to call out to them.
But you cannot speak, being dead.
You can only stare without blinking
at glinting snow, which is at least beautiful.
The stars
have watched over you
like the mother of a new infant
watching you not breathe,
over and over, night after night.
Checking to make sure you are dead,
expecting a miracle to rise and fall in your chest.
You dreamed of Everest
--except that something went wrong--
weather, or want of oxygen--
alveolar sacs cracking like ice
under the metal prongs of your
heavy boots. What thoughts haunted
you while you were gasping?
Your children on their bikes, blowing out cake candles?
Your wife posing for the wedding photo, laughing and crying
at once? That dress she wore, and now you are fading,
and the bouquet, those peonies and delphiniums
pink and white and blue.
Where is Sandy, your climbing partner?
And oh, how I would love to have
that pocket-camera,
black and frostbitten.
The one chance to finally prove if you beat
Hillary and Norgay
to the top.
The Kodak folks say they may still
be able to develop that film--
It is either frozen in ice
or on a shelf display with other antique cameras,
or on the 2.00 table at grandfather's yard sale.
The two of you
could have only ever been more striking
standing on the summit, smiles wide as
the crevasses you traversed.
That's the picture we are
desperate for.
There really is no romance to this.
Your children miss that
chiseled face, lips the color of pomegranates.
Your wife, Ruth,
kept growing older while you stayed 37.
And you--you were found with your
ice ax and your boots--
You did not conquer yourself--
the mountain conquered you,
and your family said
"Do not bring him down.
He is where he belongs."
And the snow will keep him.
"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves."
--George Mallory
Mallory,
you have grown into
this mountain.
Slept without even a thin blanket
under so many ceilings, all angles
of light and absence of light.
Majestic, the moon
has gathered you.
You have heard, for years, the voices of
nearby climbers, just missing you, and have longed
to call out to them.
But you cannot speak, being dead.
You can only stare without blinking
at glinting snow, which is at least beautiful.
The stars
have watched over you
like the mother of a new infant
watching you not breathe,
over and over, night after night.
Checking to make sure you are dead,
expecting a miracle to rise and fall in your chest.
You dreamed of Everest
--except that something went wrong--
weather, or want of oxygen--
alveolar sacs cracking like ice
under the metal prongs of your
heavy boots. What thoughts haunted
you while you were gasping?
Your children on their bikes, blowing out cake candles?
Your wife posing for the wedding photo, laughing and crying
at once? That dress she wore, and now you are fading,
and the bouquet, those peonies and delphiniums
pink and white and blue.
Where is Sandy, your climbing partner?
And oh, how I would love to have
that pocket-camera,
black and frostbitten.
The one chance to finally prove if you beat
Hillary and Norgay
to the top.
The Kodak folks say they may still
be able to develop that film--
It is either frozen in ice
or on a shelf display with other antique cameras,
or on the 2.00 table at grandfather's yard sale.
The two of you
could have only ever been more striking
standing on the summit, smiles wide as
the crevasses you traversed.
That's the picture we are
desperate for.
There really is no romance to this.
Your children miss that
chiseled face, lips the color of pomegranates.
Your wife, Ruth,
kept growing older while you stayed 37.
And you--you were found with your
ice ax and your boots--
You did not conquer yourself--
the mountain conquered you,
and your family said
"Do not bring him down.
He is where he belongs."
And the snow will keep him.
Photograph by Iona Wagner
Joyce Brinkman, Boone County
Wild Turkey in Winter
on the Poet's Path at Pokagon State Park
When winter frosts the woods
like a coconut cream cake,
the day grows sweet.
Instead of being numbed
by snow's arctic ambiance,
the thought of tasting
snow ice cream tingles
the tongue. Two eyes
sharpen to see through
a steady flow of flakes
in air that marches
into the lungs as if
in full military garb.
Then a platoon of black-
feathered wild turkey march
down the now white path,
turning off the trail,
determined to bivouac
among Shagbark Hickory
and tall Red Oak. Their
cadence in perfect time
with a precisely pitched
gobbling command.
Calling forth a separate parade
of perfect posture on
the return to the lodge
and thoughts of comfort
in the company of others.
Wild Turkey in Winter
on the Poet's Path at Pokagon State Park
When winter frosts the woods
like a coconut cream cake,
the day grows sweet.
Instead of being numbed
by snow's arctic ambiance,
the thought of tasting
snow ice cream tingles
the tongue. Two eyes
sharpen to see through
a steady flow of flakes
in air that marches
into the lungs as if
in full military garb.
Then a platoon of black-
feathered wild turkey march
down the now white path,
turning off the trail,
determined to bivouac
among Shagbark Hickory
and tall Red Oak. Their
cadence in perfect time
with a precisely pitched
gobbling command.
Calling forth a separate parade
of perfect posture on
the return to the lodge
and thoughts of comfort
in the company of others.
Photograph by Iona Wagner
Vickie Kibellus, Huntington County
Bayberry Mermaids
Boredom like blue gray cold. My 8 yr old fingers molded
hot bayberry wax drippings from leftover Christmas candles
into shapes--cubes, dogs, and mermaids. The ice and snow storm of Jan 1967
forced us to spend most waking hours in the summer kitchen
of our old brick house in Uniondale, Indiana.
A kerosene lamp, a coal oil stove, and a few leftover bayberry
and pine candles were the only light and heat
my mother, sister, 2 year old brother and I had during those 2 weeks.
WOWO blared sometimes. Battery life was short.
Good Vibrations, I'm a Believer, and Sugar Town teased us
with summery thoughts, quashed quickly by seeing the world
through the windows encrusted with jagged ice and deeper snow.
I played Christmas carols on the upright piano against the frigid
wall, sang hymns, and read the February issue of The Golden Magazine.
There was a mermaid story on page 2. But it was continued to next month
and there were no pictures of mermaids.
I missed my best friend Shari in Mrs. Pauley's third grade class
at Rockcreek School. And the homemade pizza and buttered corn
made by the cafeteria ladies. And chocolate milk day.
Then one day, the boredom became sadness. On January 27,
WOWO announced that the astronauts from Apollo 1
had died in a fiery accident.
Gus Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee.
I loved to say the name Gus Grissom--and now
the whole world was saying his name, and every time I heard it,
I felt coldness—like I was squeezing an icicle until my hand
was white and drips like teardrops were falling from my fingertips.
All I could think about was the fiery flash that killed those men
in Apollo 1 while I sat in the cold, dim summer kitchen
making bayberry mermaids.
Bayberry Mermaids
Boredom like blue gray cold. My 8 yr old fingers molded
hot bayberry wax drippings from leftover Christmas candles
into shapes--cubes, dogs, and mermaids. The ice and snow storm of Jan 1967
forced us to spend most waking hours in the summer kitchen
of our old brick house in Uniondale, Indiana.
A kerosene lamp, a coal oil stove, and a few leftover bayberry
and pine candles were the only light and heat
my mother, sister, 2 year old brother and I had during those 2 weeks.
WOWO blared sometimes. Battery life was short.
Good Vibrations, I'm a Believer, and Sugar Town teased us
with summery thoughts, quashed quickly by seeing the world
through the windows encrusted with jagged ice and deeper snow.
I played Christmas carols on the upright piano against the frigid
wall, sang hymns, and read the February issue of The Golden Magazine.
There was a mermaid story on page 2. But it was continued to next month
and there were no pictures of mermaids.
I missed my best friend Shari in Mrs. Pauley's third grade class
at Rockcreek School. And the homemade pizza and buttered corn
made by the cafeteria ladies. And chocolate milk day.
Then one day, the boredom became sadness. On January 27,
WOWO announced that the astronauts from Apollo 1
had died in a fiery accident.
Gus Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee.
I loved to say the name Gus Grissom--and now
the whole world was saying his name, and every time I heard it,
I felt coldness—like I was squeezing an icicle until my hand
was white and drips like teardrops were falling from my fingertips.
All I could think about was the fiery flash that killed those men
in Apollo 1 while I sat in the cold, dim summer kitchen
making bayberry mermaids.
Photograph by Shari Wagner
Teresa Stackhouse, Wabash County
The Day After Thanksgiving
I’m still in my pajamas with shoes shoved on my bare feet.
Standing in the driveway, chill wind slicing across my bare ankles,
I catch the scent of bacon from my robe while the November wind
Furiously whips it about.
I wish we could have lingered over coffee.
I would have liked to have heard a little more about the trip.
I wanted to ask if the girl in the picture was special.
I want you to be in love.
Instead I say, “Looks like snow.”
I find it hard to meet their eyes. They don’t like it when I cry.
I don’t like it when they leave.
“Be sure to drive safely. Let me know when you get there.”
I manage to look up long enough to take in my boys,
A blonde and two brunette heads that more closely resemble their father than me.
Standing against the backdrop
A sparse landscape of flat fields rendered in charcoal.
An immutable, gray horizon.
“We will,” my oldest replies while loading duffels and backpacks.
I squeeze a crumpled tissue in the pocket of my robe
As if grasping something will keep my fears in check.
I’m worried that you’ll forget
That I read to you all day when it rained
Under a blanket fort with a flashlight.
I made you a cup of hot chocolate every day
So that you could drink it while you watched Mr. Rogers
All cozy in my bed.
I made a playhouse with a secret entrance
Through the cedar trees.
We snuggled together every morning for two years in my bed
Before getting up for grade school.
We read the Harry Potter books and I did all the voices
Until you said, “I want to read it on my own.”
There were piles of library books, crayons, clay, music, movies, magazines and
Tea every day when you got off the bus from middle school.
I’m afraid you’ll focus on the angry days.
The times that I over-reacted,
When I embarrassed you in front of your girlfriend.
When I didn’t trust you, even though I should have.
When the words that I spoke were jagged, metallic, and spiteful.
Will you forgive me for not loving your father--
Enough?
And my biggest crime—the one that can’t be forgiven--
Falling in love
And leaving to live in a gray, flat world without you.
Inside a white rental car
Three pieces of my heart
That live, walk, and breathe outside of me.
I wait
For the next holiday, the next infrequent visit that brings you back
So that I can rejoin the pieces
And briefly feel my heart in its entirety.
Wet, fat, snowflakes melt
And split into tributaries that run down the windshield of your rental car.
“Good-bye. Drive Safely. I love you.”
I wave and stand in the cold until the last possible moment
When the tail lights disappear
Into the somber, ashen sweep of fields.
The Day After Thanksgiving
I’m still in my pajamas with shoes shoved on my bare feet.
Standing in the driveway, chill wind slicing across my bare ankles,
I catch the scent of bacon from my robe while the November wind
Furiously whips it about.
I wish we could have lingered over coffee.
I would have liked to have heard a little more about the trip.
I wanted to ask if the girl in the picture was special.
I want you to be in love.
Instead I say, “Looks like snow.”
I find it hard to meet their eyes. They don’t like it when I cry.
I don’t like it when they leave.
“Be sure to drive safely. Let me know when you get there.”
I manage to look up long enough to take in my boys,
A blonde and two brunette heads that more closely resemble their father than me.
Standing against the backdrop
A sparse landscape of flat fields rendered in charcoal.
An immutable, gray horizon.
“We will,” my oldest replies while loading duffels and backpacks.
I squeeze a crumpled tissue in the pocket of my robe
As if grasping something will keep my fears in check.
I’m worried that you’ll forget
That I read to you all day when it rained
Under a blanket fort with a flashlight.
I made you a cup of hot chocolate every day
So that you could drink it while you watched Mr. Rogers
All cozy in my bed.
I made a playhouse with a secret entrance
Through the cedar trees.
We snuggled together every morning for two years in my bed
Before getting up for grade school.
We read the Harry Potter books and I did all the voices
Until you said, “I want to read it on my own.”
There were piles of library books, crayons, clay, music, movies, magazines and
Tea every day when you got off the bus from middle school.
I’m afraid you’ll focus on the angry days.
The times that I over-reacted,
When I embarrassed you in front of your girlfriend.
When I didn’t trust you, even though I should have.
When the words that I spoke were jagged, metallic, and spiteful.
Will you forgive me for not loving your father--
Enough?
And my biggest crime—the one that can’t be forgiven--
Falling in love
And leaving to live in a gray, flat world without you.
Inside a white rental car
Three pieces of my heart
That live, walk, and breathe outside of me.
I wait
For the next holiday, the next infrequent visit that brings you back
So that I can rejoin the pieces
And briefly feel my heart in its entirety.
Wet, fat, snowflakes melt
And split into tributaries that run down the windshield of your rental car.
“Good-bye. Drive Safely. I love you.”
I wave and stand in the cold until the last possible moment
When the tail lights disappear
Into the somber, ashen sweep of fields.
I took these photos in Pioneer Village at Spring Mill State Park, Mitchell, Indiana
Poems from October's "An Inheritance" Prompt
Teresa Stackhouse, Wabash County
Workfolk
My father came home from the tire factory
Tattooed with the fine dust of sooty, black, rubber.
Only his eyes revealed his true flesh.
Stooped and shuffling, lunch pail in hand, blinking against the light
Like some miner accustomed to the dark marrow of a mountain.
He sat, elbows propped at the old, claw foot kitchen table.
Exhaling deliberately, smoke spiraling from his nostrils
Enjoying the cigarette that he had hankered for
But waited until this moment to relish.
He bolted his meal barely tasting the fried pork chop, white bread with margarine, and gray-green
Canned peas.
Food was not his priority.
In the living room he removed a pillow from the couch and stretched out on the hard, unforgiving,
Victorian floorboards of our home.
He said he preferred to sleep on the floor. It was better for his back.
He shunned all comfort--a blanket, or even one of the many tasseled, chevron Afghans
My mother crocheted for this purpose.
He favored a cold, unyielding sleep.
No amount of playful teasing, good-natured cajoling, or earnest plea
Would deter him from his post-shift nap.
He rebuffed my efforts, telling me that I would never know how dog-tired a man would feel
After a long, back-breaking shift.
I come home from the hospital
Hair escaping the tight knot that I had wound 14 hours earlier.
I am tousled, shaggy, and unkempt
Plodding through my kitchen on tender feet, an overburdened
Draft horse sent out to field.
I glance at the claw foot kitchen table of my youth where my son sits
Contemplating the back of a cereal box.
Breakfast holds no appeal.
In my bedroom I have covered my windows with aluminum foil, blankets, and blinds.
I have created a rayless cavern of coal that I crawl into
And burrow against the daylight.
I lie to my body with pink pills and white pills.
I favor sleep of any kind over none at all.
My son turns on my fan.
White noise helps. I read something about that.
I cover myself with a heavy mantle, hand-stitched and pieced together by
The rough, chapped hands of my aunties, parents, grandparents, and sisters.
We are workfolk.
Teresa Stackhouse, Wabash County
Workfolk
My father came home from the tire factory
Tattooed with the fine dust of sooty, black, rubber.
Only his eyes revealed his true flesh.
Stooped and shuffling, lunch pail in hand, blinking against the light
Like some miner accustomed to the dark marrow of a mountain.
He sat, elbows propped at the old, claw foot kitchen table.
Exhaling deliberately, smoke spiraling from his nostrils
Enjoying the cigarette that he had hankered for
But waited until this moment to relish.
He bolted his meal barely tasting the fried pork chop, white bread with margarine, and gray-green
Canned peas.
Food was not his priority.
In the living room he removed a pillow from the couch and stretched out on the hard, unforgiving,
Victorian floorboards of our home.
He said he preferred to sleep on the floor. It was better for his back.
He shunned all comfort--a blanket, or even one of the many tasseled, chevron Afghans
My mother crocheted for this purpose.
He favored a cold, unyielding sleep.
No amount of playful teasing, good-natured cajoling, or earnest plea
Would deter him from his post-shift nap.
He rebuffed my efforts, telling me that I would never know how dog-tired a man would feel
After a long, back-breaking shift.
I come home from the hospital
Hair escaping the tight knot that I had wound 14 hours earlier.
I am tousled, shaggy, and unkempt
Plodding through my kitchen on tender feet, an overburdened
Draft horse sent out to field.
I glance at the claw foot kitchen table of my youth where my son sits
Contemplating the back of a cereal box.
Breakfast holds no appeal.
In my bedroom I have covered my windows with aluminum foil, blankets, and blinds.
I have created a rayless cavern of coal that I crawl into
And burrow against the daylight.
I lie to my body with pink pills and white pills.
I favor sleep of any kind over none at all.
My son turns on my fan.
White noise helps. I read something about that.
I cover myself with a heavy mantle, hand-stitched and pieced together by
The rough, chapped hands of my aunties, parents, grandparents, and sisters.
We are workfolk.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Aunt Louise's Gift
As a child, the story repeated by my mother
and remembered these many years happened
on Aunt Louise's wedding day. Photos show
Aunt Louise as a vibrant, auburn-haired
blue-eyed beauty. She was devoted to heavenly
beings, especially to St. Jude, the intercessor.
When she woke to rain on her wedding day,
Aunt Louise was distraught and tearfully fretful.
After several unanswered pleas, to St. Jude begging
for sunshine, she knelt to pray--one more time.
"Until it stops raining," she prayed, as she stood the
St. Jude statue on its head. Sunshine soon prevailed.
Chuckling at her sister's boldness, Mom's many
retellings left us with an inherent devotion to St. Jude,
the saint of lost causes.
Aunt Louise's Gift
As a child, the story repeated by my mother
and remembered these many years happened
on Aunt Louise's wedding day. Photos show
Aunt Louise as a vibrant, auburn-haired
blue-eyed beauty. She was devoted to heavenly
beings, especially to St. Jude, the intercessor.
When she woke to rain on her wedding day,
Aunt Louise was distraught and tearfully fretful.
After several unanswered pleas, to St. Jude begging
for sunshine, she knelt to pray--one more time.
"Until it stops raining," she prayed, as she stood the
St. Jude statue on its head. Sunshine soon prevailed.
Chuckling at her sister's boldness, Mom's many
retellings left us with an inherent devotion to St. Jude,
the saint of lost causes.
M. June Yates, Montgomery County
Our Legacy
Time ticks on the relentless clock,
And we are forced to be
Stronger and far wiser now
Than you or I can see.
"A poor substitute," we say
And shake our weary heads
For Dad who has gone to heaven
And left us here instead.
For we are left to carry on,
To sing a different song.
The melody's discordant now.
Who can sing along?
It's hard to find the tune,
like emptiness and harmony
Echoing in a room.
It was not his choice, we know,
To leave us all alone,
But we must shine much brighter now
Before our journey home. . . .
We won't forget his smiling face
Or his enthusiastic love for life.
Time has a way of sifting through
All the toil and the strife.
Now we must glean the good things
And add them to our days.
To be someone finer and stronger now,
And give God all the praise.
Our Legacy
Time ticks on the relentless clock,
And we are forced to be
Stronger and far wiser now
Than you or I can see.
"A poor substitute," we say
And shake our weary heads
For Dad who has gone to heaven
And left us here instead.
For we are left to carry on,
To sing a different song.
The melody's discordant now.
Who can sing along?
It's hard to find the tune,
like emptiness and harmony
Echoing in a room.
It was not his choice, we know,
To leave us all alone,
But we must shine much brighter now
Before our journey home. . . .
We won't forget his smiling face
Or his enthusiastic love for life.
Time has a way of sifting through
All the toil and the strife.
Now we must glean the good things
And add them to our days.
To be someone finer and stronger now,
And give God all the praise.
Chuck Wagner, Hamilton County
October
"Let me find your mother," my father stammers.
