For National Poetry Month, here’s a new poem and new reviews of poetry books I’m reading! I hope you’ll be inspired to read and share poems, and maybe write some of your own.
Click on the SoundCloud link to listen to the reading of my poem below.
Awake and Dreaming
There’s a sleepiness in the sun’s rays, a soft warmth in this hour.
Day settling in, wrapping me in a cloak of light. A hush is broken
by chitters, high and low-voiced calls from hidden singers in tall trees.
I think of the cat, her black outline stretched across the couch in sleep,
consider the habits and dreams of nocturnal creatures. How my brain
kept buzzing, thoughts twisting and turning overnight, blankets tangled,
sheets bunched. How like a prowling creature I became, awake
and wandering like the cat mewing at 3:30am. How in the brightness
of day these nocturnal moments seem an alternate universe, not the same one
that spins with a tapestry of white cloud stitched on blue sky. Not the same one
where birdsong lingers, wind-chimes ringing soft, echoing in the breeze.
My toes warmed by still and strong rays of light, seeping in, reminding me
how it feels: to be here, to be awake, to be mindful of how much I need
the sun, the green, the air and its wind — the day and its aliveness.
How nearer to comfort we can be in spaces among flutters of wings,
choruses of wind, distant hum of humanity. The only things present,
to sleep and yet, here I sit, eyes wide open to a fast moving sky, trees
beaming with green and gold, blossoms bursting, birdsong rising, the day
loud, declaiming Spring’s arrival, my skin pink with the rosiness
of an hour spent on the patio, not asleep but awake
and dreaming, dreaming.
Copyright @Stacie Eirich April 23, 2024
I’ll have another new poetry book review, of You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World up at the end of the month. Edited and Introduced by our current U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, I’m already enjoying it! Look for the review on my YouTube channel.
Check out National Poetry Month resources here: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month
Read the April 2024 issue of Poetry Magazine here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/162238/april-2024#toc
Thank you for stopping by my blog today, and for reading & listening.
Happy National Poetry Month,
💖🌸✍️📚🌷🦋🌳Stacie