Tag Archives: Poetry

Beside the Wetland Pond

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Getting up at the break of day is not unusual. I get dressed and take the steps down from the loft to make the coffee. But this daybreak was different. Through the window of the A-frame cabin loft, I catch sight of the tops of two long white necks. I rush to the window to see a Trumpeter Swan pen and cob…and six cygnets parading across the yard. The next day they were nowhere to be found.

Below the Window

morning with the swans, GCS, May 24, 2023

slender snow-white necks
pass below the window of
the a-frame next to the 
wetland pond where the
trumpeter swans build their
borning home each year
while the red-wing blackbirds 
feast on cotton-candy puffs
the cat’n-nine-tails serve
for breakfast each spring
and the loons dive and
rise to feed their young by 
the land we think we own.

no “no trespassing” signs
mark the land where the two-
leggeds come when the 
Illusion of meta-verses 
where wetlands never shrink 
or die leave us yearning for 
this wondrous place where a 
trumpeter swan pen and cob
proudly march their young 
across the dmz between reality
and madness craning their 
necks to guard their cygnets 
from the two-leggeds looking
through the lofty windows.

Puff

the day after, GCS, March 25, 2023

there was no parade today
below the windows — no cob
or pen, no line of six cygnet
trumpeter swans — on our
side of the dmz, not a feather
left behind. An early morning
mournful loon cry warbles
across the pond a psalmic 
lament for the soul-mates who
return each year to build a nest 
to hatch and train the next 
newborn from primordial depths.

far from the wrecks of time where
drones with artificial intelligence
bulls-eyes drive the world insane —
perhaps somewhere in moscow 
or miami a strong-man thirsts for 
a place like this where cygnets,
cobs and pens play by the wetland 
no one owns where instead of 
drones with eyes that cannot not see -- 
no bully or bomb breaks the hush
when the red-wing blackbirds 
swoop and sing an ode to joy.

Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017, Wipf and Stock), 49 brief meditations on faith, life, and the news; July 24, 2023.

Morning Walk by the Shrinking Wetland Pond

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sumacs in autumn
THE WETLAND POND

The wetland pond is shrinking.
Dark-chocolate cattails and 
summer-green milkweed pods 
burst into the white cotton 
balls they always do when
autumn comes, a cotton 
field of wisps and puffs that 
match the color of my hair.

The sumacs are changing into
the red dress they always wear
this time of year, a royal
crimson robe, glistening in 
the morning sun before
frost and snow turn their 
fleeting autumn puffs from 
regal red to winter white. 
 
I see no yellow on the wetland
pond beside this dirt road that 
has no name or dot on anyone’s 
map. The yellow lilies on the 
lily-pads have gone to sleep
to greet the Spring again if
the pond is still here. 

--GCS, September morning walk
September 27, 2021.
O LORD, what are we that You should care for us?
     mere mortals that You should think of us?
We are like a puff of wind;
     our days are like a passing shadow.
Do not cast me off in my old age.
     (Psalm 144:3,4; 71:9 BCP)

.

Between the Banks of Time

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Matthew Arnold‘s poem The Future came to mind this week in light of the eulogy for local artist and gardener Lynn Niskanen. Click HERE for the obituary. Scroll down for her brother-in-law’s poem honoring Lynn’s life.

The Future [excerpt]

But what was before us we know not, 
And we know not what shall succeed. 

Haply, the river of Time— 
As it grows, as the towns on its marge 
Fling their wavering lights 
On a wider, statelier stream— 
May acquire, if not the calm 
Of its early mountainous shore, 
Yet a solemn peace of its own. 

And the width of the waters, the hush 
Of the grey expanse where he floats, 
Freshening its current and spotted with foam 
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike 
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast— 
As the pale waste widens around him, 
As the banks fade dimmer away, 
As the stars come out, and the night-wind 
Brings up the stream 
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. 

Looking out at the infinite sea

In your abandoned garden

Lynn, in your abandoned garden
 your presence - like sunlight - can still be felt.
 

 At your invitation
 the butterflies, hummingbirds and cardinals 
 your absence still unknown to them,
 keep returning.
 

