Complexities Of Annette House’s profession is nursing, a career providing “fertile ground” for writing. While her calling as a poet has been more recent, she is an avid reader who began reading poetry in high school under the influence of a teacher who ignited her love of language. Annette credits “extraordinary” OLLI teachers for her venture into writing verse and, while her early poems were simpler, her poetry has become more dense and dark, its layers expressing life’s pathos.
Arboreal Music Among the quiet cherry trees in Washington is an indicator tree its heralding of perfected blooms tells us when to come to the capital
we watched and heeded or not our secrets and lies were born on the breezes that ruffled her supple limbs
we wish we had seen the intricacies of her petals the exquisite design of her leaves the durability of her bark
mysteries of light and rooted wisdom my mother transformed her maternal was such an splendor into images indicator tree we wish we had of delicacy or frailty heard the complexities we watched her we knew she was of her arboreal music carefully, in silence as old as the as it sang through her for signs of earth itself as it struggled fortuitous greenings that she mourned or hints of withering to warn us of for the seasons what was to come of bloom she without words she would not bring forth spoke to us of ANNETTE M HOUSE wind and cloud of solar flare
I Read to My New Grandson Art Elser has settled into being a poet and his third career; first, he was an Air Force pilot, next, a technical writer. In somewhat of an about-face, he was drawn to poetry as a means of expressing and sorting through life events. Art came to OLLI West as a student of Haiku, but was lured to facilitate a class in writing poetry. Over considerable time, he works resolutely and hard on his poems, editing and refining every meaning-rich, sonorous word and phrase.
May 22, 1995 Softly, so I don’t disturb others, I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull to you by the faint green lights that trace your infant struggle to live. Your mother lies sleepless in another room, weak from birthing you today. She sees only darkness. But these dim lights assure me you still live. Reading to you of grace and courage, I want you to hear and use these words: friendship, compassion, love, words that I too need.
I touch you, to steady my fear, as the green lights, the color of hope and spring, illuminate the words I read to let you know you are not alone .
Š 1996, 2009 Art Elser Published in the WyoPoets 2009 Midsummer Newsletter
A Love Letter for Esperanza, Who Gave Her Kirsten Morgan is a teacher and a writer in her core. She began penning poetry in high school and continued to do so “off and on” as time marched forward. Cofacilitating an OLLI West class proved a turning point and offand-on switched to on -and-on. As an upshot, Kirsten recently completed an intensive two-year MFA style program through Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Kirsten points to the power of poetry which opens the heart and in its spare-ness is expressive beyond the bounds of prose.
Heart Away (for Hank Morgan, in whose chest beats the heart of Hope) It wasn’t from love, though love touched the borders of those days, winding through distant lives in slow and mournful dance. It wasn’t from wishes that hung on bare branches, subject to the whim of wind, then fell, one by one, until there was only a crazy wildness left behind, and none knew how to pray. Were you happy, Esperanza, or did the world hold too much danger to keep you close? Was your time ordained, were your days carved with necessary brevity, or did you leave in random flight, one new soul sliding away far too soon?
Did you know you were tricking that dark messenger, who, drunk with power, seized the light bundle of your unfinished life and swept away in haste, not noticing that your gift, small and forgotten, had been left behind? I see you around the edges, Esperanza, holding the thread, mouthing the words on another stage as you shadow the boy who carries your core in rhythm with his borrowed days. May you stay near, an echo of your unintended heir, and may we ever hold dear the immortal child whose name, in any language, is Hope.
Linda Ropes is a charter member of OLLI West who began writing poetry, most especially Haiku, in college and as an English major. In the busyness of raising a family, she was distracted from writing verse but returned to it when taking an OLLI poetry class. This proved a grand re-entry, one that led to facilitating future OLLI poetry classes and participation in poetry groups. On the subject of poetry, Linda observes that it “provides a satisfying way of distilling life.”
If you fast forward to your grave leaving your once little sister behind I would cherish your red hair your sprawl of freckles your quirky humor hiding your ample feelings behind your gotcha grin. But what will sustain me through certain grief is that moment at our failing father’s bedside when he wept with anguish over his incontinence. “It’s okay,” you whispered and reached out to smooth his tangled eyebrows one at a time. Linda Ropes