Why Don't You Just Learn English?

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his voice cut through
the clink of carts, the check-out beeps,
his question an assault:

You're holding up the line.
You want our stuff, you speak our way.
Confused? That's not my fault.

Her reply, too soft to hear:

My language is my super-power,
the magic cloak of my mother
to shield my children,
strengthen their father,
fly them distant places,
times long gone;

English just my secret identity,
mild-mannered, awkward, shy.

Aloud, she may have murmured Pardon.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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In the moment described in the poem, I froze. Head down, I never even saw the ones involved. Ever since, I've wished I'd intervened like Superman or Jesus. The poem took shape only after I took myself out and let the two be heroes of their own encounter.

I draw upon some first-hand knowledge. When I lived some weeks in Francophone countries, I suffered the devaluation of my facility with English -- my super-power. - WSS

Season Premiere

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All of summer at my back
I pedaled into chance of rain
the sky clear blue with fringe of clouds
beyond the canopy, still green.

Crackling trees alerted me
when fall rolled in, a granite gray,
crushed the warmth and snapped thick branches
dropping fractured in my way.

I pushed on toward an overpass
repelled by wind as leaves in swarms
like agitated bats attacked,
and cold drops stung my arms.

"Really, guys," I laughed, "for me?
This cinematic violence?"
I reached the shelter, shivering,
an awed, delighted, audience.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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My weakness for clever rhymes sometimes seduces me into writing nonsense. So I drafted this poem without rhyme. Then, the morning I was going to post it, I read a poem by Richard Wilbur in which he rhymed just the last word, doubling the impact and making me smile -- what a pleasure! I then tinkered with my draft and found some rhymes already there; some rhymes came to mind that sharpened the lines I'd written.

So I've changed my mind. Rhyme drew me to poetry before I could read. I won't deny myself the pleasure of discovering rhyming relationships. I'm writing for pleasure, after all. - WSS

Mountaintop Experience

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He'd scaled three hundred pages of this mesa,
my open prayer book. Hesitant,
he probed the margin with antennae.

Hauling up wings and thorax long as this ---
and abdomen --- he made a dash
across the psalm like a Hebrew scholar

right to left between the lines
  O Lord I am not proud
escaping? searching?
  I have no haughty looks
Reversed, he climbed the ridge amid
  great matters and things that are too hard for me

and aimed his tiny caravan
towards a shadowy valley -- of death, if I chose
to close the book

I carried like a tray out to the deck.
With no more breath than, say, amen,
I sent him to the world in peace.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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I've not found another insect like the one I describe in this poem, neither in my home nor online. - WSS

Long Division

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One playful dog and I
divided by

7 hours’ class
plus 3 of practice
plus 2 commutes (rainy, dark, and cold)

equals

me, jogging up the steps
dropping my books at the top

plus Mia
prancing at the open door, ball in her teeth,

over
        joyed.

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I wrote the poem in 2019 to demonstrate for seventh graders that a poem and a math equation have a lot in common. I explain more at my blog here.

For a wonderful Christmas gift, Susan commissioned her art teacher Donna Shiver to draw these memorials to our beloved dogs Luis and Mia (the one with the black and white markings). These are charcoal on wood.

How dogs bless us is a theme I've developed in many posts on my blog The Word Sanctuary. See a curated list of links to many reflections on dogs in general and my dogs in particular with cute pictures on my page Loving Dogs. -WSS

Solar Power

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[T]he sun...rejoices like a champion to run its course. Psalm 19

They worshipped, back then,
a super-heated globe
of hydrogen.

Even late last summer
on a bike trail, cranking under clouds
like grimy semis bumper to bumper,

when that globe cut through
and curbed the shadows,
made drab and listless trees snap to,

bringing out green and yellow flags they'd made,
I saluted my escort and surged,
an elated, abbreviated motorcade.

Image by Susan Rouse.
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I regret that 27 people read an earlier version of this that now makes me cringe. Since I posted that one, I've learned that you should lead with the metaphor you believe in the most, and cut out the rest. Also, if you have to explain it in commentary, then you've left out something important. This revision is from May 17. - WSS