HOW A POEM COMES

Photo by S. Auberle

ARRIVAL

in the coffeeshop

in the middle

of a conversation

a poem quickens

comes alive

comes tapping

at the blue door

of creation

open me

hear me

touch me

it whispers

one

shy

word

at

a

time

I've been waiting

so long for you...

BLUE MOON

Photo by S. Auberle

snow moon

lighting

earth and sea

ice locked

summer

sleeps...



WINTER GARDEN

Photo by S. Auberle

8 degrees below zero this morning...then came this haiku...

winter garden blooming

on north window pane

summer memories

AND ONE SPOT OF YELLOW

Photo by S. Auberle

I have a cup of green tea in the green swan mug and a green candle burns before me.  The green cedars are scrabbling against the windows as the wind whips them furiously this morning.  Mozart plays softly in the background and I write at the old, cat-scratched, cherry table from the 1950's that I bought on Jefferson Street seven years ago.  And here is the yellow rose that you brought me...

PEACE

Photo by S. Auberle
Moonrise over North Bay...
just because some images need no words...

HOW TO BE PHOTOGENIC

Photographer's name at bottom of photo

An old poem, but a true one...

HOW TO BE PHOTOGENIC

Be two years old again
every plump, rounded cell
perfect
in your pink, plump
perfect body.

Sixteen is good--
floating through
a dewy meadow at dawn
flowers tucked
in your long, streaming hair.

Or simply be so old
you don't give a damn
every scarred, knobby surface
of you aching
to tell its story.

FLOWERS FOR THOUGHT

Photo by S. Auberle

This year I'm NOT making resolutions to be broken, instead just savoring some ideas, thoughts, quotes that might be meaningful and/or helpful to me...maybe to you as well:

"Resist doing things that have no meaning for life."

~  Pablo Casals

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

~  Zora Neale Hurston

"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:  they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."

~  Margaret Young

CHRISTMAS EVE

Print by S. Auberle

I first posted Fra Giovanni's "Letter to a Friend" on Christmas Eve, 2008.  But, though it was written long ago, in a far different world than this, I think it's important and beautiful to post again tonight.  I hope you think so too..

I salute you.  I am your friend and my love for you goes deep.  There is nothing I can give you which you have not got.  But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.  No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today.  Take heaven!  No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance.  Take peace!  The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.  Take joy!  Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty...that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it, that is all!   And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

~  Fra Giovanni, Christmas Eve, 1513

JITTERS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Photo from an old Johnson Bros. Plate engraving


sometimes I think I would have liked living back in Victorian times...like this photo, but then again, probably not...anyway, here's a brand new poem (written this a.m.) about living in these crazy days...

JITTERS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

So I'm sitting in Jitters
having a half caff/half real
and a chocolate hazelnut biscotti
while waitin for the serpentine
belt to be replaced on my Saturn.
The car wizard said the belt
has 111,000 miles on it
and could go at any time,
sort of like all of us, I guess.
On the other hand, I'm sure
there are serpentine belts
slithering along at 211,000.
Who ever knows?

Outside the temp is hovering at 22 degrees.
Inside Nat is singing about roasting chestnuts,
the Cookie Lady is baking away
and a guy in a Packer's jersey
is talking about relationships.
Is that the same as love, I wonder?

Coffeeshop ponderings--as meaningless
(or maybe not)
as pondering the life of a car or a belt.
I consider sharing this profundity--
asking the barista, the Cookie Lady,
the man in the Packer shirt--
tell me, are you happy?  and if not, can I help?
Or maybe I'll just walk back up the hill
to pick up my 111,000 mile Saturn
wearing the bright, new, classy, serpentine belt.

NEARING SOLSTICE

Photo by S. Auberle

NEARING SOLSTICE

This morning there were twenty waxwings
in the rowan tree outside my writing room.
The tree's berries are bright
red     cheerful.
Yesterday they danced in snowy gowns
while the wind swirled off the lake.
Today each berry hangs quietly, waiting
to be consumed by hungry birds.

Darkness by four o'clock now
and the ever-shortening days whirl past.
We cook comfort dishes--beef stew,
garlic potatoes, bake chewy, dark bread.
There will be wine--red, like berries
and we'll be busy as the birds
storing up food and warmth
while the earth turns toward darkness, but still
finding time to be of good cheer,
savor the meat, the salt and the bread,
dance another of our days away.

