“Songs of Summer”….poem.

Watercolor, Early Spring, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2011

dversepoets pub is OLN…Open Link Night!  A wonderful time to post ONE poem and visit other poets……And…they will be on break until July 17th.  Our Norseman Bjorn is presiding over OLN so be good.

Lady Nyo

 

SONGS OF SUMMER

 

Summer cartwheels through the sky!

The fertility of months

Expressed from field to orchard,

Above in  sky, and deep below,

Where earth gathers green energy

And transforms by magic

Fruits for the mouth and eye.

 

Fledglings tipped out of nests

Try new-feathered wings on warm currents,

Calves butt heads and race in calf-tumble

Climbing rocks and playing king-of-the-hill,

Spring lambs past the date

For the tenderest of slaughter

Coated in white curls,

Smell of lanolin sweet in their wake.

 

There is fresh life in the pastures,

Now  steady legs and bawling lungs,

They graze upon the bounty

And grow fat for the future culling.

 

Tender shoots of wheat and corn,

Waist-high, defy devious crows,

Paint once-fallow fields in saffron and

A multitude of hues-

Golden tassels forming,

Waving under an oppressive sun,

And when the sky bursts open

In random welcomed rains,

Heaven meets Earth-

The cycle complete.

 

These are the songs of Summer.

The bleat of lambs,

The cymbals of colliding clouds,

The noise of fierce, sharpened light,

The plaints of cows with taunt udders,

The loud quarreling of a swollen brook,

The scream of a hunting hawk

Calling for its mate,

The pelt of an unheralded storm

Upon a tin roof,

And the quiet sighing of

An unexpected wind-

Brings a benediction to the day.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011-2017

 

Young RedTail Hawk, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor

Our new Rose Garden this Spring/Summer.  Looks small, and probably is but we stuffed 30 roses in this area.  Mostly English (David Austen) and Knock Out roses that really need to be trimmed every two weeks.  Some Mister Lincoln (on pedestals) and O.L. Weeks roses,  and those gorgeous “New Dawn” (2) of them that cover the arbor.  And lots of mosquitoes which curtail our using the garden.

All paintings by Jane Kohut-Bartels, various dates and various mediums

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“Autumn Dusk” and “Mourning Dove”, a poem and a tanka.

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 Stuttering winds blow across

Clouds tinted by the failing sun.

Brittle air softens,

Now a faded blue–

Shade of an old man’s watery eyes.

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A late flock of Sandhill cranes lift off,

Pale bodies blending in the

Twilight with legs

Flowing dark streamers,

Their celestial cries fall to

Earth–

A harsh, chiding rain.

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The trees in the valley

Are massed in darkness

As waning light leaches

Color from nature,

Creeps from field to hillock

And all below prepares for the

Rising of the Corn Moon.

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Even frogs in the pond

Listen between croaks

For the intention of the night.

–Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

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A mourning dove cries

It is such a mournful sound

Perhaps a fierce owl

Has made it a widow.

Oh! It breaks my heart, her cry.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

copyrighted, 2016

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Our Chessie, coming through the zinnias.  Chessie died October 14th, 2014.  We miss you so much, kitty. He was abandoned by neighbors and took up with us for 14 years.

 

All paintings and photographs by the author.

Release of “White Cranes of Heaven”

North Carolina Stream, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2006

Today I finished the work needed to release “White Cranes of Heaven” ID# 10243736, available from Lulu.com.

For some reason, Lulu.com is listing this new book under the name: “White Cranes”, probably because we refused the ISBN# package from Lulu because it would have doubled the price in the market.  “White Cranes” or “White Cranes of Heaven” is the same book, and the name doesn’t really matter much.  The content does.

This is the first time I have published any of my paintings, except in a short brochure.  The resolution looks great and I am very impressed with Lulu’s printing.  I decided to use these paintings to illustrate some of the poems, and it works.  I hope the readers who buy this book will agree.

Lulu is still processing some of my product page, so I don’t know exactly when it will be viewable, but when I checked, the new book was available for purchase.

This has been a very long labor.  Bill Penrose was the midwife on this and I can’t thank him enough.  I’m tired and need a break. I’m going to sit and read a spell, something I don’t get to do often enough.

Thanks to Bren Goode, Margie Chester, Nick Nicholson, Steve Isaak, and my dear friend Bill Penrose for this book.

Without you, it wouldn’t have grown feathers.

Lady Nyo

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“Winter Afternoon”

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Winter’s  pale afternoon

Creeps into night like skim milk

Poured from one china bowl to another.

The thin crescent moon appears,

A broken cup of feeble light

That spills upon the ground,

Too watery to brighten the road.

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Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted 2011