Author: cfblack
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Gaelic dreams
From a cloudless sky lightning strikes a tree, splits it down the middle, strips its bark, leaves it naked on the bank. No fairy queen rises up above the water. No daughter nymph of a river god brought you a sword, bid you to be strong, save the world from impending doom. You stand alone…
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summer tanka
dragonfly nymph crawls up from mud, spreads wings and flies, lays eggs along shore, glitters for one bright summer and somehow that is enough 8-24-26
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haiku before the storm
wren sings southern songs sky growls about summer heat maybe it will rain 8-22-26
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remains of rain haiku
the remains of rainfall a second time from treesplays drum in drainpipes 8-22-26
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poem for an Emerald City
Cities have competing memories. They are not loyal. They never were. Power requires acquiescence. They have divisions. Seek the cracks between. 8-20-26
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Red pencil
A bowl of rice steams beneath the window, a mother ties back her hair, a child counts sparrows on a telephone wire. Nothing remarkable about the sky. Blue is blue. August is August. The river carries small boats past bridges, past houses, past people who have somewhere to go. The child is told to stay…
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Red mist of war
Polished speeches, corners sanded smooth by advisors. Brass bands on parade, children waving flags applause is just another form of marching. The ones who promise victory stand far from the red mist of war, but stand close to the mic or in front of a green board and draw arrows on maps like the weatherman…
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Of the road
GPS speaks a foreign language. Syllables fall like rain against the windshield. Worn out wipers smear the rhythm of words. Its unseen voice becomes your only companion and somehow convinces you your destination is just over the horizon. But the highway has no signposts, and your dog-eared map is out-of-date. Your tires try to remember…
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shadow country
poem written to the prompt ‘Shadow’ for a monthly workshop I host It does not matter where into the wild you flee your shadow finds you. It slips beneath cedar boughs, crosses rivers without getting its feet wet, waits behind abandoned barns while you take a pee. _____ Mother told you to be home before…
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Rhinocerous rain
Driving north out of Nashville, traffic thickens to a slow confession near Fort Campbell, brake lights bloom like votive candles stretching out into Kentucky. I think of Thomas Merton, cloistered among the knobs and forests of Gethsemani Monastery. Where silence became a discipline. Prayer was not an escape, but another way of entering the world.…
My husband's poetry 