‘Canopy’ and other poems by Eve Dobbins
By: Eve Dobbins
Canopy
Seeks middle ground
Seeks listening to all concerned
Draping itself moss-like between the two
My-a-canopy
Is an anomaly
Which shouldn’t fit yet drapes gracefully
As it rolls against the grain but it does
It is not defined by a newspaper or a television show or a celebrity
But is my neighborhood of diverse people and diverse cultures, ideas, education level
Existing peacefully together
Despite what others may say
I know the truth
As long as we listen and let each other speak
We can pull together…if we chose not
To listen to one another before we speak
We have lost.
Canopy a myriad pattern
Which we can’t define as those moss pieces dangle differently
For everyone including me.
###
Feet on the edge of the feeder
Black crows flitter by the cracked fence
Establishing territory
Like the flawed perception of a memory
From long ago of a kingdom
She remembered far away
Where they flew: she and her brother
After they battened down the hatches
Closed all the barn doors
Checked for snakes running through the ground floor
And also those spiders dangling precariously close to their sanity
Before the weather changed from humid to frosty cold
Which invited more thoughts
And more analogy
Of the
Black crows which continued to congregate
Like a small church congregation
On
Sunday
Cackling away and staring with deep regard as if waiting
For the right circumstances to pounce
Upon the gold we put in hiding
Little did they know
It was right in front of their faces
Contained by the old books, the photographs, and the
Presence of her loved one
Beside her.
###
Passage of Water
Water flowing through
The Danube, the Seine, the red sea, the Mississippi River languishing
On the banks of the Gulf
Flowing fast forward
Through muddy banks picking up branches, snapping twigs, sailing into the
Atlantic
Smiling merrily moving without a platform or reason
Changing swiftly with the moments, the climates, the land, and the weather
Water, H20, soothing my worries away awaking me every morning
As I sail forth from the home
Water: 5 letters defining survival, momentum, passage way and quencher of my
Thirst different from the thirst or urge to discover new frontiers
But so important on every frontier.
Clear, opaque, scarce in some regions, bottled in others, staple of all times,
And like hope springing eternal
I hope it is always around
Surrounding me like the banks of the river containing water
With alligators, crocodiles, snakes, and swimmers from every time and of every time with
Water rushing to meet
Me wading in the stream and going with the flow.