Ready to Make Friends with Poetry? ⟶
“Personally, I know little about God, whoever he is. If he is. I realize, however, that to some, he’s downright awesome. From Gram’s description, I picture him like a raptor with a sky’s wingspan, exhaling love’s oxygen on his hatchlings, feeding them comfort and truth and power straight from his beak.” -Sugar Birds, Cheryl Bostrom…
Susan Cowger confesses she was the ‘black sheep’ in the family, not quite fitting into the mold of family vocations–nurses, pharmacists, sensible people. Instead, her first language was art, a calling that led to a BA in Fine Art (1977) from Montana State University and subsequent MFA in Poetry with a secondary emphasis in Art…
Birds, their tones both winged and brightHarmonize from branches out of sightKnow their parts, score memorizedFlash and zoom before my eyes. Soprano, alto, second, bassThroaty praises from branchy placeEcho, float, reverberateA pause, then celebrate Mornings’ rise first slow and quietAgainst dull backdrops now a riotTheir songs a span of treble and bassBackground my day, this…
Where have you been? Out of town like those who flee our chilled clime and metallic skies? Elsewhere, warming up your voice to herald today’s sunrise with your song? I welcome your morning melody making its way to my ears, stirring memories of other songs on sullen, silver days when your music was my only…
There is no statute of limitations on vision. My old eyes register a darting messenger ofGod’s blatant, creative joy. Watch the wingedcreation hover in a web of air.Spy a sleuthing intrudersnap-tapping its wayacross the wood, tunnelingaway and down the outside stairs. No expiration (yet) for hearing,cataloguing birdvoice and thechipclacking of breakfastat the feeder, the squeakinginsistence…
You could say (and you would be correct) the mottled, colorless sky leaves one bereft of brightness this time of year. You could say (see above) the empty, lifeless branches are dull, dormant gray/brown slender swords against said mottled sky. You could say (well, you know) there’s little beauty in such poor adornment, small pleasure…
“ I strain towards the future, eyes focused on the far away past empty, quiet gray, like looking for a hummingbird in the snow. I squint at fine twig lines as they slice across white over green in front of the dormant sienna. I spy her there, a gemstone stately in her royal stance among…
The chickadees are arguing using their mad voices to fight over the millet and sunflowers– Here’s a sweet ‘chirp’, there’s an insistent, “cuh, cuh, cuh” and another voice–“chick-a-dee, dee, dee.” It’s a Bird Boardroom Brawl, voices of different timbres and tempo arguing about what’s on the menu. They sound as if they’re starving, staking…
This shady place, shrouded in quiet and the shushing of trees… this cathedral of water-sounds borne on leaves. Here is worship– in the wind– bending carillon chimes blowing clouds, leaving blue. I hear birdsong as they raise their voices in praise. Echoing, answering– “Do you hear Him? Is He not wonderful, our Creator God?” I…