Apologies!

Hi Everyone,

I'm so sorry that I've been absent. I have to admit that this fall has been overwhelming in both joyous and stressful ways. I've taken on too much and teaching is wonderful but intense. I'm going to have to take a hiatus, but promise I'll be back at some point. Thanks for your support and wonderful feedback.

Wishing you happy holidays!
Shannon

Vasiliki's November (also September) Poem

Hi Everyone, I'm reposting my poem from Sept. which Claire already responded to. I hope Shannon and Dargie, (& Kasey?) might send a few notes my way. How are we feeling about the monthly format? Do we need to change something? I value this group and hope we can keep it going despite the other commitments we all have. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuscan
after centuries of raising
things out of rot,
wine and raisins

fraught promises, razed
soil and more work

what rage was wrought
of these sought promises?

to return to the soil
after centuries

what was sought and bought
left to rot

stunned wages--
amidst the wilds and thistles
of the Tuscan hills

epistles whose lines are written still

while the very ground unwinding 
by the windmill

and still and still

that with each drop, we shall return to the soil
amended

Claire's November Poem

Hi all! October got away from me...so here is a November poem. Hope everyone is doing well! <3

WILD ASTERS

In memory of Sylvie Semaan

Driving I-95 this morning, I spot them—

                  a frill at the edge of the woods, their stars

brightening the deep oak and maple shade—

and I can still see Sylvie that day, heading back to the City,

                  waving from the rented car stuffed

with her family and the galaxies of asters, blue and white, 

                  we gathered on the bluff above the harbor

(two weeks later, she had called to say

                  the wildflowers still lit their Manhattan rooms, 

and we’d spoken again of that rare, simple day:

the soft late-summer air, clear marine light!)

This morning I see her again  

(this time as an image preserved in brine)

as I never saw her in life, this time a vision: 

shaven head, alone on a frigid beach, salted edge

of her native Normandy, attuned

to something beyond the gun-metal ocean

frothing white at her feet.

Salt sprays the lenses of her glasses

                  dries there to a lace of stars, obscuring

this, her borrowed world, but not dimming

                  the magnitude of the next.