Something there is
that says you must know:
we were here...
and oh, how we loved.

yes, back on line again...at last!  Still not sure how this new computer works, but at least I can post this...an old poem from "Crow Ink."  Wishing you all a warm and blessed Solstice...

HOME AGAIN

Photo by S. Auberle

Home again, at last, after an adventure that I wouldn't care to repeat.  Heading to Phoenix for a family Thanksgiving, my partner became seriously ill out in the New Mexico desert (at the Very Large Array) where this photo was taken.  We managed to get to Show Low, Arizona, to the Summitt Healthcare Regional Medical Center, where they (literally) saved his life.  After emergency surgery and a week in the hospital, we were able to return, getting out of the West just ahead of a massive storm.  Thanks to all the wonderful people at the hospital and old friends and new friends we met during the experience.  I've no doubt your candles, prayers, sorcery, magic, incantations brought us through!  As an added bonus, I returned home to find my computer had crashed, so will not be on this blog for awhile, but that is minor in the whole scheme of things...
peace and blessings to all..

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Shiprock, New Mexico   ~Photo by S. Auberle

Off to the Land of Enchantment and points West, for a while.  Will leave you with a poem from "Crow Ink"...

NEARING SOLSTICE

This morning there were twenty waxwings
in the rowan tree outside my writing room.
The tree's berries are bright
red     cheerful.
Yesterday they danced in snowy gowns
while the wind swirled off the lake.
Today each berry hangs quietly, waiting
to be consumed by voracious birds.

Darkness by four o'clock now
and the ever-shortening days whirl past.
We cook comfort dishes--beef stew,
garlic potatoes     bake chewy, dark bread.
There is wine--red, like berries
and we are busy as the birds,
storing up food and warmth
while the earth turns toward darkness.
Yet time enough to be of good cheer,
savor the meat, the salt and the bread,
dance another of our days away.

Something there is
that says you must know,
we were here...
and oh, how we loved.

ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN

Photo by S. Auberle

ELEVEN ELEVEN ELEVEN

A man tells me how on that day
eleven eleven eleven
at precisely eleven a.m.
he went outside and rang a bell
eleven times for remembrance.

That night in Caroline's Jazz Bar
at precisely eleven eleven
the band stopped playing
for a moment of silence
and then broke into Auld Lang Syne.

Today a friend e-mailed me
what a lovely sunrise that just happened!
and I wrote this small poem.
This, I think, is how peace will come--
one humble step at a time.

NOVEMBER, SNOW & ROSES

Photo by S. Auberle


I come bearing tea, bread, and poetry
to talk about sadness
this rain-slashed afternoon
with you, my shiny friend
the one who makes me smile
but today you are sad
it's the leaves, you say,
they let go so gently
this late in the year, as if
finally, they have accepted...

from a work in progress...

FLYAWAY

Photo by S. Auberle

If my mother returned this autumn day
I would wrap her in my arms
rest my cheek on her soft white hair
share my food with her...
this creamy slice of Fontina
a golden pear, a little red wine
and we would laugh and eat and drink
until it was time for her to return
to where she belongs now.
She would fly away, gently
as the silk of this milkweed pod
and a crow, awaiting
the crumbs of our feast
would bid her a fond farewell...

another poem from my forthcoming book,
"Something After Burning"

THAT LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Northport Ferry Road--altered Photo/Painting by S. Auberle


ROADS


"...I've seen that road before.  It always leads me here." 
                                     -  The Beatles


In Oklahoma I traveled once
down a road with shadows of owls
and egrets settling softly in trees,
their white feathers
rose-tinted in evening light.

There were roads in Alaska,
Ireland, Scotland, Italy,
roads all over the world
that would break your heart
with their beauty

but the road in Ohio
where crows sing to you
and trees bend down to touch you--
that's the road that's never left me
though I left on it long ago.

That's the road that leads me
to the country of my bones.