For the past year, I've listened to his increasing sparseness
Of speech, as if nouns were long lost articles of clothing
Draped across the footboard of a bed in some forgotten
House, and verbs, elusive animals lurking just beyond
Sight in a mist-shrouded landscape. I miss most
Your stories of baseball, the spinster aunt who carted
You off to Brown's games where you lounged
In sun-splashed bleachers while Babe Ruth
Punished those wooden benches.
I remember the '64 series when you sprung me
From school on an overcast autumn day. As we
Settled into box seats, surveying flag-draped stanchions
And anticipating the spectacle of Mantle and Maris,
Boyer and Gibson, names I knew from battered
Baseball cards, you spun stories from the series
Of your youth: The Gashouse Gang and the great
Dizzy Dean. Now your conversation is fraught
With starts and stops like a runner eyeing second
But refusing to wander far from first.
As I attend to my mother's voice, I concentrate
On those notes of protectiveness and concern,
Forged from a sixty year marriage. In those tones
I chart the course of my father's life, back
To the year of his birth, and my grandmother's
Account of the '26 series, and in her description
Of Grover Alexander's slump-shouldered gait,
I see my father trudging toward some darker
Field where time flickers like newsreel footage
And crowds rise and shout in the syntax of silence.
October
"Let me find your mother," my father stammers.
For the past year, I've listened to his increasing sparseness
Of speech, as if nouns were long lost articles of clothing
Draped across the footboard of a bed in some forgotten
House, and verbs, elusive animals lurking just beyond
Sight in a mist-shrouded landscape. I miss most
Your stories of baseball, the spinster aunt who carted
You off to Brown's games where you lounged
In sun-splashed bleachers while Babe Ruth
Punished those wooden benches.
I remember the '64 series when you sprung me
From school on an overcast autumn day. As we
Settled into box seats, surveying flag-draped stanchions
And anticipating the spectacle of Mantle and Maris,
Boyer and Gibson, names I knew from battered
Baseball cards, you spun stories from the series
Of your youth: The Gashouse Gang and the great
Dizzy Dean. Now your conversation is fraught
With starts and stops like a runner eyeing second
But refusing to wander far from first.
As I attend to my mother's voice, I concentrate
On those notes of protectiveness and concern,
Forged from a sixty year marriage. In those tones
I chart the course of my father's life, back
To the year of his birth, and my grandmother's
Account of the '26 series, and in her description
Of Grover Alexander's slump-shouldered gait,
I see my father trudging toward some darker
Field where time flickers like newsreel footage
And crowds rise and shout in the syntax of silence.
I took these photos for "Past in the Present" at the "Sunken Gardens of Huntington," a garden made from a quarry.
Poems from the September "Past in the Present" Prompt
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Fairchild Mansion
A thin layer of gossip hangs over a small Indiana town and theprominent pioneer family of Charity May Fairchild and husband, Fred,
who built the Fairchild House.
Even after all these years, whispers still spiral through the byways like
swamp fog that comes and goes but lingers with every telling.
Truth be known, Fred and friend, Jacob, were vying for the affections of a
married woman when Jacob killed Fred with a shot-gun blast at Jacob's farmhouse.
Folks, who heard the news, were shaken. Wives called their husbands
home from work, brought their children inside, locked doors
lest they be next. There was a murderer on the loose.
When third graders came to the Mansion to learn local history
these 65 years later, many repeated their parents' expanded version
of the murder. One boy asked to see the carpet that Fred was
wrapped in as he was rolled downstairs. They asked if the house was haunted.
Gripping scandal has a long life with many legs.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Fairchild Mansion
A thin layer of gossip hangs over a small Indiana town and theprominent pioneer family of Charity May Fairchild and husband, Fred,
who built the Fairchild House.
Even after all these years, whispers still spiral through the byways like
swamp fog that comes and goes but lingers with every telling.
Truth be known, Fred and friend, Jacob, were vying for the affections of a
married woman when Jacob killed Fred with a shot-gun blast at Jacob's farmhouse.
Folks, who heard the news, were shaken. Wives called their husbands
home from work, brought their children inside, locked doors
lest they be next. There was a murderer on the loose.
When third graders came to the Mansion to learn local history
these 65 years later, many repeated their parents' expanded version
of the murder. One boy asked to see the carpet that Fred was
wrapped in as he was rolled downstairs. They asked if the house was haunted.
Gripping scandal has a long life with many legs.
Chuck Wagner, Hamilton County
MCL Cafeteria
They follow the guard-railed cattle chute,
past the Blue Plate special sign--Fried Chicken
and Two Sides--toward the stacks of plastic trays
that slide across a stainless-steel shelf. On swollen
ankles and feet, they troll the cornucopia of Jello
fruit molds, mincemeat pies and chocolate layer cakes
while ghost voices scold them for snatching dessert
before supper. As they reach the entrees, perhaps
they recall Sunday dinners in starched collars and
pressed dresses that rustled when they walked, or
the solemn drone of grace as their senses fastened
upon steaming bowls of mashed potatoes
and the scent of chicken fried in lard and maybe
they remember the stories, grandfather tipping
over outhouses when WPA workers appeared
on his farm or church services conducted in broken
English because of anti-German sentiment, family
history that stitched them together like patches
on a quilt. But now they tote their trays toward
separate white-clothed tables, hesitating over
plates of overcooked tilapia and soggy broccoli,
and when the waitress asks if there is anything
she can bring them, they shake their heads, knowing
that whatever is given can surely be taken away.
MCL Cafeteria
They follow the guard-railed cattle chute,
past the Blue Plate special sign--Fried Chicken
and Two Sides--toward the stacks of plastic trays
that slide across a stainless-steel shelf. On swollen
ankles and feet, they troll the cornucopia of Jello
fruit molds, mincemeat pies and chocolate layer cakes
while ghost voices scold them for snatching dessert
before supper. As they reach the entrees, perhaps
they recall Sunday dinners in starched collars and
pressed dresses that rustled when they walked, or
the solemn drone of grace as their senses fastened
upon steaming bowls of mashed potatoes
and the scent of chicken fried in lard and maybe
they remember the stories, grandfather tipping
over outhouses when WPA workers appeared
on his farm or church services conducted in broken
English because of anti-German sentiment, family
history that stitched them together like patches
on a quilt. But now they tote their trays toward
separate white-clothed tables, hesitating over
plates of overcooked tilapia and soggy broccoli,
and when the waitress asks if there is anything
she can bring them, they shake their heads, knowing
that whatever is given can surely be taken away.
Katherine Simmons, Marion County
Jewelweed
In dense August heat under the shagbarks
at our old summer camp (a ghost town now),
I see you both standing with me still, the softness
of childhood lingering in your lean-muscled arms,
perfect as nighthawk wings, my silken girlhood
ripening. We three, with scout-like discipline,
tested our mail-order shepherd's slings, practiced
the mischief of an ancient art commandeered now by us.
Oblivious to the summer heat, we strove
to master pocket slings, shot small smooth stones
into Goliath trees. We cleaved to a new intimacy
rooted in weathered hickories and pocket slings.
Childishly we play-acted brave warriors'
fierce fighting, hurling lethal stones
against enemy trees with long sure lobs.
In August in the bottomlands jewelweed blooms
profusely. Its lofty foliage engulfs the path
and dangles yellow blossoms alongside ripe pods,
confetti-coiled, spring-loaded to burst.
One of you gathered bouquets for me.
No childish pact could stop the shattering.
At summer's end we put our slings away.
Today, with hindsight's sorrow, I pause
and see our beauty still along that ridgetop
shimmering silently between the trees.
Jewelweed
In dense August heat under the shagbarks
at our old summer camp (a ghost town now),
I see you both standing with me still, the softness
of childhood lingering in your lean-muscled arms,
perfect as nighthawk wings, my silken girlhood
ripening. We three, with scout-like discipline,
tested our mail-order shepherd's slings, practiced
the mischief of an ancient art commandeered now by us.
Oblivious to the summer heat, we strove
to master pocket slings, shot small smooth stones
into Goliath trees. We cleaved to a new intimacy
rooted in weathered hickories and pocket slings.
Childishly we play-acted brave warriors'
fierce fighting, hurling lethal stones
against enemy trees with long sure lobs.
In August in the bottomlands jewelweed blooms
profusely. Its lofty foliage engulfs the path
and dangles yellow blossoms alongside ripe pods,
confetti-coiled, spring-loaded to burst.
One of you gathered bouquets for me.
No childish pact could stop the shattering.
At summer's end we put our slings away.
Today, with hindsight's sorrow, I pause
and see our beauty still along that ridgetop
shimmering silently between the trees.
Rosaleen Crowley, Hamilton County
Ghosts of Trains Past
The people have left the town
For foreign lands and other places
Home again to plant seeds
And harness memories of family.
The city train has left the station,
Zigzagging through dense grasses
Hooting and tooting
Amid curves of snake shaped miles.
It's final destination, one town over as a train blows
The people travel on the tracks of Youghal, never arriving
Ghosts of trains past to be found in the minds of locals
And a few city folk who choose to remember.
Ghosts of Trains Past
The people have left the town
For foreign lands and other places
Home again to plant seeds
And harness memories of family.
The city train has left the station,
Zigzagging through dense grasses
Hooting and tooting
Amid curves of snake shaped miles.
It's final destination, one town over as a train blows
The people travel on the tracks of Youghal, never arriving
Ghosts of trains past to be found in the minds of locals
And a few city folk who choose to remember.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
Past and Present
Glaciers are still here,
having molded the land,
dropping big chunks of ice,
building great lakes,
leaving long eskers.
I see, hear, and smell the glaciers when I’m at my favorite place.
They are telling me what it was like
to feel the millions of square miles
devoid of man’s intrusion.
Untrampled beauty,
natural sounds,
fresh air,
their presence is still felt at my favorite place.
Glaciers are the past and present of northeast Indiana.
Past and Present
Glaciers are still here,
having molded the land,
dropping big chunks of ice,
building great lakes,
leaving long eskers.
I see, hear, and smell the glaciers when I’m at my favorite place.
They are telling me what it was like
to feel the millions of square miles
devoid of man’s intrusion.