 In your abandoned garden
 the purple iris - by your own hand planted,
 sleeps tonight beneath her snowy cover,
 

 and awaits the divine kiss of rain.
 
-- Will Niskanen, brother-in-law. Excerpt from Will's Eulogy for Lynn Niskanen, Feb. 18, 2019, at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church Chaska, MN

Although Lynn was “a practitioner and bringer of light,” as Will described her, she did not draw to attention to herself. The pews and church parking lot overflowed their banks.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 21, 2019.

Verse – The Male

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When I am mowing grass between
the growing Christmas trees,
I often see the red-winged bird
perched high observing me.

If I turn the loud mower off
I’ll hear his scolding cry
a Konk-la-ree, a Konk-la-ree,
and then away he’ll fly.

Is he critiquing how I mow?:
Hey you there! Watch-that-tree!
No, there’s a female nesting near,
Come-to-me, Come-to-me…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 6, 2015

Verse – The Laundromat – Pittsboro, N.C., 1969

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She was young, white, and pregnant

when they moved

south. She had worked for Civil

Rights for blacks

up north. So seeing two doors

as she faced

the laundromat obscured

the sordid facts

of legal segregation

just before.

“Oh please, Ma’am, take your clothes

over next door,”

the old black woman said.

“Will you have trouble

if I stay?” “Please, Ma’am,

do as I say…”

The young woman had not

heard “Ma’am” before

from someone older, so

she turned her face —

embarrassed for her race ––

and went next door.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Jan. 27, 2015

NOTE: While working on a Ph.D. in Religion at Duke University, Steve pastored two yoked Presbyterian Churches: the 88 member Pittsboro, N.C., (pop. 1,500 then), and Mt. Vernon Springs (55? members) 30 miles west in rural Chatham County. Nadja drove from the Manse in Pittsboro 30 miles north to do Microbiology research at Duke. Son Daniel was born in March, 1970.

Limerick

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Mops waiting for guests to use at the Shoemaker residence.

Mops waiting for guests to use at the Shoemaker residence.

INTRO TO LIMERICK: Driving to Steve and Nadja Shoemaker’s this morning, we texted Steve revising the estimated time of arrival. Steve responded with this limerick and photo from his iPhone:

We love to have guests who show up
When they told us that they would turn up.
But please don’t come early
Or we will be surly,
It’s then that we start to clean up!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 2, 2014.

Writer’s block

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The first few days of retirement have been a writer’s wasteland. Then I found a saved draft of Steve Shoemaker’s verse. It was as though it was waiting for just this time. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel like throwing something away.

Write something, anything

(Was it Malcolm Muggeridge who said if
you can’t write something good, write something
bad that you can throw away.)
…
How do I know what I think till I see what I say?
…
Can ideas be feelings or colors or moods,
or must letters and spaces reveal the mind?
…
Type on an iPhone, computer or pad:
words, sentence, phrases–the good and the bad.
…
Drivel, insight, cliche, Truth–
symbol, allegory, tall-tale, lie;
future, memory, made-of-whole-cloth,
fiction, non-fiction, poetry.
…
Muses, Graces all have wings–they flit and fly away.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL

Verse – The Mama Rabbit

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The Mama rabbit in the city
dug a nest in our back yard.
She pulled fur from her own body,
hiding babies in the grass.

She came to nurse them every hour,
but she watched them from afar.
Hawks and foxes might have found them
if she stayed there all the time.

I saw one baby rabbit crawling
when I mowed the grass above.
Then I saw the Mama watching
as I placed him in the nest.

The internet said she would feed him
even after touched by me.
My kids and spouse watched from the window
at the growing family.

– Steve Shoemaker, July 1, 2014

Verse – 2 under 3

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2 under 3
John and Caroline

1 plus 1
equals 3
or more
when you
add a boy
and girl

to a young
couple both
who work
outside the
home as is
done today

you take him
and i take her
after day-care
after au pair
after nana
after nanny

we are so tired
there will never
be another
well maybe

 

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 27, 2014