Poetry Friday Roundup Birthday Bash is Here!

False Indigo Flowers, © 2024 Michelle Kogan

Happy Poetry Friday!

I’m offering the Poetry Friday Roundup! Please leave your links for Mister Linky at the end of my post, thanks!

I’m also highlighting a couple poets who have May Birthdays and have written nature inspired poems, both of our natural world and of the human condition. As my Birthday is also in May and almost here, I’ll share my reverse nonet poem to begin.

FALSE INDIGO

Aglow with unpretentious beauty
you call and capture gazing eyes—
Your slender lavender buds
anticipate quiet
contemplation and
willow-ready
ripe respite
for us
all.  

© 2024 Michelle Kogan, draft

False Indigo Flowers, detail, © 2024 Michelle Kogan

                                                                                                                                                    

Joy Harjo May 9, 1951

EAGLE POEM
by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.

Read the rest of the poem here.

And a poem from her book How We Became Human.

IN PRAISE OF EARTH
by Joy Harjo

We kept on dancing last summer though the dancing had been called subversive.
We weren’t alone at the end of this particular world and knew
it wouldn’t be the last world, though wars
had broken out on all sides.

We kept on dancing and with us were the insects who had gathered at the grounds
in the grasses and the trees. And with us were the stars and
a few lone planets who had been friends
with the earth for generations.

With us were the spirits who wished to honor this beloved earth in any beautiful
manner. And with us at dawn was the Sun who took the lead
and then we broke for camp, for stickball
and breakfast.

We all needed praise made of the heart’s tattoo as it inspired our feet or wings,
someone to admire us despite our tendency to war, to terrible
stumbles. So does the red cliff who is the heart
broken to the sky.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Jayne Kenyon May 23, 1947

LET EVENING COME

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Read the rest of the poem here, or listen to it read by Jane Kenyon below.

COMING HOME AT TWILIGHT IN LATE SUMMER
by Jane Kenyon

We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done—the unpacking, the mail
and papers; the grass needed mowing… \
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Rosellen Brown May 12, 1939

I couldn’t find much available online for Rosellen Brown, but I did find this broadside of one of her poems:
IN ROOMS and a commentary she did on Gwendolyn Brooks. Look at the Gwendolyn Brooks video of WE REAL COOL first.

I’m looking forward to reading your poems!

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Just added this jolly Robin Kersplash Birthday Card to my Etsy Shop!