Feeling a little blue? These poems by Cape Codders might help
Though the sun has been shining for days here on the Cape, we find ourselves in the midst of some dark times. Across the sea, Israel wages war on Hamas, disrupting, destroying and displacing the lives of many in Gaza and prompting an outcry for a ceasefire from people across the globe.
Some of the Cape Cod Times' winning poets this month penned their own cries into their stanzas as they paid tribute to the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers who lost their lives helping those on the Gaza Strip and called for peace in their lines.
Others focused on our seaside critters and womanhood. Yet all have a striking message of the need for community. The need to come together, to fight together, to live together and to love together.
Poetry winners for May
Horseshoe Crab Shells on the Beach
by Rosemary D. Moeller
Protective coverings, constructed
by alien-looking horseshoe crabs,
litter the shore, rejected totally
by the soft-bodied creatures
ready to re-build a new housing
as imposing and threatening
as these few ounces,
bits of jetsam on the rippled sands.
Each year moving day
leaves behind beautiful shelters,
confident that new protection
will grow, more than a shell,
a suit of armor, millions of years
of successful survival,
since before this beach was formed,
before these rocks rumbled here
from northern shields by glaciers
before the continental spine
was pushed up to mountainous heights.
Even the empty shell has experienced
more than this beach walker.
****
Author of "The Tyrant Next Door" Ginia Pati writes: Ginia’s prior work at the United Nations Headquarters, weaves visceral imagery into many poems and continues to reinforce her passion for peaceful equality and justice worldwide. She writes with Narrowlands, and Dune Hollow, frequents open-mics; a special for WOMR’s International Women’s Day & WCAI’s Poetry Sunday; and print in Prime-Time; Cape Women, two anthologies including "Shadow & Light."
In her words, her inspiration for the poem stems from how the "current political situation" could unfortunately be said on any morning we are fortunate enough to awaken, wherever we find ourselves in the world. Poverty, greed and strife abound ― even on our sequestered Cape Cod ― so too the generosity of compassionate awareness and actions can make a difference, wherever you find yourself."
The Tyrant Next Door
By Ginia Pati
Shabby coat hastily grabbed for evacuation,
copious pockets for documents, worn photos
family treasures and scant food for the journey.
Unknown is the passage on foot or oxcart
following miles of iron railways or desert paths pulsing
lifeless heat until nightfall, or blizzards of dense snow.
Is your country's neighbor a hungry tyrant
envious of your fertile land, or oil beneath parched surface
maybe you have nothing… but his insatiable greed
breathing down your neck… with fetid harassments
setting fires, or merely choosing your village for target practice?
He is restless, aroused… without a morality to quell his thirst.
So, your 'running-coat' always hangs ready near the door
multitude secret pockets ... meticulously prepared
by clever hands … shaped by a desperation only refugees know.
****
"She Said It Wasn't Much"
By Margaret Rice Moir
She Said it Wasn’t Much
she said It wasn’t hard to do;
just making the time to drive
to a nearby town
for the funeral of someone
she did not know well,
who’d had a good and productive life
of ninety years,
who’d been a teacher,
whose lessons live on in her student’s lives.
Her loved ones, too far away, or sick,
unable to be there for this final goodbye.
But you went.
You went to witness
her having lived,
her return to stardust.
It was a small kindness.
Such little kindnesses grow the giver’s heart.
There is redemption
in such small and quiet offerings.
The pebble drops beneath the pond
But the ripples go on and on.
****
Irene Paine is a local author of the historical novel "Eva and Henry, A Cape Cod Marriage" (Fiddler Books). Her prose and poems have been published by The Cape Codder, the Cape Cod Times, and Cape Women Magazine.
This poem was written very soon after the deaths of 7 aid workers for the World Central Kitchen in the Gaza Strip. A mouse in the yard was the main prompt for the poem, but my pen insisted upon creating a metaphor regarding all the anonymous but very important helpers in the world, and the sacrifices they make for the good of all.
The Mouse
By Irene Paine
Ah, the nobility of the humble mouse.
Who has such plush hide and pinky feet?
She weathers storms beneath the frozen crust
Of snow and ice. No plebeian
Is she, the nourishment of
The great horned owl, the red fox,
The black racer snake and coyote kit.
She is the sacrificial tidbit of the
Animal Kingdom’s World Central Kitchen.
Her earthen tunnels and corridors
Provide home and cover for
The furry one.
Until, without cowardice,
She leaves the subterranean
And emerges for
Sunlight, stem and seed.
Snap goes the jackknife ―
And just like that,
She takes her noble place
On the bottom of the food chain.
Thank you for your service.
****
Edge of a Glimpse
by Diane McDonough
Under a dark gray sky, I walk the land. A pair of crows swoop and soar, in and out
of leafless branches, weaving a spell, or a dream,
urging me to sit here in the seat of a gigantic rock
soft with moss, like the Hag’s Chair of Celtic lore.
Poor me, wishing I’d grown up with stories of this sovereign mother and her strong-as-stone
crone self, furious guardian of the land,
instead of the recitation of shalt-nots
from my meek and moody mama, empty
but for a womb, satisfied with a wander
around the kitchen with a dry mop after dinner,
living through her children, her daughters
too tame, with clipped wings, without song.
Where is my wildness? Just this compulsion
to slip through the wound-window, *
gather willow, weave a crown and a fortress
for old women with our tea cups, acorns,
crocus bulbs, marigold seeds, our rabbits,
fox, lichen, fungi …
to weather the seething storms gathering, to pat the soil after planting possibilities.
Notes:
Hag’s Chair — in County Cork and County Meath, Ireland.
*wound-window – from the poem "For Someone Who Did You Wrong." John O’Donohue. "To Bless the Space Between Us. NY: Doubleday," 2008.
Frankie Rowley covers entertainment and things to do. Contact her at frowley@capecodonline.com.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod Poetry: Our poetry contest winners for May
