cemeteries and old trees

So I'm not going to join in the April madness in the traditional way, because I'm already working on the Chosen Grandma story and am revising am supposed to be revising The Book Man. 30 poems are out of the question unless I totally pull them out of my butt, which No, especially since I haven't really written poetry in a while.

So my goal is one halfway decent poem a week for April. That's a minimum of four. Not many, I know, but a lot when you're out of practice and enough to flex your creativity muscles.

Listicle

Spoiler

1. Cemeteries & Old Trees
2. Divorce and Friendship
3. gardening
4. poetry is not inside me

Enjoy, hopefully.

I swear to God I'm working on this, even though we're into our second week of April and I haven't posted *any* poetry yet. In my defense, I was waiting for my new commonplace book to come in so I could do all my brainstorming and writing in there. It's so purty!

Ugh, this is really hard. Every single spring I want to write a big, joyful poem about spring, but every year I feel like I fail miserably, even if I do produce one. It's hard to write metaphors about spring when spring is always the metaphor.

I'm still rooting you on! <3

Even though I'm totally failing and have gotten no further than brainstorming?

*cracks knuckles*
*puts on armor*
*pulls down helmet*

Okay, let's do this.

Thank you I needed that.

Cemeteries & Old Trees

She likes cemeteries and old trees
the stately silence:

sycamores with mottled skin
standing sentry over
the crumbled decay of centuries.
Stones, names half scrubbed away
by the wind and rain
and the rush of ages.

She likes the silence
the grass
the roughness of bark
and moss-eaten stones

the toys left
on the graves of children born & dead
so long ago
no one can possibly remember their names
or the disease that took them
one bleak Christmas.

Toys left because we know
the reason for the headstones,
the initials inscribed in tree trunks,
the way we leave a mark on everything we touch

to say,
I was here.

She likes the stones she can barely read
doesn't like them, precisely
feels kinship with them
the way she feels the spirits
standing watch
flickering like a projector image
of times gone by

not like the movies
no EVP no vases knocked off shelves
no fear

Just a presence
like the gentle hill in every graveyard
and the ancient sycamore at the top

standing guard and reminding you:
One day,
you, too, will be here.

What? Blue finished a poem???

(I mean, we all know who to *really* thank here.)

Comments are welcome but I'm def not publishing these for real.

Divorce and Friendship

In high school I wrote about
every heartbreak
love was sky-blue, I said
(no wonder I love that color)
a thousand little pieces, I said
(unafraid of angst
or sounding too dramatic)

Then I grew up

I've found that
at this age
heartbreak is used against me.

You're throwing it all away, he said
thinking I'd regret his loss
(but how can I regret someone
who used to poke holes in the condoms
except to regret ever saying yes?)
and then the knife point
She's your oldest friend.

As if I was the one who deleted
the one who stopped calling
the one who let go
quietly, the way
a fishing line sinks into the ocean.

You don't even care, he said
(as if I would tell him)
hoping to see a crack in the marble
something to use against me

but I never let him see

I remember in art class
talking about Fiddler on the Roof
how I liked it but couldn't bear the way
Tevya's third daughter was cast aside.

I would do it, she said
(it was then I think I knew)
Faith is more important
than family.

Or friends, I guess.

I hurt,
but I never was surprised.

gardening

every spring I cut my hair
because I withered with the green things
I need pruning
so I can flower

I was going to add more to that one and then once I had it down I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Even though it would've been a very different poem, had I done so.

Wow, "Cemeteries & Old Trees" really hit me. It's solemn without being over-the-top or not sounding genuine. This stanza is just really heartbreaking
"Toys left because we know
the reason for the headstones,
the initials inscribed in tree trunks,
the way we leave a mark on everything we touch"
and then I love the way the narrative is just layered on top of walking through this cemetery. The poem feels like it's zooming in closer and closer to the narrator. Nice work!

blushing Thank you

poetry is not inside me

poetry is not inside me
I did not swallow the moon to feel
its lunar tides pulling at my belly
the usual monthly pull

It's just what it always is
blood and earthquakes

poetry is not inside me
I do not have an eagle's wings to lift
me to the cold stars in their heights
I have to look up

It's just what it always is
vertical isn't 20/20

I feel the pull in my belly,
the stars in my eyes
but it's just what it always is
a deadend street
off the edge of the map

poetry is not inside me
I do not grow like a tree, tall and spreading
my palms to the sky
but I try

OMG the ending of "cemeteries and old trees". Perfection.

"poetry is not inside me" is also...awfully poetic, considering the title, haha.

As for "gardening", I think it's the perfect length as is.

Congrats on completing four awesome poems for NaPo!

@niteowl THANK YOU oh my God it was so hard this year. I legit almost gave up when I didn't even have one poem halfway through April, like I was thinking of deleting my thread and everything, but then @Hannah was like, "DO THE THING" and I was like, "...yeah, okay."

(That's not *exactly* how it happened, but whatever.)