Poetry Emerging from Unrelated Cues

Pieces of poetry don't always arrive in conjunction with the seasons. They just show up, triggered most often by something unrelated to the eventual poem. I've written Christmas poetry in July and pieces about spring flowers in December. Perhapes I see something that would make a perfect gift - but pass on it, because I have difficulty keeping secrets for so long. Or watching the world outside be transformed by the first snows might generate poetry about what rests in my garden until the time is right for new things to push through half-frozen snow. 

Poetry is like that. Just as many of the insights we have that show up, when we are looking somewhere else.

This particular piece came in the August heat, from noticing small black scale insects on the hoya that hangs by a back window.

Contemplation in Sun-Warmth

early spring and turtles line
the old dead tree, slanted\
over a small pond, its branches
shorn of life long ago

its grey trunk polished
over long winters, imprinted
in turtle-memories
along with the sun's warmth

from a distance. the turtles
look like black scale insects
adhered to sturdy stems,
no space left vacant

one quick motion -
startled turtles disappear,
dark water settles
into the silence that conceals

they slide into familiar muck
to wait for safety, in this place 
of return that perserves
through the frozen time

then the lure of sun-warmth
coaxs small heads to peer
just above the water,
then they scramble onto the old tree

        to resume contemplation 

                         Elizabeth