Atlanta, Sunrise Saturday

← | index | →

Where the bike path enters the park, two boxers sparred,
bearded and broad, smooth and skinny -- brothers?
Red leather smacked the younger man's palms, not hard,
each one's eyes intent on the other's.

A woman in gym shorts held a violin
and bow, with a dog like a mop on a leash that she'd cinched
to her waist. She tucked the instrument under her chin.
He saw me and barked; she played Bach, eyes clinched.

On the trail through a refugee haven, a young man strode,
dark eyes and fringe of soft beard, in a tunic, on track
to the bus, passing girls in hijabs. A rooster crowed
as they giggled, ogling his receding back.

I find joy looking out of myself into people
whom I glide by, invisible.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

Late last summer, just thinking that I might start a poetry blog heightened my awareness during a bike ride on the John Lewis Freedom Trail.

I was halfway to a sonnet, with three images and a connecting thought, but then I had to trust that somewhere in the language I would find two pairs of rhyming words to express the essential elements of each storyette, as do boxers sparred...brothers...not hard...each other's. Finding such rhymes for each quatrain was fun, even the mornings I woke around 3 to jot down a rhyme.

As each image comes from a different neighborhood along the path, I hope that the poem also gives the reader a sense of Atlanta's character. - WSS

Swimming Lapse

← | index | →

You press upon me behind and before...; if I climb up to heaven, you are there. - Psalm 139

On my hundredth lap I sucked in air
to stay below awhile and drift.
It's like flying to feel this upward lift
to the surface. I wondered, why stop there?

Arms first, then trunk, then trunks, I rose.
My toes brushed the penants strung high across
the lanes, past lights, where dust like moss
hangs down from rafters in the shadows.

A little boy gawked, but with a shout,
went back to his lesson. Kicking hard,
I plunged to the exit propped by the lifeguard,
and grazed the header heading out.

Rising surprisingly fast, I cleared
the upper branches of the pines
and squeezed between the power lines.
With wind like a hand at my back I veered

over midday traffic into town,
startling birds by the courthouse clock.
My shadow spooked a pug on his walk,
but no one else. I drifted down

Church Street to the bell tower.
I wished for the camera on my phone.
I swung on the vane, centrifugally thrown
back to town, to the pool, to my lane and the shower,

glad for how this once I'd tried
to let go intent, to go with that lift
that left this lesson as a gift:
at the surface, don't be satisfied.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

At the pool, age 6, I would safety-pin a towel for a super-hero cape and launch into flight from the floor in the deep end. At 63, I'm amused to rediscover that sensation of lifting off is just as strong; laps are no fun without it.

My notes about that observation didn't "go" anywhere until I thought, why stop with the facts? In a free flow of writing, I imagined an experience as real to me now as anything else I did last week. To happen upon Psalm 139 was serendipity; it tethers my flight to my faith tradition. - WSS

Ukraine, Second Week

← | index | →

He has shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city. Psalm 31.21

How do you feel the love of God in a city
of crumbled shops, apartments, cafés -- awake
as days and nights the enemy fires blindly,
sirens moan, and your foundations shake?

Is God in sharing cups of melted snow,
in lifting sandbags for a barricade,
in giving aid to families you don't know,
and letting go of every plan you made?

Young pilots of planes that Stinger missiles wrecked,
enemy conscripts burned alive in tanks,
the jailing of neighbors whose loyalty you suspect:
for wonders such as these, do you give thanks?

Secure, like you last month, I pray you'll see
some way to beat, yet not be like, your enemy.

I include a collage of stages in the production of a watercolor by Susan Rouse from 2020. Her discipline of making at least one work per week is the inspiration for this blog.
← | index | →

The Psalmist's phrase about "God's love in a besieged city" seemed an intriguing subject to explore months before Putin's invasion put us all under siege, vicariously. On Orthodox Easter, weeks after I posted this poem, President Zolensky pleaded with his people to fight without hate. If I was naive to express such a hope, I'm in good company.

I wrote couplets from successive days' news reports, using iambic pentameter to give the lines gravitas. Without intending to produce a sonnet, I had one, only the rhyme scheme was off: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG. Reordering the lines to fit Shakespeare's ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, I experienced firsthand how his pattern gives each quatrain its own character and makes the last two lines a kind of benediction. - WSS

I Want My Refund

← | index | →

If you aim to write meaningful stuff,
then a poem per week can be tough.
  So my standard relaxes
  while I do my taxes;
a limerick will be good enough.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →