Poetry Section

The Beekeeper’s Promise

By Eydie Wight

I have begun to sing of honeybees
as I lie back in peaceful hollows
sun dappled in celestial smiles.
Their song accompanies my music.
My music accompanies their song.

My eyes are changing toward the world.
Weeds of former lowly notice
once abruptly pulled and cast aside
now present a humble joyous bounty
to fill a plunderer’s baskets full.

Lemon balm, lavender, loosestrife, lobelia,
ragweed, sedum, aster, hyssop.
A cycle of flowers in infinite magnificence
as the seasons are gathered and flown home.
These are my calling, my passion, my poetry.

How many times in recent summer’s heat
have I reverently dipped my head just so
to catch a petal’s soft caress against my cheek,
to take the kiss that morning dew and nectar offer.
How sweet then, this heavenly promise of delight.

Ode to Fruit and Veggies

By Brother John

So the corn and the ‘maters have all done got ‘et,
Along with the squash and them peaches I’ll bet.
Spared from the rot that Kathy so feared,
It took seven days from the time they appeared!
Eat up there oh Johnny, Eat up and be brave,
For those dang fruits and veggies,
they’ve made you their slave!
But on this great day the job’s now complete,
Hey Mom and hey Dad… I need something to eat!

Author’s notes

Every summer my father grows a tremendous garden! What a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables! Now… I love to get these tasty garden gifts but sometimes, when the bounty is at its peak, it can become a stressful “race against time” in trying to eat everything up before it goes bad. To make matters worse… it’s only my wife (Kathy) and me to get the job done. So in good natured humor… I wrote this. Hope some of you will identify!

In the Deep, Dank Hollows

By Eydie Wight

In the deep, dank hollows
where the legs have finally stopped running
and the mind has accepted that no hope remains,
the head lies unblinking in the cold, damp dirt,
cheek turned from hideous reality
that is close now, ever closer now,
ears tuned in resignation
to the slither and thump of encroaching innuendos.

Loss, grief, rage, dishonor, pain.
They circle cyclone fashioned
about a house too long neglected.
Splintered foundation, abandoned decoration, askew leanings;
a non-surviving derelict of the drop to someplace colorful.

Battles lost, friends lost,
cruel decimations innocent of a ruling remorse.
Miasmic swarms of hollow eyed specters
wail in the firsthand knowledge of un-resurrected death,
super-human effort rejected as not enough to save the day.

And yet we feed on those we love,
biting and worrying at wounds of our creating,
as un-exorcised ghosts are allowed to decay.
Familiarity and comfort tossed aside to lie in crumpled heaps
atop of love, loyalty, and truth.

Faith remains, Dear God may it ever remain,
its loss the last unspeakable.
Within it now exists the arms out flung, head bowed certainty
that Faith does not prevent sorrow,
Faith does not prevent pain,
Faith does not exclude despair, deception, devastation.
Faith is rather to have known
the sun, the spring, a lover’s kiss, a happy day.

Fair Paladin

By Eydie Wight

Along the farm track that leads back toward the meadow
I’ve left scattered memories of times
when battered mislaced sneakers scuffed along
trailing moted clouds of fairy dust and dreams.

The cornfields rustle at my passage,
holding reveries of long ago obeisance.
They whisper of past valor, noble deeds, and brave adventure,
“Be she yet stalwart, faithful, true?”

A deep benched bank curves down along the woods line
to reveal a wandering creek crossed easily in stride.
I feel that in some long forgotten place of mind
it seethes with whirlpool, maelstrom, and abyss.

Greenbrier guard well the meadow’s entry,
flanked by blackberry, poison ivy vine, and nettle.
I dare their gashes, darts, and stings
and wield an ancient staff carved strange and long ago.

I see one lone hard pear atop the meadow’s knoll
and reel that it can be so shudderingly unprotected.
My vision clears and I behold the Tree of Convocation.
I take knee in homage, my defender’s vow renewed.

The meadow speaks now but softly of enchantment,
of hidden faces under wings that fan on goldenrod,
faint figures etched in play with Queen Anne’s lace,
small patterings held quiet under burdock leaf.

The magic fears this middle-aged intruder
who would enchant a castle down to failing farmhouse,
transform hollow caverns into groundhog holes and cow piles,
and challenge courage to become a simple autumn’s walk.

Years rush to push the magic back to memory.
A contestation glimpsed by stark white birch turned dryad.
It seems to fling long fingers out in accusation or entreaty
to find that fair paladin who has become grown up.

The Fairy Ball

By Eydie Wight

The Fairy Ball was held in a hall
walled by with elder, ash, rowan, and oak.
The decorations were smashing,
pumpkins grinning, skeletons gnashing,
a magic more than hocus pocus and smoke.

A stream tumbled down
to a pool underground
laving two sirens named Stella and Jess.
With long hair like seaweed,
their smiles made men weak-kneed
and their songs promised far more than a rest.

Fiona Colleen,
the wee fairy ball queen,
wore spider spun silk for a shawl.
She spoke of illusion,
reverie, and confusion
and welcomed the guests, one and all.

Credenza MacDag,
a greasy, foul hag
fancied herself a grand tease.
Under a skirt made of teeth
was but naught underneath
‘cept a withered old bum and some fleas.

Witch Ida Milkcurdle,
tugging an undersized girdle
found herself in somewhat of a bind.
Her cackling cronies
left to bet on the ponies
and poor Ida was home before nine.

Mistress Heather McPhee
rode a tame honeybee
on currents of warmth and delight.
She arrived with her hive
and kept gossip alive
as she flitted and buzzed through the night.

The food was prepared
in the name of the Laird
by the chief house brownie called Gluttney.
All filled their plates twice
with succulent eyeballs and rice
and fought for the last chigger chutney.

Jamie O’Day
was not one of the fey
but a changeling seized from the cradle.
For five score and ten
he’d not lived among men
as he slaved at the stewpot and ladle.

A stout dwarf named Headbleed
brought his best casks of mead,
fairies brought elderberry and dandelion wine.
Eromus, a huge giant,
corpulent and defiant
came toting a vast vat of moon shine.

A kobold and gnome
namely Mugwort and Crome
were itching and raring to fight.
Far gone in their drink
or too stupid to think
they pounded each other all night.

The fiddlers were three,
Fiir, Fergus, and Fnee,
who strove each to out bow the others.
The tunes that they played
danced the dead from the grave
as jigs and reels screeched from these brothers.

Will ‘o the Wisp
(who had never been kissed)
formed the first fairy ring for the dancing.
Delicate beauty and charm
soon clung to his arm
as nymph Nancy undertook his romancing.

A Dubliner elf,
sat alone by himself
and when handed a glass mumbled “tanks.”
“’Tis tree-tirty”, he said,
and I’m fashed in the head
tae be up late ‘midst ‘a of these pranks.”

The dancing went on
until just before dawn
when some guests, of course, had to fade.
Some, that weren’t able,
crept under the table
and ‘til the next year there they laid.