Poetrepository

Friday, August 27, 2021

What Late August Crickets Know

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

QUIET WATERS

In that last year, I circled the lake,
investigating every cove along the shore
until I discovered the outfall --
a small stream that would carry me away,
silently slipping into quiet waters
where a single paddle stroke would do,
where simply floating for an entire morning
would be an acceptable option.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, August 20, 2021

Ode to the Hummingbird

ODE TO THE HUMMINGBIRD

(after ODE TO DIRT by Sharon Olds; line 10 was lifted from her poem)

Dear Hummingbird, I’m sorry I doubted you,
I thought you would only come to carefully tended sugar feeders.
Turns out, those zinnias I planted on a whim
in between the iris after they finished heralding summer
with their purple flags and sharp green blades
and also the sweet peas that come up every year
camouflaging the chain link fence with a curtain
of pink polka-dotted greenery
are all you need. O hummingbird,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who bless our early evenings with the miracle of your hover-flit-sip
(pausing occasionally to perch and preen)
you who ask only that we cultivate an altar of beauty
where together we can worship.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, August 13, 2021

Things to Do if You Are a Road Trip

image via Unsplash

Things To Do If You Are A Road Trip

Perch hawks on fence posts.

Pinwheel the wind farms.

Create curiosity with road cuts.

When a trailer tire ahead shreds

let all who follow dodge the pieces.

Conveniently space rest stops and gas stations.

And as for destinations,

if they do not include the open arms of family or friends,

make every traveler feel welcome.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, August 6, 2021

Passing the Torch

I shake the flame out of my matchstick;

(one flame dies so another can grow)

cup my hand around the candle’s burning wick.

Nothing about this process is quick.

(light one, expect others to follow)

Again, I shake the flame out of my matchstick,

discard it with a flick,

(travel light, shed unnecessary cargo)

cup my trembling hand around the candle’s wick

and listen to the clock tick-tick-tick.

(there’s no stopping time, I know, I know)

I shake and the flame goes out of my matchstick.

This is no magician’s trick --

(it’s a hard pill to swallow)

the cup of hand around the candle’s burning wick

is merely the arithmetic

of love caught and held in a minute glow.

And so I shake the flame out of my matchstick;

cup my hand around the candle’s burning wick.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, July 30, 2021

Don’t Just Stand There, Open Your Umbrella

Don’t Just Stand There, Open Your Umbrella

Before me in the east,

wrapped in a billowing headdress,
sun peeks.

Without turning, I can hear
grumbles of unrest,
while before me in the east,

with a well-practiced technique,
coyly half-dressed,
sun peeks

at the growling purple beast
storming in from the west.
Before me in the east

she begins to disappear
behind clouds that fume and crest.
Sun peeks

one last time. Then the storm releases
all the rage it had suppressed.
Before me in the east,
sun no longer peeks.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, July 9, 2021

Good Morning

image via Unsplash

Good Morning
after Good Night by Carl Sandburg

Many ways to spell good morning.

Redwing blackbird at the top of the larch

spells it with red epaulettes and spread wings.
He shouts the wetland awake; mallard and frog join in.
Bees make a lazy trajectory of gold-and-black
between purple cone flowers.

Meadow at dawn spells with a misty quilt
lifted by sun’s fingers.

Kitchens are a chorus of kettle whistles,
cutlery clatters, mug thumps, bacon sizzles.

It is easy to spell good morning.
Many ways to spell good morning.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, July 2, 2021

There's a Village for Sale in Scotland

There’s a Village for Sale in Scotland

There’s a village for sale in Scotland.
Only $173,000 and that includes mossy ruins
and a beach on the loch.

In Scotland, thunderclouds won’t stall overhead
dumping inches of rain at a time, flooding the yard.

In Scotland, the yard waste is always picked up on time
and the neighbors don’t build smoky fires with wet wood.

In Scotland, Democracy is not failing,
racism is not systemic, and police are always helpful.

Though there’s a village for sale in Scotland
I’m not buying it.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, June 18, 2021

Juneteenth

image via Unsplash

Now That Juneteenth is a National Holiday

We pause
in honor of Liberty, Hope,
and Resiliency.

We pause
with clear-eyed acknowledgement of slavery's role
in building the economic foundation of our country

We pause
to consider a better way forward
for our not always glorious national history

We must not
co-opt this celebration with white commercialism

We must not
let this celebration undermine the right to protest

We must not
allow this celebration to eliminate the ongoing work of justice

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021 (draft)

Friday, June 11, 2021

Learning Arabic

Learning Arabic

is more than just driving on the left in England.

It's driving on the left

with no cognates on the map,

an alphabet consisting of small bits of flowering vine,

and luckily a lay-by

where you abandon the car and the map

taking a path instead

walking like a botanist, field guide in hand,

poring over every blossom, every curving leaf,

breathless when you begin to find meaning

in this brand new ancient world.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Friday, June 4, 2021

Ways to Reappear

image via Unsplash

Ways to Reappear

In the dawn

Down a path

Through tall pines

Come to

With a grin

In a flash

Down to earth

In a spotlight

In a shadow

Without a plan

Without speaking

On your porch

On your threshold

In the garden

In the pool

In a library

In the corner

In the background

Come out

On a limb

At a moment's notice

In envelopes

In secret

Without words

Without a doubt

Seeking identity

Through dense fog

Down this path

In the dawn

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

after Ways to Disappear by Camille Rankine

"Ways to Disappear" was the Poem a Day from Poets.org on Wednesday, June 2. Camille Rankine writes about her poem: “There are so many ways a person can become not a person in someone else’s eyes. They can be erased through violence of gaze or word or action, by the individual, by the media, by the state, so that their humanity dissolves into nothing in the other’s view, and they vanish. In plain sight, and not there at all.”

Big truth in these times, in this country.

I began to think of possible ways for a person to reappear. If we can erase a person, surely we can also work against that erasure, really see those around us, and make sure they know they've been seen.

The poem is also about losing one identity and reappearing with a new identity.

Process notes: I found the photo on Unsplash after I wrote the poem. It was a little eerie how well the image matched my words.

I borrowed the first word in every line from Rankine's poem. Lots of times I used the first two words. To give the poem a more optimistic feel, I changed "gone" to "come." The lines are specific and personal but at the same time broad and general. As in Rankine's poem, the lines sometimes seem connected, but mostly can stand alone. The word "seeking" stood out to me as a turning point, and from there I diverged from Rankine's poem, reversing the pattern of the first three lines, and ending where the poem started.

Friday, May 14, 2021

Arrival

ARRIVAL

I await a
cicada
the first
to emerge
from its
underground burrow
at the oak’s
brown skirt.

Wingless
at first
then red-eyed
and loud
there’s never
just one
they move
in a crowd.

I await a
cicada
the first
of the brood.
A seventeen-year
miracle
periodically
viewed.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

For more information about Brood X, check out Cicada Safari.