April is Poetry Month

In our continuing April is Poetry Month series, the San Juan Update is sharing poems from local poets every Friday this month. Today is the 3rd Friday and today we have “High Wind Warning”, by Wiliam Weissinger, and “Song Sparrow” by Susie Foster Hale:

Sculpture by William Weissinger

High Wind Warning

Dark silhouettes against
grey winter waves,
a hundred seed heads,
each at the end
of its long-withered stalk,
sway in their bed
with the freshening wind.

In a few months,
these black-eyed susans
will shoot their heads high
toward the warm summer sun,
heedless of the gales
that may break
their thin stems.

The bedrock surrounding
these resolute plants
is covered in moss,
hunkered down and holding on
in a thousand shades
of caution.

William Weissinger

* * *

“Approaching Storm” an etching by Sherry Smith Bell”

Song Sparrow

A sweet song sparrow
hit my window.
She flew right into the
whispering reflection
on the glass.
It must have been the feeder
she saw through
the trees and
beyond that, the sea.
Unaware that I
had stooped to check for
feathers breathing,
her frightened heart,
quick beating,
I saw her tiny head
tuck back to rest,
still shaken from the fall.
It was not until then, Love,
I remembered
flying headstrong
into your arms,
danger there, too.

Susie Foster Hale
Originally published in the Soundings Review
Spring/Summer 2012 issue

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