On the Death of Robert Bly

I wanted him to live to be one hundred even though his readings had stopped years ago. Who am I to judge how long a man should live? Or how his living, his writing, his teaching helped my life. I was just a woman in his workshop at Centrum learning as much as I could.

He would take his class on writing walks. One day on a beach hike, we stood together and watched a fish die in the sand. Another day, we sat with an old stump that had once held up something magnificent. We translated Francis Ponge, “the poet of things”, and looked deeply into an orange.

seasons come and go

left alone to find my way

sad hearing the rain

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dVerse prompt to write a haibun on something or someone to be thankful for

Dog Dream

The dog sleeps tonight

laying his head at my knee

in a dream he is running

muffled barking is heard

as a remembrance of his day

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dVerse prompt to write a wayra (5 lines, syllable count 5-7-7-6-8 and no rhyme)

What’s Fair?

While working in a classroom

I will never forget this

dark-haired little boy

who had a substitute teacher

that day—

he watched as she wrote

a cursive name on the chalkboard—

Miss Fair

so he replied

Miss Fair—

will you be fair to me?

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dVerse quadrille prompt using the word fair

Memory

It’s just me collecting words from memory to bring forth a future.

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dVerse prompt on memory combined with writing my first American sentence.

My Father’s Gun

My father’s gun is black

long muzzle

loaded

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dVerse prompt to write a concrete poem (missed the deadline so going with the next prompt of a conceit.). This is a new stanza to my spoken word poem of the same title which the metaphor of the gun is expanded to meaning many things.

Little Colorado River

Turquoise water—

God or weather had made the way

for what could have been brown with silt

but not on this day—

clear was the Little Colorado River

as it careened past quick sand

past boulders

and sacred places

into the confluence

of rivers

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dVerse prompt to write a quadrille using the word careen, Learn more about this sacred place

https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/grand-canyon-little-colorado-river-native-voices

Procrastination

• 

Rain is falling

branches ready to snap

leaves blow everywhere

he waits to go rake

leaves pile higher

at least clear a path so I won’t fall down

little at a time will get the job done

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

Rain is falling

look the sun just came out

grab your rake and go

it might not last long

glistening on tree

how can you take a nap at times like this

it could be the last time we see this sun

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dVerse prompt on a pet peeve— like when my husband doesn’t help raking leaves 🍁 and I sit writing this

Zombies

Night of the Living Dead was a scary movie I saw when I was a teenager. It was even scarier driving past a cemetery on my way home that night. The plot line resembles Walking Dead— cannibalistic zombies walking around attacking and eating people. Walking Dead is in the eleventh and final season of guts flying and spilt brains and many ways to slow down, trap, and kill a zombie, not to mention the unraveling of society and its attempt at restructuring.

taking from the past

brings unimagined seasons

fuels a greater fear

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dVerse prompt on a fear that was experienced— my experience with zombies has only been in movies

Many Roses

Set roots in a proper manner

find more fertilizer to pamper

my rosebush

*****

Tallest of all rhododendron

species of rhodie maximum

is rosebay

*****

First of the garden blooms in spring

small yet delightfully pretty

many primrose

*****

Bringing it into the kitchen

flavors food in many dishes

this rosemary

*****

A bloom that lasts only one day

be quick or you won’t have time to

smell rockrose

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dVerse prompt to write Compound Word Verse

Haiku to the Hunter’s Moon

staccato owl

hunter’s moon brightens the night

coyote yelping