Poetic Shutterbug

Poetry by Taylor Graham and Photo by Joanne Olivieri (Poetic Shutterbug) I really did not have a photo that fit the poem but for some reason I liked the above pic with the verse. Enjoy! HOME IMPROVEMENT We’re blackbirds in search of a nest here, among the aisles that taste of new-milled lumber and sawdust in fluorescent sparkles, leading to the Paint Center with its color-chips that ring like china in a farmhouse cupboard. I run my finger over cool adobe tile and carpet samples that smell of tabby fur, a hearth cat who lives at peace with blackbirds. No, a blackbird barely survives here, out of the rain that artilleries the roof; he lives on bolts and wing- nuts, disappears into high-gloss Ebony. You’ve got your cart loaded with rolls of stockwire fence and studded T-posts we’ll haul home to drive into bed- rock-mortar, throwing a line around old Miwok kitchens that were open-air to ridge and canyon before this range was subdivided. Miwoks gone out of mind like birds in th...

VERY EARLY ON EARTH DAY My dog calls me out of sleep. Overnight the wind has rearranged everything. I blow into cold hands and raise them against the sun’s first rays, just nowV exploding gold shrapnel over the east ridge. And everything is moving: sun-shatter through new green leaves, and wind plucking overnight spider- webs till they hum gold filament against the dark trunks of oaks, everything flowing glowing gold-green, a morning no mortal could describe. And so my dog stands simply wagging. Wasn’t he good to bring me here? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Photos taken by me at Aquatic Park & The SF Botanical Gardens

Photo taken by me at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens JACK AND THE REDWOOD Imagine ascending on ropes, not quite to heaven – to the Canopy Kingdom where toppled crowns turn to dust, to soil nourishing lichens and featherleaf ferns, huckleberry thickets rooted in rot. Gird yourself in harness, Jack, and not for lumber. Climb the beanstalk that sprouted when Caesar was a child, its roots vast as underworlds unseen. All you know is what you see, and feel with hand and sole: the trunk, more than 20 feet thick at the base, rising buttressed to look out over a forest in coastal cloud. Pull yourself up as in fairy-tale to meet – not slay – this giant tree. Climb above his deep green shadow till daylight filters through the highest branches, 350 feet above forest floor. Now, flop down in the palm of his hand. Pop a huckleberry in your mouth. Give your host – this giant – a seedy grin. He holds you by your roots.

Photos taken by me @ The SF Botanical Gardens IN THE GARDEN Between the lawn and pebble deck stands a Oaxacan tree-of-life: fired clay trunk and branches flowering at the top with birds of peace that gaze softly down on Eve and Adam, the Serpent with an apple in its mouth. Around the mythic tree, periwinkle twines its tendrils among red-clay limbs, through leaves; over Adam’s shoulder, about Eve’s waist; over-coiling the Snake, weaving everything with living green.

Photos taken by me @ The San Francisco Botanical Gardens This is a guest post by Taylor Graham. Taylor, I so much appreciate your loyalty and friendship. Thank you so much for your poetry. HOPING FOR SPRING Gray sky lowering with just a horizon-line of light that moves beyond you. The apple tree’s white petals promise fruit. Tonight, storm. Will weather strip each bud? Wild geese whispering – they’ll fly before morning: March sounds its call of Leaving. On the hilltop, one bare oak. Remember, leafless trees still can blossom with wings.

Photo courtesy of The Shutterbug Eye POMEGRANATE Here you are — alive. Would you like to make a comment? - Mary Oliver One ruby seed as a memento – already lost in lush March grass trampled into mud by hooves or swarmed by a squabble of flies. This morning, as if still asleep in a dream parallel to daylight, you walked the pasture among horses perfectly at home, not wishing anything. Snow-drops on a stalk, wild iris in the meadow. Split husk of pomegranate – you dropped one seed, translucent as sunrise, ghost of Persephone’s globed fruit – as you walked between sky and earth that bears your footprints, a seed, an unsent letter.

Photo by DK Miller of the Shutterbug Eye @ theshutterbugeye.blogspot.com GRANDPA REMEMBERS The river in its rippling sheen of patterns green and silver, blue with sky, rocks, trees inverted, sound of silkworms on mulberry leaves, soft water-sounds of Mother spinning, reeling threads from boiled cocoons twisted into yarn, spools he holds as she weaves a fabric, then knits the silk to stockings for so many children in that low-built room by fire- light, shadows in the upper loft – no attic in her house of rich scarcity, of getting along with God’s blessings. A cushion if a guest should call... the childhood home a man can never see again. How far he travels, year by sunny afternoon before he finds this very night’s bed, and lets sleep’s river-currents over-flow his mind. By: Taylor Graham

