patient endurance
open range…falling rain and ice
backs to the storm
[micropoem.] Copyright © 2022-03-02, by E.W. Bennefeld.
Waiting for Winter’s End
Category: Poetry
Pondering
winter rests in snow
with the spring comes violence —
seek renewal…grace
nature shapes its own endings
people choose their own paths
[tanka.] Copyright © 2022-03-03, by E.W. Bennefeld.
Ah!
without tea
there is no morning…
back to sleep
[senryu.] Copyright © 2022-03-02, by E.W. Bennefeld.
Image by Kawita Chitprathak from Pixabay
From the archives #weekendcoffeeshare
Pull up a chair and help yourself to a hot drink! The temperature outside is 6°F/-14°C with a chance of snow flurries. (I won’t mention the wind chill temperature.) I have closed all the curtains, and it’s tolerable warm inside the house. During this past week, anticipating the activities of February, National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), I have been wandering through poems from previous years. Looking at where my mind was in earlier times.
While I do gravitate toward the shorter (mostly Japanese) poetic forms, there are poems I have written that “return to haunt me” (?). Moments versus lifetimes. Eleven syllables or however many stanzas sketch out recognizable (or unfamiliar) pictures of shadowed realities. A brief overview (I did not include, for example, song lyrics) of some of the longer (but not long-long) poems within my immediate reach are below. While I have been writing poetry since elementary school, I have saved only one poem that I wrote before I started college in 1964. And not many from my college years, either.
You will find our host’s Weekend Coffee Share blog and InLinkz app at January 2022 Reflections. Retrospection is a useful tool, I think.
Best wishes to you! I hope that the week to come will be enjoyable and quite satisfactory.
Hugs & much love,
Lizl
"Nighttime Reassurances"
I will not be remembered
no one will know my face
or hear echoes of my voice
my words will not live on
and so, with every gesture
written words of mine, read,
inspired…thoughtful…
full of fun or joy or love
my legacy will be reflected
in the here and now
gently leading, pushing
guiding those who will
in turn go on to shape
tomorrows that I will not see
nor they, who will themselves
become the ripples in the stream
Copyright © 2018-08-29, by Lizl Bennefeld.
"Tempted to Silence"
as the years move on
as I move with them
or we go separate ways
I have less to say
there is less to hear
around me that inspires…
I don’t know what I miss—
words of kindness, uplifting
without self-serving thoughts
a different world, perhaps,
outside the door…with hope
for more than me and mine and yours
If I were alone, again
if there were no one to care
if I were there or here
I would take a lease
on a cabin in the woods
for enough years to die
listening to rain and bird calls
wind and ice and hearth fire
pencil scratching paper
the opening of a door
Copyright © 2018-04-18, by Liz Bennefeld.
RESILIENCE
remembering at the far
end of eternity
shadowed by
images of what came before
looking for lost pathways
in a web of visions
enmeshed in beauty
naming those who
came here, then vanished again
ethereal … dissolving … gonefading colors
butterfly dust on dew
stuff of dreams
Copyright © 2021-07-03, by Liz Bennefeld.
"Mother’s Cookbook”
Look through tabs of Mother’s cookbook
for french toast with cinnamon
which we were used to devour
when children on a rainy Sunday
after church
Only recipes, now, and memories
of sticky hugs
laughter
warmth
Search among the tabs
just one more time
for Mother’s recipe
for love
– Elizabeth Bennefeld, Sept. 2005.
Reprinted in the December/January (2011?) print edition of ARTSpulse, The Arts Partnership, Fargo, North Dakota.
“Going Home”* In the next yard, swings for children born, grown and gone while we were away. Where the ponies grazed– came to the fence for nose rubs– houses row on row. There, Squirrel parents told stories of an old man who hand-fed pancakes to them all. We sit, the old man’s children, waiting on the porch as squirrels climb down from their trees to greet long-lost friends. Copyright © 2000 (rev. 2015), by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld. All Rights Reserved.
Never alone
Oddly, the poem below is part of my response to a poem, “Oneness”, published in Call Me by My True Names, by Thich Nhat Hanh (1993). Showed up in my FB feed, today. The lovely and frightening aspect of quarantine during a pandemic is the abundance of unstructured time available. Also, I imagine, it is one of the benefits of growing older and thriving in the current physical environment. Not a lot of people, but lots of books and quiet and dogs that fall asleep in my lap.
created by choice to love and be loved forever… absent from my eyes for just a little while never absent from your heart and you, ever with me— in my mind and my arms, your laughing voice on the wind
Copyright © 2022-01-25, by Liz Bennefeld.
Photo by Peter Oslanec on Unsplash
Who am I
A poetic fantasy in response to a poetic prompt during a Poetry Heals online workshop (poetryheals.org).
charting my unpath
soaring in the air as it thins
diving ocean’s depths
measuring life’s infinities
through death to forever dreams
Copyright © 2022-01-19, Liz Bennefeld
Life, like a river
different shades and shapes
shallow waters and broad banks
ripples and bird song
ice and winds—summer’s warmth
ever changing…but the same
© Lizl Bennefeld, 2022-01-15
“Birds near a Mountain Stream by Herman Henstenburgh (c.1683-c.1726). Original from the Rijks Museum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.” by Free Public Domain Illustrations by rawpixel is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Stray Coffee Breaks 