Untrampled beauty,
natural sounds,
fresh air,
their presence is still felt at my favorite place.
Glaciers are the past and present of northeast Indiana.
My grandparents on their wedding day
Shari Wagner, Hamilton County
The Sunken Gardens
Huntington, Indiana
~In Memory of Perry and Lucile Miller
"Winding paths lead near cool waters and masses
of bloom, in the place made out of a dream."
Better Homes and Gardens, November 1929
Poised on this limestone bridge, gray now,
but then it shone white, Lucile still wears
her bridal corsage, orchids pinned
to a stiff tailored suit. They have come,
like the others, to gaze into their melded
shadows, where goldfish, like shards
of stained glass, glide. They marvel
at beds of begonias and swirling
iris bordered by coleus. If paradise
can be hewn from the raw gape
of a quarry, then the years will only add
more layers of bloom. They cannot see
how this radiance fades and negligence
mows the flowers, vandals seize the rest.
Stone, water, grass. That's all
that remains, the bare geometry
of a garden when memory has eroded
its own lush bank. This algae-covered
pond has no bottom but mud
and more mud, but that can't be true,
and though you both wander
through a maze of beige hallways
and can't reach each other, there must
be a place where you meet.
Maybe it's here--on this bridge--
where traffic is muffled by maple leaves
miles above what matters in a life
immortalized by the sudden
brush of a kiss.
The Sunken Gardens
Huntington, Indiana
~In Memory of Perry and Lucile Miller
"Winding paths lead near cool waters and masses
of bloom, in the place made out of a dream."
Better Homes and Gardens, November 1929
Poised on this limestone bridge, gray now,
but then it shone white, Lucile still wears
her bridal corsage, orchids pinned
to a stiff tailored suit. They have come,
like the others, to gaze into their melded
shadows, where goldfish, like shards
of stained glass, glide. They marvel
at beds of begonias and swirling
iris bordered by coleus. If paradise
can be hewn from the raw gape
of a quarry, then the years will only add
more layers of bloom. They cannot see
how this radiance fades and negligence
mows the flowers, vandals seize the rest.
Stone, water, grass. That's all
that remains, the bare geometry
of a garden when memory has eroded
its own lush bank. This algae-covered
pond has no bottom but mud
and more mud, but that can't be true,
and though you both wander
through a maze of beige hallways
and can't reach each other, there must
be a place where you meet.
Maybe it's here--on this bridge--
where traffic is muffled by maple leaves
miles above what matters in a life
immortalized by the sudden
brush of a kiss.
This photo and above photo were taken by Iona Wagner on the Fall Creek Trail at Fort Harrison State Park.
Poems from the August 2016 "Along a Trail" Prompt
Katherine Simmons, Marion County
The woodthrush wakes me--
flute music at 5 a.m.
How can I complain?
Katherine Simmons, Marion County
The woodthrush wakes me--
flute music at 5 a.m.
How can I complain?
Jo Barbara Taylor, Montgomery County
Old Moments at Fall Creek
new trail in old woods
traces native footfalls
in the silence of cicada chatter
*
Fall Creek tickles the rock bed
Lenape mother bathes her babe
their giggles raft downstream
*
sycamore, totem of strength
has fallen and wades
in creekbed shallows and moonlight
Old Moments at Fall Creek
new trail in old woods
traces native footfalls
in the silence of cicada chatter
*
Fall Creek tickles the rock bed
Lenape mother bathes her babe
their giggles raft downstream
*
sycamore, totem of strength
has fallen and wades
in creekbed shallows and moonlight
This photo was taken at Potato Creek State Park by Vienna Bottomley, an Arts in the Park poet this summer.
Vienna Bottomley, St. Joseph County
Arts in the Parks Poet, Potato Creek State Park
By Trail 1
Boughs brace each other,
Forming an arboreal
Chapel, a gothic green
Basilica where asphalt
Aisles crumble into weedy
Thickets thick with bulbous
Blackberries that dangle
Richly like relics strung
In sap-filled caskets,
Venerated by cardinals,
Crows, and the silent fawn
That rests, head bent, beneath
The dogwood trees.
Arts in the Parks Poet, Potato Creek State Park
By Trail 1
Boughs brace each other,
Forming an arboreal
Chapel, a gothic green
Basilica where asphalt
Aisles crumble into weedy
Thickets thick with bulbous
Blackberries that dangle
Richly like relics strung
In sap-filled caskets,
Venerated by cardinals,
Crows, and the silent fawn
That rests, head bent, beneath
The dogwood trees.
Joyce Brinkman, Boone County
Prophetstown Prairie Path
An old prairie edge reveals
Hedge Apples planted as
the "Great Plains Shelterbelt."
Their glossy, green leaves wrap
thick hands around whistling winds
that would snatch the very land from
its bed. Unlike the prairie grasses
which live and die and feed the
earth. These guardians of ground
do not offer their orange flesh nor
green bumpy fruit for easy rot.
Resisting the scent of decay, they
stand firm as palace guards; whether
standing alive or as fence posts.
Prophetstown Prairie Path
An old prairie edge reveals
Hedge Apples planted as
the "Great Plains Shelterbelt."
Their glossy, green leaves wrap
thick hands around whistling winds
that would snatch the very land from
its bed. Unlike the prairie grasses
which live and die and feed the
earth. These guardians of ground
do not offer their orange flesh nor
green bumpy fruit for easy rot.
Resisting the scent of decay, they
stand firm as palace guards; whether
standing alive or as fence posts.
|
Iona Wagner, Hamilton County
Arts in the Parks Singer-Songwriter at Fort Harrison State Park Darling, Please Walking in a park You're blinded And to crickets in the dark You're deafened Chorus And you think the world is spinning onwards Cause you gave it the right And that the world is grey and cold and concrete Cause you don't have the sight To see the beauty in elms and violets and daisies Cause you're alone in all your daydreams So just stop for a little while See this wonderful world and smile Darling, please. Cicadas at dusk They're muted And the love song of a thrush It's refuted Chorus Substitute: grey, cold, concrete for trade, war, profit Sub: elms, violets for tulips, robins Well you've got eyes that see and a heart that beats So admire something different like the old oak tree Before your time has come to an end Won't you listen to the musings of a well-meaning friend And just stop for a little while See this wonderful world and smile Darling , Please Chorus Sub: grey, cold, concrete for mad, dark, dismal Sub: elms, violets for wrens, spiders |
|
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Duff Park
I saw him often on the trail
round as a dumpling
his brown jacket and tweed hat
blended with the tree trunks,
a leprechaun carrying a walking stick.
He seemed always to hike on a trail above me
in this hilly, cliffy and craggy forest primeval.
I tramped among the towering oaks, sycamores,
sought seasonal blooms and glimpses
of the wild animals that roamed there.
One day, waiting in the parking lot
with a hand carved walking stick,
he said, "Here, I think you need this,"
then disappeared in the forest.
I never got his name.
Duff Park
I saw him often on the trail
round as a dumpling
his brown jacket and tweed hat
blended with the tree trunks,
a leprechaun carrying a walking stick.
He seemed always to hike on a trail above me
in this hilly, cliffy and craggy forest primeval.
I tramped among the towering oaks, sycamores,
sought seasonal blooms and glimpses
of the wild animals that roamed there.
One day, waiting in the parking lot
with a hand carved walking stick,
he said, "Here, I think you need this,"
then disappeared in the forest.
I never got his name.
Iona Wagner took this photo at Fort Harrison State Park.
Lauren Vosburgh, Noble County
Mystery
We wandered the maple woods late in May
Down the deep ravine to the shallow stream
And there, scoured by winter and water, lay
A skeleton, lit by a rogue sunbeam.
Still sporting his coat over naked bone
One dainty paw retaining tawny hair
Man's best friend--moldering, lost and alone
What luckless adventure had led him there?
Was it coyote or running away
Or a bullet that brought him to this end?
We would have buried him but had no way
It does not matter to the little friend.
He is not these poor bones, he has walked on
Gone to the end of the trail and beyond.
Mystery
We wandered the maple woods late in May
Down the deep ravine to the shallow stream
And there, scoured by winter and water, lay
A skeleton, lit by a rogue sunbeam.
Still sporting his coat over naked bone
One dainty paw retaining tawny hair
Man's best friend--moldering, lost and alone
What luckless adventure had led him there?
Was it coyote or running away
Or a bullet that brought him to this end?
We would have buried him but had no way
It does not matter to the little friend.
He is not these poor bones, he has walked on
Gone to the end of the trail and beyond.
Linda, Adams County
Searching
I walked along the sandy shore
Of ocean, beach, and shells galore
And staring on out into space
Fancied I saw my Creator's face
I walked a dusty road beside
A field of cornstalks and I tried
To find a peace of heart and soul,
To touch the One who made me whole.
I made my way up to the top
Of the mountain's rugged rocks,
Wearied, I fell down to my knees.
Where was everlasting peace?
"Oh my child?" he cried and then
I felt a pulse from deep within,
"Those who do My Father's will are My temple where I dwell."
Searching
I walked along the sandy shore
Of ocean, beach, and shells galore
And staring on out into space
Fancied I saw my Creator's face
I walked a dusty road beside
A field of cornstalks and I tried
To find a peace of heart and soul,
To touch the One who made me whole.
I made my way up to the top
Of the mountain's rugged rocks,
Wearied, I fell down to my knees.
Where was everlasting peace?
"Oh my child?" he cried and then
I felt a pulse from deep within,
"Those who do My Father's will are My temple where I dwell."
J. Daniel Hess took this photograph of an old cottonwood on the Fall Creek Trail in Fort Harrison State Park.
Pathways to Nature Poetry Workshop, Fort Harrison State Park
Wilma Bailey and J. Daniel Hess
Why I Love Fall Creek Trail
Because of the spider web nestled
between twig and trunk
and the boy whose neck stretched to see it.
