Category: Nature

Shifting

Michèle GriskeyLeave a comment

This is the time of year I love most (even if my allergies disagree).

A bald eagle in a tree near the North Valley Overlook on Turtleback Mountain

The birdsong and frog song, the succession of blooming plants, the longer days, and the shifts between sunshine and rain.

I’m finishing up a project that I’ll be sad to leave. I love the characters, the setting, the story. I’m sure I’ll be doing future revisions and edits, shifting and changing, but for now, I’m going to move onto the next big thing.

These moments of shifting can feel good. “Hey, I finished a book!”

Yet, I can also feel unsure.

The possibility awaits: wonderful and scary; exciting and daunting; a dash forward and a long pause. All those contrasts hit me, freeze me.

I’m back to the act of creating again. The pen to the notebook–

shifting.

Beautiful Winter

Michèle GriskeyLeave a comment

I’m not a big fan of winter. It isn’t a season where a lot of transition happens. Everything sleeps, and I am drowsy, despondent, stagnant.

This winter started out mellow. It wasn’t too cold, so I did my best to find beautiful things, especially as the year turned with a promise of early spring on the horizon.

January

Unfortunately, my nemesis–the winds from the Fraser Valley in Canada– hit the island in February. This cold system collided with storms. The mellow winter turned . . .

February

On Tuesday this week, I trudged outside. No one was out driving, so the normal quiet was even more silent.

Found the wonder of winter. The hush of snow. The transformed landscape . . .

Racoon (?) Prints on a Log

Outside, the slow thaw drips and slushes. The forecast doesn’t exactly call for spring again, but there are signs.

I stand near the wetlands

Just behind me

A red-winged blackbird clings to some dead plant

Calling over and over and over again

Not caring anything about winter.

Spring Poem

Michèle GriskeyLeave a comment

I don’t remember a time when the daffodils have bloomed this early, yet they are are blooming now on Orcas.

In honor of my favorite season, here’s a poem I wrote a couple of years ago.

 

Daffodils

 

Destiny

is when the muddy yard turns from the snap of winter

Green fingers push through, reaching with fat thumbs

of promised golden blossom.

 

How does the green know?

Like actors waiting in the wing for the cue

of sunlight cast on mud

the volume of birdsong crescendo

the fingers open

cups to hold

the first sleepy bees of the year.

 

REMINDERS about WEEKLY POEMS: If you decide to use my poem somewhere, please let me know, credit the author, and link it back to my website. Thank you!

Weekly Poem 12-22-15 The Black Forest

Michèle Griskey2 Comments

The Black Forest

 

Birds speak like children eager to be heard

Louder and louder until one dominates the conversation

Where water rushes, eager

to reach the end.

 

Here, where a woman is digging

her old body heaving shovels

of cow scent earth. She

pauses looking at her black land

her house, the upper level a barn

to keep her warm.

 

Nearby, a chapel sits, the

doll’s house model of the baroque

twin towers in the village.

A crucifix hangs on the door

White against the trees

Rangy pines, darken

into shadows.

 

And I think of the person

who planted these,

I imagine it was you

who crept between

the logging machines,

pushing seeds down with your thumb.

 

I try to remember when

these forests touched

in every walking place.

I close my eyes

And you are not here,

 

Yet I know,

I know the sky’s color

Would race down

and embrace us

like it has for us

in spaces before.

(from 1988)

This is a poem I wrote while in the Black Forest in Germany. The speaker is an immortal being returning to place of significance. It’s also a poem about missing someone I wanted with me on my travels.

REMINDERS about WEEKLY POEMS: If you decide to use my poem somewhere, please let me know, credit the author, and link it back to my website. Thank you!

Weekly Poem-11-18-15 Starling Murmation

Michèle GriskeyLeave a comment

I have many poems sitting around on my computer collecting dust. I decided to start sharing some of them. I am far from being a brilliant poet, but this seems like the right thing to do. 

 

Starling Murmation

 

Patterns of pepper separate and swirl together

A vortex of wings,

Waves across the sky scatter and connect,

Over the cottonwood trees

Branches like shredded ribbons from the wind.

Silver leaves tarnished under clouded sky.

 

The birds merge and separate,

Twisted into a helix of wing and body.

 

Shifting of light and shadow,

The patterns illuminate something active

Controlled choreography

Not random or indifferent,

 

Patterns seeking connection.

Each bird responsible for a piece of twisted sky,

Perfect swarms of light.

(From November 2011)

 

This poem came about after seeing a bird murmation near Crescent Beach on Orcas Island. 

REMINDERS about WEEKLY POEMS: If you decide to use my poem somewhere, please let me know, credit the author, and link it back to my website. Thank you!