Photos taken at the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco. This is a guest post by Taylor Graham who writes a "paradigm," which incorporates several different Japanese forms. I have to admit I never knew about this style. Thank you so much Taylor. GOLD HILL SEASONS How does water know? Spring is a mouth opening. What does the earth say? We carry our seeds of trees and plant ourselves in new soil. Crossing the dirt path, a black bear steers by star-drift and breeze off the hills. What is hunger, what is home to make the owl mourn? River sluices yesterdays. Her winter memories are a silken pouch of words. On the long-moon nights what sharpens the heart’s small knife? A dawn garden weeps with dew. In spring the river remembers its song from far upcountry, held fast in snow. Trees blossom out of their names, we shed our cocoons. The dark bird circles a golden hilltop – its shade crosses, passes. Gone.

Japanese Moon Garden Pond Garden Trellis I am going to end the year with a special poem by one of my all time favorite poets, Taylor Graham. Thank you so much for this special poem Taylor. I absolutely adore this verse and though none of my garden photos could do it justice, I chose a couple of my favorite photos to accompany Taylor's poem. These photos, as always, were taken at the Botanical Gardens in San Francisco. Thank you and Happy New Year to all of you! SATURDAY AT THE ARBORETUM Wrought iron gates opened like a fairytale beckoning up a drive that curved under boughs to the gingerbread Victorian. We imagined girls of bygone days in satin frocks, sitting straight-ankled at tea. But it was the garden that drew us, along walks scented with jasmine, greenly overhung with fronds. Goslings swam in waters Arcadia blue. We’d whisper young secrets as we followed winding paths to the grotto. Who lived there? A dragon, or an anchorite? a wizard or the Queen of Sheba? Myth r...

Guest post by Taylor Graham. Thank you my friend. DECEMBER STORM Daylight thin as tap-water, as gray hairs through a comb. Phone and power out since yesterday. Snow to shovel; driveway a barricade of broken oak limbs. Sun’s an asperity, red eye of weather’s bird of prey. On the deck, sparrows hunker on their bellies, pecking seed. Shall I donate my hands to warm them? But my fingers have been taken by the cold.

This is a guest post by Taylor Graham. Thank you Taylor. WINDFALL IN DROUGHT The year is flinging off its gold in leaf, in leaf-fall litter. Cold waits, dragon-old and brazen. The scab-bark willow’s tarnished brown. No profit in wind-winnow down, thistle-gown faded ashen. Then comes a day of spattered pane, storm clouds lowering, scent of rain. Here we remain with our hopes rooted like the gray trees standing, sentinels in dark gathering for guarding of silent slopes.

This is a guest post by Taylor Graham. I want to thank Taylor as always for her fantastic poetry. Happy Halloween everyone. SPIDER In the paved garden of the courtyard by the gilded fountain where we sat listening to poetry into autumn dusk and then dark, when outdoor lights came on, one corner lamp illuminating a web, and in its center, the orb-weaver, abdomen gold-amber in the light spinning out its thread catching words and lines and images in a silken weave – bright poem-moths in a perfect orb, energy suspended in light, winged tension gilded by the crescent Harvest Moon.

Photos courtesy of the New York Times The San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge Upper Deck Collapse 10/17/89 As a tribute to all who risked their lives during the Loma Prieta Earthquake on October 17, 1989 I would like to offer a poem written by my friend Taylor Graham who along with her husband and their dogs took part in the rescue effort during this horrible disaster. I'd like to thank Taylor and her husband for helping and putting their own lives at risk during this earthquake and for also allowing me to share her wonderful poem with all of you. For those of you in the Bay Area there will be a monument tribute and memorial being held on the Marina Green in San Francisco today @ 3:00 p.m. Dignitaries along with Mayor Gavin Newsom and members of the police and fire departments will be on hand with festivities taking place throughout the day. Our own Sony Holland duo will be providing the musical entertainment for the ceremony. If you are in the area come on out. Thank you. ...

I'd like to thank poet Taylor Graham for this guest post. Enjoy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT’S THE SONG OF LONELINESS? I can sit alone but not lonely, with just the poem of these Sierra woods, the crescendo/diminuendo of a logging truck on Iron Mountain Road, and then a woodpecker’s hollow cedar drum. I think the song of loneliness must live in a jukebox in a city where there are lots of people to be lonely. A forest-poem is perfectly happy in its music, without the fiddle of a Texas band. But as I drive back down the mountain, what do I see? Stopped on the eastbound shoulder a brown sedan with radio turned way up high and doors wide open, broadcasting country achy- breaky. And in the middle of the solitude-bound lane, two couples – ladies in swinging skirts and gents in the shadow of their Stetsons – dancing that lonesome partnered two-step right into my poem.