Because of the elegant sycamore
with its winter cave dwelling
and the three trunks-in-one cottonwood,
its circumference large as five men
standing fingertip to fingertip.
Because of the symphony we heard--
the singing of water orchestrated by piccolos
of birdsong, the tuba of bullfrog.
Because of the light that came to us
as punctuation marks—dashing, slanting,
exclaiming across the path and foliage.
Because of the wind on our skin
and how it touched Duck Pond, ripples
ricocheting between lily pads. Because
of the land’s up and down contour
drawing us at last to the call of the catbird.
Wilma Bailey and J. Daniel Hess
Why I Love Fall Creek Trail
Because of the spider web nestled
between twig and trunk
and the boy whose neck stretched to see it.
Because of the elegant sycamore
with its winter cave dwelling
and the three trunks-in-one cottonwood,
its circumference large as five men
standing fingertip to fingertip.
Because of the symphony we heard--
the singing of water orchestrated by piccolos
of birdsong, the tuba of bullfrog.
Because of the light that came to us
as punctuation marks—dashing, slanting,
exclaiming across the path and foliage.
Because of the wind on our skin
and how it touched Duck Pond, ripples
ricocheting between lily pads. Because
of the land’s up and down contour
drawing us at last to the call of the catbird.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
I Walk the Trail at Night
I walk the trail at night
after the world disappears
I adjust my sight
and confront my fears
Of the dark
Of the sounds
Of the danger
all around
Trying to feel
what I can't see
and to see
what isn't right
That's why
I walk the trail at night
I Walk the Trail at Night
I walk the trail at night
after the world disappears
I adjust my sight
and confront my fears
Of the dark
Of the sounds
Of the danger
all around
Trying to feel
what I can't see
and to see
what isn't right
That's why
I walk the trail at night
Poems from the July 2016 Once More to the Lake Prompt
Dan Carpenter, Marion County
Flow
The tattered woods open to us
With an old neighbor's indifference
On a morning along Patoka Lake
Flooded with the thin light of late fall
Ed, pushing 80
Leads us through hackberry and tulip poplar
As if he'd planted each of them
He recalls when the lake was not a lake
But a river so madly winding
Your canoe would pass the same house twice
He has lived to love this sea of a fishing hole
As if it were God-given not Corps-corrected
But there are days when he swears
You can look deep and see that house
Dan Carpenter, Marion County
Flow
The tattered woods open to us
With an old neighbor's indifference
On a morning along Patoka Lake
Flooded with the thin light of late fall
Ed, pushing 80
Leads us through hackberry and tulip poplar
As if he'd planted each of them
He recalls when the lake was not a lake
But a river so madly winding
Your canoe would pass the same house twice
He has lived to love this sea of a fishing hole
As if it were God-given not Corps-corrected
But there are days when he swears
You can look deep and see that house
Norbert Krapf, Marion County
Sunday at the Lake
It's Sunday at the lake
and everyone is in orbit
or frozen at the long table.
What and how much
to pile on your plate?
Where to sit and with
whom? How many relatives
can come together, eat,
nod off, go swimming,
shout, murmur, go silent,
walk around in twos
and threes, drift off
on pine boughs in shade,
hear mosquitoes hum
and whine? From what
distant radio does Elvis
hound dog, shake us up,
and heartbreak out hotel?
Who fired the sun so hot?
How many snakes slumber
beneath the overturned
row boat to slither away
when we turn it upright
and hurl curses after them
before diving deep down
into the cool and murky
waters of Sunday infinity?
Sunday at the Lake
It's Sunday at the lake
and everyone is in orbit
or frozen at the long table.
What and how much
to pile on your plate?
Where to sit and with
whom? How many relatives
can come together, eat,
nod off, go swimming,
shout, murmur, go silent,
walk around in twos
and threes, drift off
on pine boughs in shade,
hear mosquitoes hum
and whine? From what
distant radio does Elvis
hound dog, shake us up,
and heartbreak out hotel?
Who fired the sun so hot?
How many snakes slumber
beneath the overturned
row boat to slither away
when we turn it upright
and hurl curses after them
before diving deep down
into the cool and murky
waters of Sunday infinity?
Cassie Caylor, Wells County
Norwell High School (Junior)
Pine Lake
Pine Lake is a playground in an old-fashioned swimming hole.
Slides and teeter-totters share space with fat fish always
hoping for a snack.
You can pet the alpaca and cows and donkey in the shady place
if you don't mind getting
grass on your feet.
Grandpa came here when he was a boy, driving a tractor
with his brothers.
They jumped off a high dive even bigger than the thirty-footer
till a tornado blew it away.
I climb the stairs to the top but I go to the black hole instead.
You can see it from the parking lot among the trees
but inside it's dark. You go round and round, faster and faster,
but you can't see anything until you hit the water.
After I ride all the big slides and slip off the giant lily pads
I always end up at the splash pad where a giant tub slowly fills overhead
until it's ready to dump a drenching river of water
running down your hair and skin, so refreshing,
like you are a human waterfall.
Norwell High School (Junior)
Pine Lake
Pine Lake is a playground in an old-fashioned swimming hole.
Slides and teeter-totters share space with fat fish always
hoping for a snack.
You can pet the alpaca and cows and donkey in the shady place
if you don't mind getting
grass on your feet.
Grandpa came here when he was a boy, driving a tractor
with his brothers.
They jumped off a high dive even bigger than the thirty-footer
till a tornado blew it away.
I climb the stairs to the top but I go to the black hole instead.
You can see it from the parking lot among the trees
but inside it's dark. You go round and round, faster and faster,
but you can't see anything until you hit the water.
After I ride all the big slides and slip off the giant lily pads
I always end up at the splash pad where a giant tub slowly fills overhead
until it's ready to dump a drenching river of water
running down your hair and skin, so refreshing,
like you are a human waterfall.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
Fishin'
It's a calm evening that pulls me to the lake
to cast a line onto the flat surface.
The bobber hits the water, emitting
ripples that dapple the sun.
The bobber is the target, the focus of my mind.
Staring at it floating in the water,
waiting expectantly for it to bob.
Cast again, not really caring, just living,
relaxing in the mood lighting,
waiting for nothing.
A tiny ripple, a few more.
The bobber dances the silly dance, then plunges.
Time to reel in the fish.
A few more, and supper is ready.
Fishin'
It's a calm evening that pulls me to the lake
to cast a line onto the flat surface.
The bobber hits the water, emitting
ripples that dapple the sun.
The bobber is the target, the focus of my mind.
Staring at it floating in the water,
waiting expectantly for it to bob.
Cast again, not really caring, just living,
relaxing in the mood lighting,
waiting for nothing.
A tiny ripple, a few more.
The bobber dances the silly dance, then plunges.
Time to reel in the fish.
A few more, and supper is ready.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Herrick's Lake
from the blanket
on the grass
Mom and Betty watched as
we splashed in the shallows
of Herrick's Lake
one summer
during the Great Depression
squishing mud between our toes
squealing in delight
while Mickey swam across
Mom and Betty laughing at our joy
PB&J and Flavor-Aid was lunch
All are spirits now
O for one more day at Herrick's Lake
Herrick's Lake
from the blanket
on the grass
Mom and Betty watched as
we splashed in the shallows
of Herrick's Lake
one summer
during the Great Depression
squishing mud between our toes
squealing in delight
while Mickey swam across
Mom and Betty laughing at our joy
PB&J and Flavor-Aid was lunch
All are spirits now
O for one more day at Herrick's Lake
Pathways to Nature Workshop, Fort Harrison State Park
Tamara Brown, Robin Denman, Jo Taylor, Iona Wagner
Zen
In the middle of the pond,
a blue heron, still
as a fisherman in his boat,
stands on a dark stump
or sycamore limb,
surrounded by an audience
of waterlily blooms, small faces
open to the sun
and the gulp of bullfrogs.
He hears us talking about him,
chattering like cicadas,
and whispers, hush.
Tamara Brown, Robin Denman, Jo Taylor, Iona Wagner
Zen
In the middle of the pond,
a blue heron, still
as a fisherman in his boat,
stands on a dark stump
or sycamore limb,
surrounded by an audience
of waterlily blooms, small faces
open to the sun
and the gulp of bullfrogs.
He hears us talking about him,
chattering like cicadas,
and whispers, hush.
Pathways to Nature Workshop, Fort Harrison State Park
Vicki Basman, Jean Herr, Jo Taylor
Delaware Lake
A painting from a palette
of greens with the stillness
brought alive by raindrops
and fish. A scrumbling brush
strokes the surface. The duck’s
tail, a fan brush, inscribes
concentric circles. Wind
recomposes the painting, feathers
the ripples. Coming closer
before they are seen,
red-winged blackbirds
call from the trees.
Vicki Basman, Jean Herr, Jo Taylor
Delaware Lake
A painting from a palette
of greens with the stillness
brought alive by raindrops
and fish. A scrumbling brush
strokes the surface. The duck’s
tail, a fan brush, inscribes
concentric circles. Wind
recomposes the painting, feathers
the ripples. Coming closer
before they are seen,
red-winged blackbirds
call from the trees.
Poems from the June 2016 My Favorite Tree Prompt
Michael Brockley, Delaware County
Ash Knows My Affection
for frog-voiced crooners, basketball underdogs, extinct beasts and the women who dismiss me. Ash
shares my affinity for awkwardness and awkward words. Quixotic, preposterity, shillelagh,
Schimmbesserung. Fledgling robins, newly apprenticed to flight, rest upon the confidence of Ash's
sway. In the shade of their roost, I unbend from my labor, knees crackling with the fireworks of age.
The lawn scapes about me, mottled only by rabbit burrows near the juniper row. Ash plunges its
roots into the firmament of clay as I trace knobs and grooves along the trunk, seeking ladybug
spore. The scent of earth and insect musk lingers where I have brushed. I often depend upon old
blessings. A dog that no longer wags its tail in greeting, a misremembered lyric from a Leon
Redbone song, razbliuto, ondinnonk. Ash.
