Each month Ancient Eagle Press offers a poem appropriate to the season or the mood of our editorial staff. Poems may be new or drawn from existing AEP editions.
Ancient Eagle Press
Night Watch
The world keeps thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
As it wobbles like a home-made dirndl
Spinning, if not eternally, at least through my eternity;
Like a transformer thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
As it chews giant bites from the grid
And chums the power line with digestible pieces;
Like water over a weir thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
With springtime rains leaving the pond,
Accelerating, growing, tumbling along its way;
Like the river thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
Its belly swollen with snow pack, loess and dreams
Ceaseless from mountain to valley to sea;
Like the wind thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
Through mountain passes, racing across the plain
Moving forward, moving forever;
Like the respirator thrumming, thrumming, thrumming
Pumping life into my father’s lungs
Until the moment that I age, not by an hour, but by a generation.
Lee Alloway
Adapted from Swatting Gnats, 2012
October 2017
Summer went out fighting with a late September heat wave, but Fall is clearly in charge as we enter October. Today’s cool, dry weather makes the sticky heat of summer a fast fading memory, and good riddance! Thus begins a glorious transition in the shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains. The maples have already begun to redden, soon to be joined by color cascading from the peaks into the valley. The animals are feasting on the last of summer’s bounty, adding fat to support the coming migration or the winter that is sure to follow. But this beauty and bounty are transient. Soon the leaves will fall, our castle walls of green will be bare and harsh winds will blow through. Fall is a creshendo in nature’s symphony, but beneath the music the seasons pass to a persistent thrumming. It is a sound young people cannot hear, but becomes louder as we hear less. It is a whisper reminding us that we, too, are transient. We cannot stop the changing of the seasons, cannot stop the thrumming of the earth, cannot stop the inevitable passing. It is a message loudest in the quiet times.
Poem of the Month
Archives
September 2017 -- The Princess
August 2017 - Pelham
July 2017 -- Siena
June 2017 -- Loyal, Straight, and True
May 2017 -- A Thousand Flowers
April 2017 -- Oboe Rap
March 2017 - March Madness
February 2017 -- The Cost of Doing Business
January 2017 -- Reflection at a Winter Window
December 2016 -- The Creation
November 2016 -- Hemolymph Moon
October 2016 -- Vortex
September 2016 -- Do You?
August 2016 -- Sailing
July 2016 -- Mulberries
June 2016 -- Off Tucker Point
May 2016 -- Unforgettable
April 2016 -- At Night She Cries
Where Old Fliers Come to Roost