Tree Poem

Cutting the lawn and surveying the front gardens this afternoon, I caem upon an old friend in a new light and was struck with inspiration for a topic for today's free-form poem.

Shaggy center of a small overgrown neighborhood--
When I first came to visit,
you welcomed me
as a well-groomed gentle-plant--
a picture of ordered strength
all neatly groomed branches
above carefully turned mulch.

But now, you,
perhaps like I,
have grown sloppy and large,
the slovenly middle-aged center
around which
cousin ferns and neophew hostas
lay their seed,
a means of carrying on
in the shadow of
your own poor manners.

Wildly overgrown and undisciplined--
softened shape and bedraggled limbs,
together you and I
will once again
find form.

Stay Poetic!

Poem du Jour: Poetry Happens

From my photo archive comes this picture taken of one urban high school located near my home. I find myself passing it frequently and one afternoon noticed these words, which seemingly appeared from nowhere... at least in my somewhat limited range of observation.

There must have been a time when someone (students? staff? homeless?) placed varied word sequences on the black metal fences surrounding the playing fields. As words and pieces fell off or were (presumably) taken, the resulting effect was the magnetic-cum-fence free form poetry pictured above.

It was such an interesting visual I returned later to snap a few photographs, one of which appears above. It was hard to quickly determine if all of the words, of which there was a lot of fencing covered, were all part of a longer train of thought poem, or if each segment was a different individual student's contribution. As it stands for this image:

"dawn awakes without shadow remember sacred."