Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 27

Poem 242 – Haiku for Love

Haiku for love

Purple paint on nails
My man calls them E.T. toes
Our love leaves footprints

Poem 240 & 241 – Well, It Happened & Early Morning on the 401

Well, It Happened…

After a pretty sound sleep & rising before the sun,
it hits me like a dropped book on the hardwood floor –
I forgot to write a poem yesterday!
And I blame Harry, Hagrid, Hermione & Hogwarts.
I blame the big comfy chair, buttery popcorn, sleepy time tea
& polka dot jammies.
After 239 poems written
240 slipped into the ease of a pool-floating full day
tucked into a philosopher’s stone story.

Early Morning on the 401

windmills like alien beacons
twirl giant arms
move air
make energy
mark the horizon
socially distanced sentinels
holding steady vigil as morning fog
blankets lift & hover above
cornstalk soy & tree fences
edges like frayed fingertips
the land is fertile
laboured & loved
the sun watches groggy & grateful
her yawn large
her shoulders rubbing the soft blue
sofa sky
this flat tapestry is woven
by gods who understood
that beauty bleeds in green

It happened. I forgot to write and post a poem yesterday! Can you believe it? After 239 days…I remembered in the morning, but I didn’t write. I remembered in the afternoon, but I didn’t write. I remembered after dinner, but I didn’t write. Then after dishes and discussion about what movie we’d watch, we settled in for a big screen showing of Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone. We just got this huge new chair for our living room. It’s big enough for two people, and Miller and I snuggled right up in it…after all the remembering, in the end I forgot to write a poem, and went to bed with not a worry on my mind…So there you have it. That’s how it happened. It won’t happen again. I promise!

Poem 239 – The Morning of the Last Day of Vacation

The Morning of the Last Day of Vacation

the cicada bounces on the deck in an
eruption of fierce ticking & electric expression
the crow will not stop circling & cawing
the air is slathered with the scent of manure
farmland is near, ripe

the knot of worry in my belly has eyes
it’s looking up at me waiting for its cue
to tighten – I won’t give it

won’t let sadness claw & fray the edges
of peace that have tenderly unfurled
like newborn fingers reaching for light

each day’s current is loss-driven
undertoes of grief swirl at my ankles
like soft kisses
it doesn’t have to be hard or painful
or scary, this languid letting go

I’d like to learn how to lift up
glide above it
bounce like the cicada
circle & caw like the crow
farm the worry into tight rows
that look like art when
zoom past them

Poem 238 – The Great Canadian Challenge

The Great Canadian Challenge

before anything else – jump in the water
before coffee & donuts
before lists & laundry
before texts & emails
jump in the water

the pool
the pond
the river
the lake
the ocean

get your body in the water
let it work its magic
zap your skin awake
squeeze your heart to gentle shock
begin the day in nature’s aquatic embrace
& ripple your goodness into the world

Do you know this tradition? It began for me when I was a wee lass, aged 10-12, visiting a cottage in Muskoka. I had to jump into the lake before I could do anything else – including eat breakfast! At the time, it was infuriating…but also completely invigorating. Thank you to Charis for reminding me of this fine tradition this summer…and to Miller for being my Great Canadian Challenge partner on this fine summer vacation. Have you taken the challenge yet this summer?

Poem 237 – Haibun for Lake Huron & Reading

Haibun for Lake Huron

my feet firmly rooted in the sand
Lake Huron sways me like I’m her firstborn
her cool water tinged with soft seaweed green
holds me delicately – I am pages in her book
of letting go as she helps me lift the worry ink
from the deeps of my skin

in her body – great Lake Huron
the universal ebb & flow thrills a current
in my veins – inside I am fire purpleblueyelloworange
the colours of my gently communion with Time

can I teach myself to feel this free without her
sand under my soles?
can my bones recall her sweet swagger
of willing waves in the heavy hours of
a lonely work day?

the lightness I experience is alien
I exhale stardust & hear the child’s
thumping heart beat in the belly of the woman
who glides in the water beside me

the making child – wombed
the new child born screaming stars
the adult child learns

Reading is rad.

The Book of Speculation

I finished reading Erika Swyler’s ‘The Book of Speculation’ yesterday afternoon at the beach. OOOOO, it was soooo incredible! Mermaids, circuses, old books, librarians, crabs, love, lies and wicked weather! This is a book that thrills the imagination and zaps your love of books to a new level. Also, it’s very great to read next a body of water so you can jump in and try to hold our breath for ten minutes. Yeah, I wrote ten minutes…

The Dollhouse – A Ghost Story

I’ve started reading Charis Cotter’s ‘The Dollhouse – A Ghost Story’, her most recent middle-grade kids’ novel that isn’t officially out yet (I got an ARC so I can write a review!) but is already gaining accolades as it has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection in the U.S. This means 3000 librarians will have the book available for their readers. You can read it too! Coming August 31. Preorder wherever you buy books.

This just in…! Deadline for poetry anthology extended!

In case you’re in that boat where deadlines go splashing too, this extension may be just what you need!

Submission guidelines here!

Poem 236 – Picture of a Sandbox Poem

…because we spent nearly all day at the beach…and I just now remembered to post a poem…how’s that for vacation working the mind to gentle relaxation…today’s poem is a picture of a poem I typed for the cottage we’re visiting…because the lake huron water is brining out my mermaid and mermaid’s need to swim and eat and rest and sing…mermaid poetry is air bubbles and tangled hair…

Poem 235 – P.S. What is Tom Cruise Doing Right Now?

P.S. What is Tom Cruise Doing Right Now?

It’s a postscript I’ve been writing for decades
beneath my ‘love always’ & signature, the
wondering ribbon bow of last thought in
my journal entries – What is Tom Cruise
doing right now? It’s a nod to childhood
fantasy, a pan-flash of curiosity about a
different life path, a nostalgic air kiss to
the simplicity of a Hollywood crush but

the weighty truth is that a slice of me
really wants to know…is he sleeping,
hanging off the cliffs in dreamland?
Is he Bugatti braced, speeding down
a twisting highway carved into mountains?
Is he sipping matcha tea & staring out the
window of a humble cottage in some
tiny town…

Is he alone?
Is he happy?
Is he enough for himself
or does he have a postscript too…
a thick rope of braided what ifs
tethered to his lungs?

Poem 234 – Bred Bounty

Bred bounty

when the bounty comes from the earth
you plant it in, you can taste the difference

the slick of salt slipped off your brow
elevates the lettuce leaf

the oil on your palm rubbed on the unripe tomato hip
pushes it to blush red

the green pepper cucumber
strawberry & onion

can feel your tender gaze & reaches for your smile
the exchange of love seeps into the soil like sun & rain

the togetherness of growth is miraculous
lifting tendrils of taste buds only bred bounty can

Community Poetry!

Deadline: Tuesday, August 24th, 2021 – have you submitted yet?

Submission guidelines here!

Poem 233 – *Very Long Title

What a poem becomes when you wait all day to write it & your skills at the written word have already fallen asleep

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Poem 232 – Moving

Moving

“It is dawn and your poems
have moved me to poems.”
pg 261, from ‘Variations’, The Collected Poems of Patrick Lane

the worry in my guts detangles
as I ask you to trust me

to trust yourself
to embrace the painful
process of conversations
about change

we’re in this together
like night & day

like reading poems
& writing poems like

the profound occurrence
of emotions moving