House bashed in grays, homespun
surrounding yellows and pinks
on a Kansas prairie appears lonely tonight.
The theater, the lives once lived alive
inside are gone now,
buried in the back dark trail
behind the old outhouse.
Old wood chipper in the back, rustic, worn, no gas to thunder.
Old coal bin open to wind but no one to shovel the coal in.
Pumpkin [...]
Stretched across the ravine,
the walking bridge
is covered with snow.
Steam lifts from the narrow river bed below.
The hand guided ropes
are glazed over with ice.
Raccoon tracks are pepper sprinkled
in front of me like virgin markers
leaving a fresh, first trail.
Once across, and safe,
I toss yellow bread crumbs across white snow for starving birds.
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Michael Lee Johnson is a poet [...]
Parts one, two, three, and four.
The mid-sized Ancestral Puebloan site sitting up on that “erosional layer of lower strata” (love that phrase) of Crossfire’s east cliffs is one of my favorites because of the serene view it offers down-canyon. From what I’ve seen of that portion of Crossfire, including about a mile or so of [...]
Fallow soil, windblown, is a rigid latticework
Pressed hard against patchwork fields etched with snow.
A river, drawn amblingly, God’s Hancock doodle,
Flows its cursive way across the whole.
Jealous of its motion, frozen lakes and ponds
Lie low and sullen in their teardrop bowls.
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More from Jonathon here and here.
Torrey House Press has extended its writing context deadline from January 15, 2011 to February 21, 2011. This press sponsors four writing contests a year. This one is for fiction and short fiction (2,000-20,000 words) exploring “the issues, people, history, cultures, and landscape of the Colorado Plateau and the American West.” Prizes: 1st [...]
Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
As we’d searched for the incised grooves and then the tower, the archaeologist and I traded small details about our families. He mentioned how, when he takes his kids for hikes, they’re always running up to him and asking, “Is this an artifact, Dad?” I told him how, when we [...]
The soil’s the earth’s best mother;
Old songs its virile seed
Planted by wind and weather,
Each grown by craft and need.
The soil’s the earth’s best mother:
Each plant a green refrain
Written by a poet father,
And harvested again.
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Photo by Jonathon Penny.
For more poetry by Jonathon and his bio click here.
Leave them lie, these leaves,
Beneath the snow;
Let leaf lead on to leaf in Nature’s way.
Let daylight run its course,
Then let it go;
Let grief lead on to grief, night lead to day.
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Jonathon Penny took his MA in Renaissance literature at BYU and his PhD in 20th Century British literature from the University of Ottawa. He has [...]
Part One here. Part Two here.
The rain that earlier diluted a few thoughts in my journal failed to commit, but the overcast thickened. Light making it through the clouds fell flatly. Trees in the juniper forest through which we walked cast no shade that could be distinguished from cloud shadow. Below us on the creek’s [...]