Tag Archives: verse

Supersweet Corn – Acrostic Verse

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Iroquois corn and squash

Squash was planted by the Iroquois 

Under corn stalks with the climbing beans.

Protecting the soil from weeds, the leaves

Even shaded earth worms.  Illinois

Researchers much later found the genes

Sweeter than the rest to make the corn,

White or yellow, taste best from the store.

Even though corn from the garden has

Enough health inside to cure most ills,

There are some who still will go buy more.

 

Corn that’s grown to be so super sweet 

Offers all a treat to taste and eat:

Rush the husks from stalk to table–feast!

Never argue:  roast OR boil is best!

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL August 27, 2013

Are Rainbows Real?

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Rainbow over the IL prairie.

Rainbow over the IL prairie.

They can be seen by other eyes than mine–
but rainbows are mono-directional:

they disappear if you will face the sun.
If you move toward a rainbow you will fail

to ever reach it: always up ahead,
elusive, magical–the circle seen

only above the earth. Sometimes instead
of one, two bows appear, and in between

a darker band in contrast to the light
below the palette of diversity.

Beyond prediction, measurement or fact,
a rainbow’s truth will live inside the eye.

– Verse and photography by Steve Shoemaker on the
plain behind his prairie home in Urbana, IL.

Verse – Morning Chorus

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Steve's prairie haven - home of the Urbana "Morning Chorus"

Steve’s prairie haven – home of the Urbana “Morning Chorus”

We live near a tree farm
that birds love.
Transplanted small trees
around our home
are now large,
and at first light, noisy.

Springtime is the loudest.
Breeding has begun.
The travelers have returned:
finches, swallows, robins,
hummers, whippoorwills.

Our dead end rural road
has little traffic even later
in the day–none at 5 am in May.
No sound but bird song:
Coos, chirps, whistles,
call and response.

The choir has no conductor
that we see.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 9, 2013

Verse – Dreams of Failure

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Why now, in my retirement, age 70,
have I a vivid dream of being at mid-semester
in a college American History class
and not even knowing when the class meets?
I dream I like the teacher, even the subject,
but I had been sick some, otherwise occupied often,
and absent always… I know I cannot catch up.
Where has the class been meeting?
Who will loan me their notes, and why should they?
Do I even own the textbook or have the syllabus?
The mid-term exam is over; the term paper
for the semester is due soon; the extra credit
readings form a mountain of unread pages;
I don’t know where the library is…

(Am I afraid of a Last Judgment
by God? Have I been truant from life?
Have I spent whole days with trivia, with trash,
with momentary pleasures?)

Then I dream of dying in a head-on car crash.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 2, 2013 having a bad night at 70 😦

Space to Breathe and Grow

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Verse – “Pruning”

Even under insulating cones,
roses in the Midwest winter die
back and turn brown from the tips of canes
almost to the ground. It’s time for my
pruning shears to clip away the dead
wood and give the living plant some air–
space to breathe and grow. The thorns are red,
black or brown, but still sharp so I wear
gloves of thick cowhide to carry all
cuttings to the backyard burn pile. Fire
turns them all to ashes which I pile
at the foot of every rose bush. There
fertilizer, water, and bonemeal
grow the blooms that make it all worthwhile.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 15, 2013

Brubeck, Hirt, and Respighi

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Verse — We Never Played Rock ‘n’ Roll

I’d take a couple of LPs (they’d spin
at 33 and a third RPM)
and bike down the concrete sidewalk–not in
the street that’s made of brick. I’d dodge the limb
of the old elm in front of Katie’s house
and fly around the corner at the T
to where Paul lived. Two other high school guys
left bikes by the garage. We’d holler, “Hi!”
to Mrs. Duker and head downstairs to where
Paul’s dad had a great stereo. We’d play
some Brubeck or Al Hirt–we loved to hear
the “modern”jazz of the ’50s. We’d stay
and listen to Respighi’s Pines of Rome.
Band guys: we never wanted to go home…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 8, 2013

Mitt Romney

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Moral Mormon, yes, at Church and home.

Is there, though, a hint that he objects

To the rules that women have the same

Trouble with the Priesthood that kept blacks

….

Restricted out of the Church for years?

Or that Morman kindness to the poor

Might be a good model for the U. S.

Nation?  Can we even up the score?

Everybody knows he’s handsome, smart,

Yes, and  rich–but does he have a heart?

– An acrostic verse received this morning from Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL.

Who is the poorest person you will meet today?

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Written in honor of Dale Robb*.

Who is the poorest person you will meet today?

The senior or teenager who will hand you food

at the drive-through window?  Or tonight when you stay

in a motel, could you leave cash to make the maid

feel good for days?  A tip, gratuity, can let

a worker keep their dignity and pay a bill

as well.  (A teller in a bank, however, can’t

accept a tip–give them fruit, a sweet, they can sell

or eat.)  All folks who earn minimum wage are poor:

be generous, be kind, and share if you have more.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL June 18, 2012

*I asked Steve about Dale. Here’s what he wrote:

“Dale Robb is a retired Presbyterian Pastor. For 25 years he served the First Presbyterian Church of Jacksonville, Illinois. Was a Campus Pastor at Miami of Ohio, & Presbyterian missionary in Asia.  McCormick Theological Seminay Alum of the year in the 1980s, University of Illinois grad (1943),attended McKinley Presbyterian Church, student officer in McKinley Foundation.  Retired to Urbana, he & wife, Arlene, attend First Presbyterian Church of Champaign…..  Member of the Reformed Round Table.

“The first question in the verse comes from Dale.”

A Verse for Children

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A series of exchanges on Via Lucis about the history of human cruelty led me to publish this children’s prayer for sanity. There are supposed to be line breaks, but they keep disappearing.

Dear God,

Please teach me how to pray.

We have more questions every day.

Our minds and fingers seem to find

and make a mess (we leave behind)

for other’s hands to fix and clean.

(Sometimes we’re even mean.)

Often we feel that we’re so small

that we don’t matter much at all.

And yet we know you made us right

and even called us “good” in spite

of all we do. So help us know,

dear God, how we should grow.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 27, 2012

Steve’s program “Keepin’ the Faith” can be heard anytime @ www.will.illinois.edu/keepinthefaith, including archive programs.

Swallows

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tree sallows

My brother tried to plant 2,000 trees

each spring.  Eventually there were 13

cut-your-own Christmas tree varieties.

…

While helping mow the grass, swallows were seen

around my noisy tractor darting, diving,

staying close wherever I would go.

…

I claimed the swallows felt the same strong love

I felt for trees, the sky, the clouds (although

in secret I thought they felt love for me.)

…

The tree farm had so many birds that experts

came out from the university.

I asked if the swallows had become pets?

…

The ornithologists said that the birds

were chasing bugs thrown by the mower’s blades…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL May 22, 2012