A Web Discovery

I discovered recently that someone used one of my poems as a response to someone's blog post about music. There is really only the slightest connection between the poem and the blog. The author of the blog thanks me, but I was not the one who posted the poem in response. The poem used is titled "Spelunking," and it was posted on this blog almost ten years ago--https://redmooncafe.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html.  Whoever posted the poem was kind enough to acknowledge me as the author. Go to this link to find the blog post.

Only those poems of mine that have been published in print form have been shared on this blog of mine.  It has probably been years since I shared any of my poems. I am happy to report that I have been writing with somewhat more frequency. Because I am not teaching as many classes as I used to, I have somewhat more time available. Even an hour, when time is short and one's days are devoted to other things, can be enough time to get something written or revised. I cannot think of a better way to spend my remaining years than in writing poems.

Spelunking

The damp dark ground in my head
when I was twenty let the spores
I took into my mouth grow mushrooms
so fat that I opened up a roadside
stand, my sign reading, "fungi
for sale." After each harvest,

I opened up my head for the sun
to warm my soil, the hinge so stiff
I had to use all of my strength.
Earthworms went deeper. My eyes--
the pupils so large I could see
inside a cave, without a torch,

without radar pinging off the walls--
scared the tourists back into
their cars, engines already running.
I scared myself. I was afraid
of them, too. I only wanted
a gardener to come and turn over

my dirt with her spade. My sign,
up close, read, "gardener wanted."
And now when oak, maple, and spruce
trees fill my head, enough space
between them to keep the ground lit,
and when my gardener helps me grow

daffodils and tulips each spring,
peonies in the summer, I look
onto rooms in the afternoon, squares
of light on the floor, the curtains
blown back from the windows, the drone
of an airplane overhead, needing no more.




One of the hardest poems to write is the love poem. I wrote this love poem for my wife. It appeared in Gulf Coast in 1998.