~  Sharon Auberle
(from my forthcoming book, "Something After Burning"
to be released late November)

ONCE IN AUTUMN

Photo by S. Auberle

for Sallie

I think of you, always, in autumn
that day in the park
when we knelt in the grass
beneath a gingko tree
gathering its delicate fans around us
then tossing them high, laughing
in the golden shower raining down...
we, of many years
we, who thought there'd be many more...
I forget--already you've been gone almost seven

I must love this world twice as much for you...

HER WEB

Photo by S. Auberle


"For many years, at great cost, I traveled through many countries, saw the high mountains, the oceans.  The only things I did not see were the sparkling dewdrops in the grass just outside my door."
                                      ~  Rabindranath Tagore


This exquisite work of art hung this morning, just outside my front door...it's gone now...

AUTUMN HARVEST

Photo by S. Auberle

An autumn photo and poem seems appropriate for this rainy day...

SEPTEMBER

so soon come
the shortening days...
fox fur
thickening
apples
beginning
to hang heavy
one maple
already turning
red harbinger
of the long white
to come...

~  S. Auberle
previously published as "August Evening"
in "Crow Ink" 2009 Little Eagle Press

BEAUTY

Photo/Painting by S. Auberle

"Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where Nature heals and gives strength to body and soul alike."

~  John Muir

A NIGHT FOR BASHO

Photo by S. Auberle

O brightest moon of autumn, all night long
I've strolled around the pond, in search of song.

~  Basho

IN MEMORIAM

Photo from a painting in the Milwaukee Museum of Art

LOST IN THE PAST

Artwork by S. Auberle

This rainy morning, while looking for something among my volumes and volumes of art and writing from past years (all the way back to when I was seven!) I am finding wonderful things.  Which means, all you artists and writers out there--don't throw away your old stuff.  Believe me, there are gems buried there.  So here is an art piece and a small haiku, written I have NO idea when.  but I like it...


eating a cherry
brought to my tongue that summer
we first tasted love


~ mimi

IN AUGUST

Photo by S. Auberle

IN AUGUST

Bless this sun, this summer day,
bless the lake, the trees,
the thrush singing in the oak.

Bless that black-as-the-devil raven
muttering old prayers.
Bless you and me.

Immerse us in August heat
till we burn with joy,
till we remember

what has been forgotten:
how high Icarus flew
before he fell.

~  Mimi

NORTH WIND

Photo by S. Auberle

NORTH WIND

clouds
like
ponies
tonight
galloping
southward
racing
summer
over the
moon

EVE AT ROWLEY'S BAY

 Photo by S. Auberle

EVE AT ROWLEY'S BAY

Weather coming in
across the bay, a mist
tinting the horizon,
as though an artist
were playing
with a new shade of blue.

An empty rowboat
rocks in the waves
waiting for a course
to steer by and I

lie on sun-warmed rocks
waiting for the fox snake
to appear, tempt me
in his serpent whispers
with new possibilities.

~ from Crow Ink, by Sharon Auberle
Little Eagle Press 2009

ON THE BEACH

Photo by S. Auberle

five Monarchs
one Mourning Cloak

elegant terns
on the wing

three white
German Shepherds

Maya, Beau
and Cirrus--like

the clouds
owner says

one fish skeleton
alewives

lovers
smokers

Frisbee tossers
green smelly stuff

corpse of cormorant
and gull

fly-covered bodies
buzzing

in the heat
invasive zebra

mussel shells
under bare feet

ouch

WHAT IS HAPPINESS

Photo by S. Auberle

drinking jasmine
flower tea
this summer morning
with you...
how can i keep
from breaking
into blossom?

BEING A POET

On the State Park Poetry Trail

BEING A POET

I place words
on a page,
dance with them,
pray with them,
coax them
to cross the border
between your heart
and mine...

EVENSONG

Photo by S. Auberle

EVENSONG

...when the night surrounded me I was reborn.

I was the owner of my own darkness.

~  Pablo Neruda

when the white pine

lifts its arms, beseeching

a first star to appear

when one gull calls

from the indigo sky

as you read Neruda to me

when poppies are nodding

heavy heads and crickets serenade

suddenly a moth careens

toward the light of us

buzzing    beating

darkness riding its dusty wings...

it could be an angel

in clumsy disguise or

just an awkward soul

like us

stumbling along

toward enlightenment