© 2016 by the poets

The 2016 Annual Co-operative Poem

One more year, one more assemblage. Somehow it comes together with more grace than we deserve.

Thank you all for sending in your couplets. Mouse over to see the name of each contributor, or scroll down to see them all listed at once.

Ursula and Marianne and Suzanne wish you your fill of love, fun, and good health in 2016.

 

What I've Seen

I've seen: quiet, immanence, my mother
in this bright divide of stars. Beauty.

It cannot be undone. It grows like a brindle,
a whorl of obvious regret now in our touch. 

His empty desk — the first of nine taken
away by hand to vanish, ‘scooped’; some fled.

Poets notice things, such as
a child swinging through a spring breeze.

Lurking beyond the skin of the earth,
that thin place of unknowing faith.

A rainforest ignites.
Lost butterflies applaud each waterfall.

Words fly into the red-tailed seeing hawk
whose yellow feet, dark claws, kick up a wind.

Pixilated screen loops a frame within a frame
glistening earthworm drowns in sudden downpour.

On Queensland beaches, platoons of blue soldier crabs.
Together they march, singing peace to troubled seas.

On a moonless midnight walk
Roger's chocolates wax & wane.

Outside a wine store in the busker’s guitar case
this small white terrier sporting a santa suit.  

The horse nibbles my pockets with velvet lips.
I see the bruise on the apple and remember.

The tremble, barely there now.
Arms crossed over the shovel’s handle.

At dawn a pure white rabbit standing by my fence
vulnerable in this landscape devoid of snow.

Seen is the woman's hand drum song
through closed eyes opened —

Cancer ward’s extended hours.
My footsteps echo past closing time.

The anatomy of tumbleweeds. 
The furious speed of their freedom.

One deep breath, all the way to infinity
and there you were, a magnificent starry night.

_______________

Contributors in order of appearance:

Heather Cardin | Margaret Doyle | Marina Blokker | Naomi Wakan | Dvora Levin | Kim Goldberg | Susan McCaslin | Jessica Gabriel | Pat Smekal | kjmunro | Sidney Bending | Margaret Rutley | Leanne McIntosh | Marion Beck | Mary White | Harvey Jenkins | Sandra Lynxleg | Kathy Beliveau