“Moment,” my poem about first day of school

“Moment,” my poem about first day of school

…the big yellow bus…

 

The new sneakers looked big for her—it’s too easy to forget that she was still growing every day.

Maybe she won’t remember that first day. Mom and Dad will do the remembering.

The bus full of little kids was a big new noisy world.

She left most of her fears behind, in Mom’s heart.

She didn’t wave, but she must have looked back, at least once…

 

Moment

 

It wasn’t obviously a step-by-step process.

It seemed like it took years. It really was years.

A continuum of nights and days

   and firsts and talking

   and repeated joys

   and the desperate acceptance of sickness

   and the universe of smiles

   and the glad warmth of wanton hugs

   and bodies that can touch everywhere, and do…

 

She grew, yet she’s still so far from grown up,

still so completely the child you love,

but not a yearling,

   not a yearling.

 

Last night she murmured “I’m a little shy”

   and you smiled a little, reassured her,

and crumbled a little, in your heart,

it’s one more fear you cannot fix…

 

Now she stands at your side,

calmly shouldering the backpack,

the totem of kindergarten.

You whisper, once, again, again,

and she listens, she holds your hand.

 

Now she leans toward the big yellow bus,

the doors open wide—those steps are so high!—

and you kiss the back of her ear

   as she leaves you standing alone,

and takes the next step in her life.

 

September 19, 2016

My poem “Moment” was published in my first collection of 59 new free verse and haiku poems, Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: “The Gentle Boy”

The Puritans had a dark side…

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

click here

As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

More ways to dance (a nature poem)

More ways to dance (a nature poem)

“…the hush of autumn is danse minuet…”

 

 

Walk this way

 

The familiar path invites me, always in a new way.

I forget so much each time I turn for home.

Today this wood is a full mystery again,

full canopy shelters full magic for the wanderer,

warms an alchemy in me, my steps and pace precess,

becoming dance, my breath becoming breeze,

my sight becoming rays brightening all

that stretches for sun in the umbra moving with me, pausing with me.

 

The routine of life is a guise for the wonder of growth

and the resurging energy to sprout anew in mouldy places.

The small deaths are symbiotic in so many ways,

the round of living and dying is danse macabre for insect, bird and beast.

The gush of spring is a greening tarantella,

all speed, all blossom, all scented marvel—

the hush of autumn is danse minuet,

all languor, all afterlife of color, all bending toward earth.

 

I know my place, my purpose, my delight.

I am another life in this calm living forest.

I do not take root, I am not a caretaker, I do not give or take life,

I do not die and rise again in the turn of seasons.

I am a walker, a watcher, a singer of forest songs.

 

August 11, 2015

That day the buzz in the forest invited me to sing along.

It didn’t seem surprising that I knew so many of the words.

In my mind, at least, I was dancing to the cascade of tunes, turning from left to right

and back again to shoot those brightening rays…

   thus, I learned this poem of nature.

 

My poem “Walk this way” was published January 23, 2018, in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected poems. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”

“Walk this way” was published in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of the Aurorean.

“Walk this way” was published (October 2017) in The Four Elements: Effects and Influences, an anthology by PoCo Publications (Poets Collective), available in paperback on Amazon, click here

*   *   *   *   *   *

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Lord of the Flies

Never more relevant…

by William Golding

click here

 

My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

“…no intelligence where there is no change..”

“…no intelligence where there is no change..”

it takes smarts to deal with change…

 

 

“It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility

     is the compensation for change, danger and trouble.

An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment

     is a perfect mechanism.

Nature never appeals to intelligence

     until habit and instinct are useless.

There is no intelligence where there is no change

     and no need of change.

Only those animals partake of intelligence

     that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.”

 

Spoken by the Time Traveler in The Time Machine

by Herbert George (H. G.) Wells (1866-1946

New York: Penguin Books, 1895 (repr. 2005)

pp. 78-79

 

I notice that there is no mention of love and joy and imagination.

I notice that contented animals don’t write poems.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.

My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

“Inner child”…a haiku poem

“Inner child”…a haiku poem

A haiku poem for your inner child…

 

It doesn’t hurt to admit the truth about thinking—thinking doesn’t always have to be hard work.

The teeter-totter and the carousel and the monkey bars build strong bodies, sure, and they offer a workout for the old brain…try using them, and throw in the sandbox and the swing, too, the next time you’re thinking about what the heck is going on in the real world…

Let some of the innocence of a child into your thoughts.

 

Inner child

 

Callow thoughts scamper

in the playground of my mind,

there, whence wisdom comes.

 

December 2, 2015

My haiku poem “Inner child” was published in my third collection of 64 poems, In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.

Old Friends (book review)

Tracy Kidder tells truth about old age…

click here

My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

*   *   *   *   *   *

Pin It on Pinterest