FALLING: LOVE-STRUCK

 

LOOK!  My poems are published!

Available on Amazon, through Finishing Line Press, FLPbookstore@aol.com at bookstores, or from Me, autographed!

I’m so happy, I’m  wagging my tail. For me, Poetry comes right after music on the stairwell of ART, with music is at the TOP.  Imagine!  A publisher wanted my poems!

Would you like to read on or two? Scroll down. I’ll give you 3 (just after these flattering blurbs). They are all vastly different, but all about Love-struck. Even if you don’t buy, please write a review for Amazon. If I get 50 reviews, Amazon kicks the book up in its advertising.

PRAISE FOR FALLING: LOVE-STRUCK

 Sophy Burnham has given us a collection of poems to read under the eyes of God.

Her words teach us to breathe and how to catch our breath. Her poetry tells us to stop and enjoy the miraculous. Burnham makes us think of Bly and all those writers who love nature.  Come listen to the ringing of her soul.  There are beautiful dreams giving birth in these poems.

1. Ethelbert Miller    Board Chair, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)

www.eethelbertmiller.com

The voice in this poem speaks out of the wisdom of a life lived passionately and consciously in the body, a voice in love with the world, attuned to loss and woundedness, open to relationships – from lovers to granddaughters  – and animated by the childlike wonder of a true mystic.  To read these poems is to fall in love again – with the earth, with our fragile and beautiful humanness, with words and yes, with the lively mystery that some of us call “God.”

Kathleen Henderson Staudt, author of Waving Back: Poems of Mothering Life and Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture.

 

It’s so hard to choose only TWO POEMS out of almost 40, but if you like them, please buy my book. And review it on Amazon (because it really makes a difference. If I can get 50 reviews, Amazon starts advertising the book).

 

 

The basement stair

There was a day when I, a little child,

Was dancing in the sunbeam’s shaft that filed

Or streamed across the chambered hallways of my mind

(I was all joy; no worlds were left to find)

And, laughing, whirled in rhythm with the luminous floats—

The spirit lights like golden notes

Singing in the high air.

“What are you doing on the basement stair?”

It was my mother’s voice. “How dare you? Just in underpants

And playing in the dust! You feel enhanced,

I s’pose, to be here smeared in dirt!”

She muttered more. I rose protesting pride against my hurt,

And still she would not stop. “I’ve never seen the like!”

I felt tears back against the dike

Of my control, then overflow, broken on her reproof.

I dressed. She stood aloof.

And then I saw the lights were only motes

Gray dirt or grime against the cellar door, the kind of grit that floats

In any moldy air. The sun was gone.

So, too, the siren song.

It happened long ago, but oh! What I would give

To hear that song again and like a child sieve

Dancing sunlight out of golden beams,

In dirt stand dazzled at God’s dreams.

 

One breath

Be still and

breathe. Is anything more important

than this (one breath)? You’d think

we’d think about it

more,

The way we do when

pushed under

water,

held down by your

bullying older brother in rough-

house joy, except

you’re thrashing flailing

gasping—oh god! For

air

clear lovely and invisible sustenance

sucked greedy into collapsing lungs, the way

the asthmatic hauls in

breath,

each one a shuddering

terror, a

prophecy of when you won’t be able,

the dark descending

spirit ascending,

as it floats from the skin of your shell

to that moment when breath no longer matters

anymore.

 

Words, words 

1. I’m losing my words

Or my mind, one or the other,

Groping for a name, a noun.

The adjective that used to

Leap like a young goat

Off

The cliffs of joy

Onto the page is

Now a stuttered shadow

Of a memory.

They come back, the words return

Drunk and reeling after a night at the bars.

They lurch into the empty streets

bottle-swinging, shout: Adjacent

Tapas! Ecru!

Daisy Miller!

Awake in bed I grind my teeth

Helpless against the green glass

Shattering on the dawn curbs

Curfew! Origami!

When what I needed was now hours gone.

They slink off laughing like felons

On the prowl.

 

2. I dream how when I die the words will all come back

Falling in apple blossom blessings

Paper whirligigs

Floating, falling through the silence

Majestically

White cranes curving

To my tongue

Taut and tangy to the touch.

They’ll flap one indolent wing

To keep aloft

Swoop, settle on my scorched skin

Like burning kisses:

. . .

3. In my dream the words snow

Silently from gunmetal skies, drift in piles

light wind-whipped powder-soft,

These carriers of the fierce music

Of my life.

Buckled and booted for war

The huntsman’s horn, the screech of wheel,

Laments of loneliness and love.

They are choral bells pealing forth their

Hope faith fears.

They are canticles to

The times

We’ve known before

This one around.

In my dream

I wonder if it’s words I’ll miss

The most,

Or whether words will wing

In whatever heaven I’m assigned.

I’d even want another incarnation

Here if I could hear

Words tumbling from your

Beautiful sweet mouth, pouring

From the bellows of your throat.