Notes: Preposterity is a word I created which is a combination of preposterous and posterity.
Schlimmbesserung is a German wrod for a good idea that makes things worse.
Razbliuto is a Russian word for the feeling a man has for someone he once loved, but no longer loves.
Ondinnonk is an Iroquois word for the soul's deepest desires, especially as they are expressed through dreams.
Michael Brockley, Delaware County
Ash Knows My Affection
for frog-voiced crooners, basketball underdogs, extinct beasts and the women who dismiss me. Ash
shares my affinity for awkwardness and awkward words. Quixotic, preposterity, shillelagh,
Schimmbesserung. Fledgling robins, newly apprenticed to flight, rest upon the confidence of Ash's
sway. In the shade of their roost, I unbend from my labor, knees crackling with the fireworks of age.
The lawn scapes about me, mottled only by rabbit burrows near the juniper row. Ash plunges its
roots into the firmament of clay as I trace knobs and grooves along the trunk, seeking ladybug
spore. The scent of earth and insect musk lingers where I have brushed. I often depend upon old
blessings. A dog that no longer wags its tail in greeting, a misremembered lyric from a Leon
Redbone song, razbliuto, ondinnonk. Ash.
Notes: Preposterity is a word I created which is a combination of preposterous and posterity.
Schlimmbesserung is a German wrod for a good idea that makes things worse.
Razbliuto is a Russian word for the feeling a man has for someone he once loved, but no longer loves.
Ondinnonk is an Iroquois word for the soul's deepest desires, especially as they are expressed through dreams.
Michael Lunsford, Parke County
Old Beech
In April green I found it there
In a place I'd come before.
An old beech tree, tall as a spire,
A grey-skinned church sans roof and door.
Its prayerful arms reached up towards blue,
To a sky packed white with clouds.
And winds blew like cathedral tunes,
Stirring leaves like moving crowds.
The tree has stood a hundred years,
Wearing time's wet snows and rains,
And it hears the clack of ghosts run by,
On tracks long missing trains.
In quiet shadow it spends slow days,
This giant of power and grace;
A gentle soul from God's great hands,
Reflecting His peace, His face.
An hour spent, I headed back,
Through woods I've always known,
But that old beech stayed in my mind,
One moment, one friend, alone.
Old Beech
In April green I found it there
In a place I'd come before.
An old beech tree, tall as a spire,
A grey-skinned church sans roof and door.
Its prayerful arms reached up towards blue,
To a sky packed white with clouds.
And winds blew like cathedral tunes,
Stirring leaves like moving crowds.
The tree has stood a hundred years,
Wearing time's wet snows and rains,
And it hears the clack of ghosts run by,
On tracks long missing trains.
In quiet shadow it spends slow days,
This giant of power and grace;
A gentle soul from God's great hands,
Reflecting His peace, His face.
An hour spent, I headed back,
Through woods I've always known,
But that old beech stayed in my mind,
One moment, one friend, alone.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
Tanka
the flowering dogwood
decked on the dreary hillside
glowing stunning white
lifting petals heavenward
in graceful supplication
Tanka
the flowering dogwood
decked on the dreary hillside
glowing stunning white
lifting petals heavenward
in graceful supplication
Alan Daugherty, Wells County
Osage Orange Obituary, Age 163
Heaven saves the soul of my Osage
A tower of pioneer determination
Exalted stature stymied via utility company clear-cutting
Death's stump exhibits 8 score rings, years and tears of tenacity
1851. Osage fence posts propagated to rods and rods of gnarly limbs
Hedge apples bombarded ivy and wildflower, Osage gifted to range boars
Wire fencing, barbed, ingrown, like Osage roots meandering in Indiana Miami loam
Osage fencing, a new land claim, wildlife barrier, a recurrent Miami tribal tear
Osage reposes, a pile, firewood chunks, a mound of blundered tombstone
Defiant, ironwood hard, decadal rot-proof, proud even in death
Hoosier history abridged to rings
Misguided progress, mayhap
Osage Orange Obituary, Age 163
Heaven saves the soul of my Osage
A tower of pioneer determination
Exalted stature stymied via utility company clear-cutting
Death's stump exhibits 8 score rings, years and tears of tenacity
1851. Osage fence posts propagated to rods and rods of gnarly limbs
Hedge apples bombarded ivy and wildflower, Osage gifted to range boars
Wire fencing, barbed, ingrown, like Osage roots meandering in Indiana Miami loam
Osage fencing, a new land claim, wildlife barrier, a recurrent Miami tribal tear
Osage reposes, a pile, firewood chunks, a mound of blundered tombstone
Defiant, ironwood hard, decadal rot-proof, proud even in death
Hoosier history abridged to rings
Misguided progress, mayhap
Haiga by Mary Redman
Mary Redman, Marion County
sturdy sentinel
stands in sand bottom lake
cottonwood tree
sturdy sentinel
stands in sand bottom lake
cottonwood tree
Paul McAfee, Allen County
My Favorite Indiana Tree
I think that I shall never pass
By another full grown ash
A tree whose wood is like no other
Used to make the Louisville Slugger
A tree that is so tall and strong
Shading over many a lawn
A tree with dominating features
Sheltering all God's humble creatures
Upon whose very soul is torn
From the woods where it was born
The forest will no longer be
The same without my favorite tree
My Favorite Indiana Tree
I think that I shall never pass
By another full grown ash
A tree whose wood is like no other
Used to make the Louisville Slugger
A tree that is so tall and strong
Shading over many a lawn
A tree with dominating features
Sheltering all God's humble creatures
Upon whose very soul is torn
From the woods where it was born
The forest will no longer be
The same without my favorite tree
Concord Summer Camp, Middle School Students
Marion County (Indiana Writer Center)
Bismark Palm Haiku
Garfield Park Conservatory, Indianapolis
It looks like porcupine quills
and fans the garden,
the royalty of the forest floor
Air smells like sweet tea
or ice cream, nearby
papaya, watered earth
The king’s crown—sturdy, flexible
smooth like a baby’s bottom
but spiky at the edge
Touching the leaves
the rustle of crickets
at midnight
Marion County (Indiana Writer Center)
Bismark Palm Haiku
Garfield Park Conservatory, Indianapolis
It looks like porcupine quills
and fans the garden,
the royalty of the forest floor
Air smells like sweet tea
or ice cream, nearby
papaya, watered earth
The king’s crown—sturdy, flexible
smooth like a baby’s bottom
but spiky at the edge
Touching the leaves
the rustle of crickets
at midnight
Photo by Iona Wagner
Cathy Meyer, Monroe County
GM
In memory of Elizabeth (Fedosky) Meyer
A tree grows from a small seed.
Nourished by rain, sun, and the soil,
It grows tall and offers shade and shelter from storms.
Birds and insects find refuge in its crown.
Its leaves fall and enrich the soil nearby.
In time it blooms and sets seed.
Some of these seeds fall close to the tree and begin to grow.
Others are carried farther away.
The seedlings are small,
Sheltered from the blazing sun and pounding rain,
Nurtured by the founding tree.
Over the years, the old tree begins to decline,
Gradually losing limbs to storm or disease.
Shrinking back from its fullest height,
It is still the focal point of the forest.
As the young trees grow up,
They block the wind and protect their parent,
Shading the soil, breaking the rainfall,
Carrying the load of snow.
Eventually the old tree falls from the canopy,
Leaving an empty space.
The surrounding trees eventually fill the gap,
But to someone who can truly see
The place of the old tree is always visible,
Because it has shaped the growth of those around it.
GM
In memory of Elizabeth (Fedosky) Meyer
A tree grows from a small seed.
Nourished by rain, sun, and the soil,
It grows tall and offers shade and shelter from storms.
Birds and insects find refuge in its crown.
Its leaves fall and enrich the soil nearby.
In time it blooms and sets seed.
Some of these seeds fall close to the tree and begin to grow.
Others are carried farther away.
The seedlings are small,
Sheltered from the blazing sun and pounding rain,
Nurtured by the founding tree.
Over the years, the old tree begins to decline,
Gradually losing limbs to storm or disease.
Shrinking back from its fullest height,
It is still the focal point of the forest.
As the young trees grow up,
They block the wind and protect their parent,
Shading the soil, breaking the rainfall,
Carrying the load of snow.
Eventually the old tree falls from the canopy,
Leaving an empty space.
The surrounding trees eventually fill the gap,
But to someone who can truly see
The place of the old tree is always visible,
Because it has shaped the growth of those around it.
Photo by Mary Redman
Eddie Doerr, formerly of Clark County
The Three Sisters
350 year old sycamores
at Baptist Hospital, Louisville, KY
Alive before the city existed.
Alive through all of our wars.
Alive when the aboriginal people
camped by the shore. Alive
when I did yoga by the curve
of your trunks. Along the path
are your family remains--
cut down by humans who think
only of today, never tomorrow.
Only a few feet away, the ill
could lean on you and absorb
your power . . . lie back, look up
under your branches, slow down,
catch the blended harmony
of Three Sisters. You are healing
for those who need health. A chapel
for those who pray. How many pass,
to and fro, in sickness and health,
never noticing you? Let us turn
off the noise and listen to your song.
The Three Sisters
350 year old sycamores
at Baptist Hospital, Louisville, KY
Alive before the city existed.
Alive through all of our wars.
Alive when the aboriginal people
camped by the shore. Alive
when I did yoga by the curve
of your trunks. Along the path
are your family remains--
cut down by humans who think
only of today, never tomorrow.
Only a few feet away, the ill
could lean on you and absorb
your power . . . lie back, look up
under your branches, slow down,
catch the blended harmony
of Three Sisters. You are healing
for those who need health. A chapel
for those who pray. How many pass,
to and fro, in sickness and health,
never noticing you? Let us turn
off the noise and listen to your song.
This is the Schoen Creek Trail at Fort Harrison State Park where I saw my narrow fellow.
Poems from the May 2016 Narrow Fellow Prompt
Marjie Giffin, Marion County
Snake Rules
Slithering along the far edge of my vision,
he brings my feet to an abrupt halt
and my mind to a frantic search
for rules about what to do when you
stumble upon a snake in your path.
But my brain is in a frozen state,
and my memories fail me,
and all I can manage is a shudder
that ripples along my own spine
almost as visibly as the skin of the snake
ripples through the soggy leaves and
matted grasses in the wet woods
beyond the neighbor's back fence.
Marjie Giffin, Marion County
Snake Rules
Slithering along the far edge of my vision,
he brings my feet to an abrupt halt
and my mind to a frantic search
for rules about what to do when you
stumble upon a snake in your path.
But my brain is in a frozen state,
and my memories fail me,
and all I can manage is a shudder
that ripples along my own spine
almost as visibly as the skin of the snake
ripples through the soggy leaves and
matted grasses in the wet woods
beyond the neighbor's back fence.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
Snakes make me jump
Snakes make me jump
It always surprises me
That I jump when I'm surprised
By a harmless little garter
Clawless, slow moving
Diminutive
It's more scared of me than I am of it!
Yet I still jump
An omen of evil
A biblical demon
A killer of men
Is that why I jump?
Or is it survival training
From my ancestors
Those that lived . . . Jumped!
Snakes make me jump
Snakes make me jump
It always surprises me
That I jump when I'm surprised
By a harmless little garter
Clawless, slow moving
Diminutive
It's more scared of me than I am of it!
Yet I still jump
An omen of evil
A biblical demon
A killer of men
Is that why I jump?
Or is it survival training
From my ancestors
Those that lived . . . Jumped!
This is the second garter snake I've seen at Ft. Harrison this spring.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
snakes
slithering green
the color of grass
lunches on micelings
and long tailed rats
an intimidating fellow
most admit that
but which would you rather
a snake in the grass
or a mouse in your house--eek
Lilah Streiff, Monroe County
5th Grade
In the grass
There he lays.
Swimming through the emerald
He moves
Any which way.
Though his skeleton
has left him.
I bend down
to touch his long neck
and he flees.
snakes
slithering green
the color of grass
lunches on micelings
and long tailed rats
an intimidating fellow
most admit that
but which would you rather
a snake in the grass
or a mouse in your house--eek
Lilah Streiff, Monroe County
5th Grade
In the grass
There he lays.
Swimming through the emerald
He moves
Any which way.
Though his skeleton
has left him.
I bend down
to touch his long neck
and he flees.
Paula McDaniel, Shelby County
Snake
The forest palate
greens and browns
like peas and potatoes
a blanket of leaves
concealing nature's
stealth creatures
until a determined ray
of summer sunlight
pierces the shadowy branches
unexpectedly exposing
a glimpse of movement
of a winding twig
tracking a meal.
Zake Fleissner-Kates, Monroe County
4th Grade
The snake sneaks right by
Its sneakiness sublime
Through leaves and plants and vines
It will not waste much time
Its attitude is sly
Some dangerous in time
But many are quite kind
And slither right on by
Even those quite kind
Can feel like goos and slime
And can't be called sublime
As they slither by
Snake
The forest palate
greens and browns
like peas and potatoes
a blanket of leaves
concealing nature's
stealth creatures
until a determined ray
of summer sunlight
pierces the shadowy branches
unexpectedly exposing
a glimpse of movement
of a winding twig
tracking a meal.
Zake Fleissner-Kates, Monroe County
4th Grade
The snake sneaks right by
Its sneakiness sublime
Through leaves and plants and vines
It will not waste much time
Its attitude is sly
Some dangerous in time
But many are quite kind
And slither right on by
Even those quite kind
Can feel like goos and slime
And can't be called sublime
As they slither by
J. Daniel Hess, Marion County
Black Snake
You chose the garden path
where sun warmed your blood.
I'm sad the snarling dogs found you
forcing you to fight.
When the hounds were wrestled away
you escaped to a tree where
I beheld your beauty.
I wished at that moment we were friends
you and I, confidants, so I could say
you're welcomed to the woodpile,
and we, partners in gardening.
But I know that you won't trust
me of the upright species that sees
you groveling in the dirt,
slithering a stigma.
Nor will you tell me in turn
of gardening where seed is cursed
long before germination
and gardeners have to hide.
Black snake, I rue this fight, this myth.
I wish I could promise you,
a safe place on the path warmed by the sun.
Aidan Smith, Monroe County
5th Grade
Snakes: The Disrespected Creatures
Why is such an outstanding creature
often thought to be deadly?
Our long friends are just as scared
as we are,
Don't let the dazzling features
afear you,
You see it gliding unsettlingly along
like wind, rushing through the wavy grass
You flinch,
You run,
and it's gone
To its land,
Its home,
it slyly hides . . .
time enough to trap and devour its prey
Without a word the scaled creature
slithers off the edge of sight,
into the dead of night,
leaving you alone.
Black Snake
You chose the garden path
where sun warmed your blood.
I'm sad the snarling dogs found you
forcing you to fight.
When the hounds were wrestled away
you escaped to a tree where
I beheld your beauty.
I wished at that moment we were friends
you and I, confidants, so I could say
you're welcomed to the woodpile,
and we, partners in gardening.
But I know that you won't trust
me of the upright species that sees
you groveling in the dirt,
slithering a stigma.
Nor will you tell me in turn
of gardening where seed is cursed
long before germination
and gardeners have to hide.
Black snake, I rue this fight, this myth.
I wish I could promise you,
a safe place on the path warmed by the sun.
Aidan Smith, Monroe County
5th Grade
Snakes: The Disrespected Creatures
Why is such an outstanding creature
often thought to be deadly?
Our long friends are just as scared
as we are,
Don't let the dazzling features
afear you,
You see it gliding unsettlingly along
like wind, rushing through the wavy grass
You flinch,
You run,
and it's gone
To its land,
Its home,
it slyly hides . . .
time enough to trap and devour its prey
Without a word the scaled creature
slithers off the edge of sight,
into the dead of night,
leaving you alone.
"Snake Skin" was inspired by this garter snake skin I found in my yard and shared with students at St. Louis de Montfort.
St. Louis de Montfort School, Hamilton County
Third Grade Collaborative Poem, 2010 IAC Poet in the Schools
Snake Skin
It has stripes with dots on the side.
It looks like clear plastic,
like a huge swirly slide
It feels like tissue paper
(but don't use it for presents)
It looks like see-through ribbon.
The cubes look like part of a mosaic on the wall.
It looks a little wrinkled as if it grew too old.
Its scales are tiny like little pins.
The silky feel makes it tear easily.
It has an inside and an outside. Outside, it's rough.
Inside, it's smooth and soft.
The bottom of the snake skin
looks like bubble wrap
that's already popped.
Third Grade Collaborative Poem, 2010 IAC Poet in the Schools
Snake Skin
It has stripes with dots on the side.
It looks like clear plastic,
like a huge swirly slide
It feels like tissue paper
(but don't use it for presents)
It looks like see-through ribbon.
The cubes look like part of a mosaic on the wall.
It looks a little wrinkled as if it grew too old.
Its scales are tiny like little pins.
The silky feel makes it tear easily.
It has an inside and an outside. Outside, it's rough.
Inside, it's smooth and soft.
The bottom of the snake skin
looks like bubble wrap
that's already popped.
Above: View from my childhood home in Wells County
Here: Dusk in Grant County
Poems from the April 2016 Field & Sky Prompt
Gay McKenney, Shelby County
Fields in Northern Indiana
This is where breath begins--
the clean, uninterrupted space of inspiration
where God pulls His touch
from the fingertips of Adam
so clouds can caress the earth
as if the face of a newborn.
Gay McKenney, Shelby County
Fields in Northern Indiana
This is where breath begins--
the clean, uninterrupted space of inspiration
where God pulls His touch
from the fingertips of Adam
so clouds can caress the earth
as if the face of a newborn.
Another evening view of Grant County
Joyce Brinkman, Boone County
The Land that Loved the Sky
They will tell you the glaciers shaped you.
Ironed you out like a newly-pressed
gray sheet. Chewed you up and left you
a pile of pulverized pip. I will tell you
differently. You spread yourself flat to be
touched more by the splendid blue sky.
Grant County from my car
Paul McAfee, Allen County
Ode to Northeast Indiana
Flat as a pancake, green as a frog
The Bluffton Till Plain is a plain old dog
Flattened by the glaciers, modified by man
Trees, corn and soybeans occupy the land
It's comforting to live here, each season is its own
The dog gives us plenty, happy with his bone
This is the view from where I waited for my school bus each morning in Wells County.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
the flooded marshland
called 'Everglades of the North'
fed both man and beast
now waves fields of yellow corn
before the Grand Marsh
was drained, bubbling water rose
up through the ground like
an upside down faucet when-
ever it rained in the saucer-like flats
the flooded marshland
called 'Everglades of the North'
fed both man and beast
now waves fields of yellow corn
before the Grand Marsh
was drained, bubbling water rose
up through the ground like
an upside down faucet when-
ever it rained in the saucer-like flats
This is a field near the birthplace of Wilbur Wright in Millville, Indiana.
Frederick Michaels, Marion County
Indiana Line of Sight
When your sun waned, you tucked your head
and shivered beneath a creeping ocean of ice.
You held no crops back then, no sod prairie;
your fertile soil just a precognitive conjecture.
But as old man sun returned, I bet you smiled
at your flat, bountiful beauty under an open sky.
Ally Hannie, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Indiana
The golden rows standing high.
The sky so vast it could never die.
Sycamores flourish in the Hoosier state.
Squirrels and cardinals enjoy their estate.
Indiana is the promised land.
A beautiful place, made by God's hand.
Indiana Line of Sight
When your sun waned, you tucked your head
and shivered beneath a creeping ocean of ice.
You held no crops back then, no sod prairie;
your fertile soil just a precognitive conjecture.
But as old man sun returned, I bet you smiled
at your flat, bountiful beauty under an open sky.
