Starting in 2018, Lynne Handy asked me to change her Facebook cover image once a month. She wanted to put a different poem, or portion of a poem, on the cover each month. I got the impression she spent a fair amount of time putting this together each year. On November 8, 2022 I received her poems for 2023 (She included one by our poet laureate of the Fox Valley, Frank Rutledge!). Unfortunately, she passed away on November 20, 2022.
I don't feel right logging on to her Facebook page and changing the covers anymore. It just seems wrong, but at the same time, I want to acknowledge her work, the effort she put into choosing which poems to display. Accordingly, I'm going to post the remaining poems here, all at once.
DECEMBER 2022
Just
the worst time of the year
For
a journey, and such a long journey:
The
ways deep and the weather sharp,
The
very dead of winter.”
T.S.
Eliot, “Journey of the Magi”
JANUARY 2023
That
winter I had nothing to do
but
tend the kettle in my shuttered room
on
the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery…
“January in Paris,” Aimless Love, Billy Collins
(1941- )
FEBRUARY 2023
And
the moral of my code
is
this:
beauty
is twice
beauty
and
what is good is doubly
good
when
it’s a matter of two
woolen
socks
in
winter.
“Ode
to My Socks,” Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
MARCH 2023
Touch
our bodies, wind.
Our
bodies are separate, individual things.
Touch
our bodies, wind,
But
blow quickly through the red, white, yellow skins
Of
our bodies
To
the terrible snarl,
Not
mine, not yours, not hers,
But
all one snarl of souls.
“Wind,” Selected Poems of Langston Hughes,
Langston Hughes (1901-1967)
APRIL 2023
I
remember this woman who sat for years
In a
wheelchair, looking straight ahead
Out the
window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing
at the far end of the lane.
“Field of Vision,” New Selected Poems 1988-2013,
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
MAY 2023
Now
has come the joyous month of May,
So
gay, with such sweet delights,
As
these orchards, hedges, and these woods,
All
decked with leaves and blossoms,
And
all things rejoice.
“The
Joyous Month of May,” The Writings of Christine de Pizan, Christine de
Pizan (1364-c 1430)
JUNE 2023
The sun should be a couple of million miles
Closer
today. It wouldn’t hurt anything
And
anyway, this cold rainy June is hard
On
me and the nesting birds…
“Solstice
Litany,” Dead Man’s Float, Jim Harrison (1937-2016)
JULY 2023
But when the thistle blooms and on the tree
The
loud cicada sits and pours his song
Shrill
and continuous, beneath his wings,
Exhausting
summertime has come…
“Works
and Days,” Hesiod and Theognis, Hesiod (ca 750 BCE – Unknown)
AUGUST 2023
I am a honey locust tree
with
summer green intentions,
to
be a Mourning Dove
swallowing
twilight…
“Two
Places at Once,” Clothed in August Skin, Frank Rutledge (1962-2019)
SEPTEMBER 2023
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close
bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring
with him how to load and bless
With
fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run…
“To Autumn,” The Odes of
John Keats, John Keats (1795-1821)
OCTOBER 2023
…Autumn and winter are in the dreams…the farmer goes
with
his thrift,
The
droves and crops increase...the barns are well-filled.
NOVEMBER 2023
When icicles hang by the wall,
And
Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And
Tom bears logs into the hall,
And
milk comes frozen home in pail…
The stars, the heavens, and the elements
contested,
using all their arts and care,
to
make that living light where Nature and
the
sun are mirrored, nothing matches it.
“Sonnet 154,” The Poetry of Petrarch, Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
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Cathy