Friday, May 1, 2015

A Poetic Present: Linda Penner

I know. I know. It's May. National Poetry Month 2015 is over. BUT, there were a few days where I didn't post. And it's Friday. So it's only right to wrap things up with one more poem!

And what finer topic for our final poem than love?

Linda Penner, our poet of the day, is one of the dear women in my Writers Workshop. She makes me laugh, she inspires me, she teaches me, she surprises me. And, when you read the poem below, don't think I made a typo. Her hubby's name really is Merv.

Bouquet
For Merv on his birthday
by Linda Penner

Seventy years --
gone
darting away
like a hummingbird
hovering here for an instant
a smudge in a distant tree
the next

I've walked years
by your side
or ahead
or behind
occasionally crossed
(like our purposes)

Separate -- but
matched, curiously
as if posed
in tuxedo and slinky black
for a photo
at a formal event

or joined
by an invisible electric thread
that quivers
when you read my mind
vibrates
when I read yours
like the tiniest marital umbilical
keeping us
attached
when dark threatens
connected
when one of us
temporarily
floats away

Life novices,
we've bumped and stumbled
through four decades
threaded together,
generous you
feeding body and spirit
as if two arms weren't enough
to give all you wanted

So here,
let me give you something
Take this poem
my bouquet of words and love

It's your birthday



No comments: