National Poetry Month

Whittling
by Annis Cassells


Winter nights GrandPap sat
Snug near the coal stove
In the home-place dining room
 
arthritic fingers wrapped around
a time-worn pocket knife
 
scored a scantling of well-grained wood
with knife point markings true
 
His opening cleave,
Unlocked black walnut breath
 
Silent shavings lined his lap
Surrounded his straight-backed chair
 
‘Til bedtime, when links entwined
Created a perfect chain

Annis Cassells is a longtime member of Writers of Kern, a teacher, a traveler, a poet. Her first collection of poetry, You Can’t Have It All, came out in 2019.

Gardener’s Creed
by January Joyce
 
Whenever you toil
And wherever you roam
May these words resonate in the heart of your home
For be it weathered or wounded or heartsick or sad
Some trails are better than others
Some days good
Others bad
But it’s the voyage of each step
The intrigue of the unknown
That allows each explorer to be true unto thy own
For a journey isn’t marked by where you’re from
Or miles towed
It’s the seeds strewn along the trail as you go
With each endeavor sprouts flowers, plants, rivers, and trees
Embellishing the way with whimsical ease
And someday, perhaps not too far ahead
Towards the end of the passage as you lay down your head
While life’s inevitable end draws bitterly close
      You can look back upon the journey
      Your weary feet chose
      And view the beautiful garden you, yourself laid
      For we are all merely gardeners in this magnificent parade
      Nurturing love
      Averting strife
      Sowing memories of this
      Great
      Big
      Wonderful
      Life

January Joyce is a retired civil servant with 28+ years in state and federal systems, who’s enjoying her rocking chair years with a wine glass in her hand, crafting stories.  

Susan Of Morden
by Dianne Buxton
 
I was a year old, I wasn't a witness,
But the family legend goes
That one day the bull got out of the barn
There was some consternation about this.
 
Susan, then four, picked up a stick
And chased him back into his stall.
When my mother told me this, many years later,
I didn't really think about it much.
 
Did I believe it then? I don't remember.
But I believe it now. The bull must have thought
She was a two-legged grasshopper
Or a wingless horse fly.  But she had the stick.
 
I never heard Uncle Bill contradict my mother on this.
 
The Poplar leaves rustled, deafening, in the prairie wind
Skittering, back-rubbing by the millions
Flashing silver green sequins erupted with crows
The matte blue sky waiting
For the four o'clock shower.

Dianne M. Buxton’s poetry can be seen in Caveat Lector, The Griffin, and Sanskrit. A graduate of the National Ballet School of Canada and an alumnus of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in NYC, she retired from the dance world and now writes.

Stripes
by Phyllis Wachob
 
Forest of bars and shafts
Trunks and branches
Hide and seek
Animals in between
Striped skunks of black and white
Leopard marked feral cats
Flying feathers flicker
In sun ray’s brilliance
Moon glow’s softness
The camouflage of nature
Lays long swords of light

Phyllis Wachob is a writer of mysteries. She has been a fan of mysteries since her childhood and an English teacher for over 30 years. While chronicling her travels in a series of mysteries set in exotic places and interesting times, she still teaches English in Bakersfield.

Flowing
by Natalia Corres
 
There are days when the words
flow through me
looking for a place to
flow out,
to fill the atmosphere
with sounds that make
pictures of sweeping fog and distant seas.
Floating feelings that search for
the arroyos of the heart, to careen and carve
a place in the rocky land of the soul.

Natalia Corres is a writer, artist and tech whisperer who reads voraciously and enjoys life with a husband, and their pets. You can read her poetry and general musings at “Wind in her mane” and on her website “Words to Live By“.