Ally Hannie, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Indiana
The golden rows standing high.
The sky so vast it could never die.
Sycamores flourish in the Hoosier state.
Squirrels and cardinals enjoy their estate.
Indiana is the promised land.
A beautiful place, made by God's hand.
Kylie Topp, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
The crisp morning sunrise
Mixed with the chirps of the birds,
Coming out of the cornstalks,
Like crashing combines at harvest
Creations of the wild arise,
Crack! Goes a crumbling branch.
The charming landscape of Indiana.
Kemdra Strunk, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Dirt covers the bases
Bats line up against the fence
Grass freshly cut
Foul lines neatly laid out like lines on the road
Sun reflecting off the metal bleachers.
Emily Haiflich, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Sunrise. Red, orange, and yellow
The sand is like glue on your hand
And the heat burns your feet
The sand is like your favorite band
And you know for sure it's your favorite land
Sundown. Red, orange, and yellow
Emma Powell, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Indiana
Indiana, where the grass is green,
where flowers bloom,
where you smell the pollen,
where the winter is harsh.
Indiana, where the sun is warm
and the bees are free.
Indiana, you can smell the rivers
in the air and see the trees
sway in the wind. You can see
the lakes shimmer in the morning
sunlight. Indiana, the weather
is completely unpredictable.
9th Grade, Norwell High School
The crisp morning sunrise
Mixed with the chirps of the birds,
Coming out of the cornstalks,
Like crashing combines at harvest
Creations of the wild arise,
Crack! Goes a crumbling branch.
The charming landscape of Indiana.
Kemdra Strunk, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Dirt covers the bases
Bats line up against the fence
Grass freshly cut
Foul lines neatly laid out like lines on the road
Sun reflecting off the metal bleachers.
Emily Haiflich, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Sunrise. Red, orange, and yellow
The sand is like glue on your hand
And the heat burns your feet
The sand is like your favorite band
And you know for sure it's your favorite land
Sundown. Red, orange, and yellow
Emma Powell, Wells County
9th Grade, Norwell High School
Indiana
Indiana, where the grass is green,
where flowers bloom,
where you smell the pollen,
where the winter is harsh.
Indiana, where the sun is warm
and the bees are free.
Indiana, you can smell the rivers
in the air and see the trees
sway in the wind. You can see
the lakes shimmer in the morning
sunlight. Indiana, the weather
is completely unpredictable.
I took this photo atop Devil's Backbone. There's a 100 foot drop on either side!
Poems from the March 2016 Passenger Pigeon Prompt
Joe Heithaus, Putnam County
Devil’s Backbone
As all bones, his contain hardness
and softness—contradiction—the earth, the sea,
even a bird cut in like a flying shadow
against morning light, curving, straight, alive, extinct.
I think the beast whose back we stand on is whispering
about his fall--how once he was an angel.
Joe Heithaus, Putnam County
Devil’s Backbone
As all bones, his contain hardness
and softness—contradiction—the earth, the sea,
even a bird cut in like a flying shadow
against morning light, curving, straight, alive, extinct.
I think the beast whose back we stand on is whispering
about his fall--how once he was an angel.
A view of Clifty Creek at Pine Hills. Note the Honeycomb Rocks.
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
tanka
the flat-stone carving
a passenger pigeon of old
found immortalized
from the land of extinction
ready to take to the sky
haiku
passenger pigeon
Martha from Cincinnati
on her way back home
This passenger pigeon is believed to have been etched in the 1800s. I took this photo atop Devil's Backbone at Pine Hills Nature Preserve, in Shades State Park.
Bernie Wiebe, Wells County
Stoned
Skies as silent as stone,
the pigeon on perpetual pause.
A legacy of massive migration
etched in time.
What have we learned?
Harold Taylor, Marion County
First arrival, wordless marvel,
blackened sky for hours.
Tribute paved in stone,
lightly mottled by the sun
filtered through deciduous tree.
All unravel eventually.
Stoned
Skies as silent as stone,
the pigeon on perpetual pause.
A legacy of massive migration
etched in time.
What have we learned?
Harold Taylor, Marion County
First arrival, wordless marvel,
blackened sky for hours.
Tribute paved in stone,
lightly mottled by the sun
filtered through deciduous tree.
All unravel eventually.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
Reminder
A sad reminder of the successes of man
Remember when there were no deer
Remember when there were no geese
Remember when there were no eagles, ospreys or otters
The passenger pigeon sacrificed itself
So that we can remember our success
Reminder
A sad reminder of the successes of man
Remember when there were no deer
Remember when there were no geese
Remember when there were no eagles, ospreys or otters
The passenger pigeon sacrificed itself
So that we can remember our success
Wallace Reed Gazeway, Jasper County
Passenger
Passenger is its life. Passenger is its namesake.
Who greater to be passenger to, the passenger asks, than the world?
The world is ever turning, its light meeting the night, on the path it'll ever take.
It grows tired in thought, and as it rests, it questions its colors of the sky; compared to the earth it lay on, curled.
When it wakes, it finds itself cradled to the world, the imprint of its form now lines in its dirt.
It need wonder no more. The passenger is now the traveler too. With this, it fears no more hurt.
On Devil's Backbone at Pine Hills
John Groppe, Jasper County
The Bird Carved in Stone
Look, there, that flat rock a lighter brown
than the humus rich soil around,
we near missed it almost level with the ground,
and see the ouline of a plump bird
carefully etched in the soft, brown stone
with a harder sharp rock--
a passenger pigeon like those that thronged
these skies, a thousands fold clamorous flock.
They are long since gone
as is the man who made this art.
No one scratched his likeness in stone.
His people corralled, their villages burnt
but in this grove they left a sign, this alone.
Now we must incise this image on our souls
to remember not just the birds killed
in a sport requiring no skill
but also the peoples of this woodland
exiled and scattered
and as silent as this bird.
The Bird Carved in Stone
Look, there, that flat rock a lighter brown
than the humus rich soil around,
we near missed it almost level with the ground,
and see the ouline of a plump bird
carefully etched in the soft, brown stone
with a harder sharp rock--
a passenger pigeon like those that thronged
these skies, a thousands fold clamorous flock.
They are long since gone
as is the man who made this art.
No one scratched his likeness in stone.
His people corralled, their villages burnt
but in this grove they left a sign, this alone.
Now we must incise this image on our souls
to remember not just the birds killed
in a sport requiring no skill
but also the peoples of this woodland
exiled and scattered
and as silent as this bird.
Pine Hill's Honeycomb Rocks
J. Patrick Lewis
U.S. Children's Poet Laureate (2011-2013)
From Swan Song: Poems of Extinction (Creative Editions, 2003)
The Passenger Pigeon
Ectopistes migratorius
Extinct 1914
Eastern North America
Imagine, if you can, that once in America,
almost half the birds alive were these migrating doves.
Two billion birds birling to the cage end of oblivion.
On September 1, 1914, at exactly 1:00 p.m.,
while the world was making unforgivable war,
"Martha," a 29-year-old Passenger Pigeon, the last
of her kind, died in her sleep at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Postmortem: loneliness or despair.
The news of her death attracted no attention--
a two-word bird in the Song Book of Forgetting.
U.S. Children's Poet Laureate (2011-2013)
From Swan Song: Poems of Extinction (Creative Editions, 2003)
The Passenger Pigeon
Ectopistes migratorius
Extinct 1914
Eastern North America
Imagine, if you can, that once in America,
almost half the birds alive were these migrating doves.
Two billion birds birling to the cage end of oblivion.
On September 1, 1914, at exactly 1:00 p.m.,
while the world was making unforgivable war,
"Martha," a 29-year-old Passenger Pigeon, the last
of her kind, died in her sleep at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Postmortem: loneliness or despair.
The news of her death attracted no attention--
a two-word bird in the Song Book of Forgetting.
Vienna Wagner took these photos of the channel between Olin and Martin Lakes.
Poems from February 2016 Haiku Prompt
Margie Zumbrun, Marion County
Small languid dragons
Koi float past--now roused, now
Aflame by breadcrumbs
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
a frog's croaking songs
float through the night air
she listens from the lily pad
tree frogs
begin the opera at dusk
open seating
Margie Zumbrun, Marion County
Small languid dragons
Koi float past--now roused, now
Aflame by breadcrumbs
Pat Kopanda, Jasper County
a frog's croaking songs
float through the night air
she listens from the lily pad
tree frogs
begin the opera at dusk
open seating
Olin Lake Nature Preserve is in LaGrange County.
Paul McAfee, Allen County
White Waterlily
Floating in a sea of black
Supernatural
Alan Daugherty, Wells County
dragonfly kisses lily heart gold
thru-u-uph!
frogone it!
Mary Redman, Marion County
Slipp'ry green Pacmen
devour ghost blossoms--
Water game won.
Broc Seib, Tippecanoe County
Summer beckons our
alliance and protection:
the Kankakee skin.
Little Turtle's granddaughter, Kilsoquah, grew up near the Rock Creek and Wabash, in Huntington County, near Markle.
Michaal L L Collins, Marion County
algae isn't the only
green growth that floats
on dark waters
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
barefoot child
sits at pond's edge
toeing a lily
algae isn't the only
green growth that floats
on dark waters
Connie Kingman, Jasper County
barefoot child
sits at pond's edge
toeing a lily
Iona Wagner took this photo of a heron.
Janine Pickett, Madison County
Frogs dance in mid-air
as white lily pads spin
sashaying the pond
Laura Storrs, Hamilton County
The canoe unzips
the interlocked teeth: open,
close; chew and swallow.
Melissa Moran (Marion County)
Perfect white lily
Rhizome fixed below water
While blooms dance above
Frogs dance in mid-air
as white lily pads spin
sashaying the pond
Laura Storrs, Hamilton County
The canoe unzips
the interlocked teeth: open,
close; chew and swallow.
Melissa Moran (Marion County)
Perfect white lily
Rhizome fixed below water
While blooms dance above