poetry in the park-- part 2.

the traveling poetry class we take into boyertown, pottstown, and phoenixville had another day at the boyertown community park in berks county in mid-june. next time, we'll be finally meeting alongside the schuylkill river in pottstown, an intention we've had for a while, but we were waiting for ideal weather so we can be inspired to write river poems by the moving water.

we went over several bird poems because of an upcoming deadline for a call for submissions of bird poetry through my first book's publisher, foothills publishing based in wheeler, new york. this is something we focused on after i shared a poem which i recently wrote, inspired by a video one of the students created and shared after working through the difficult emotions of processing some of the hard things happening in our world lately.

and we ate a lot of freshly cut fruit, too, as we sat under the shade of tall trees at the park. but sunlight did start to track us down, in time, so we moved to different spots at our picnic table to adjust to this and get a little less of a burn from its beating rays. and thank goodness for the fact that breezes show up here and there as a nice sort of reprieve for the senses.

here is the poem which i brought to class from my own brain, not of an initial kind of subject i normally get into, so it served as new proverbial territory and directness, except for the nature-y parts, which are steady enough in my history of themes.

*

an ode to what sam traten does when

our country is broken stabs of shards

by jennifer hetrick

when our world is mid-falling

apart with mass shootings

in gay night clubs, when

a young singer is gunned

down while signing autographs

at a table, and a two-year-old

is pulled into a pool of water

by an alligator at waltdisneyworld,

it is important to catalog

the beauty around us, to hit

record and snap scenes of swaying

silver maples, explaining why

they have their name, to talk

about a japanese maple seedling

which floated over from some

neighbor's yard eight years ago

and grew merlot-hued leaves,

several feet of a sturdy little

trunk, to mention that an apricot

tree will need to be pruned but

not just yet in this almost-summer

season, to note no longer spraying

a japanese apple tree anymore, so

that the fruit is mealy but incredibly

sweet per bite. it is important

to catalog the seen, the known,

the felt, as any hope for something

better for one soul after another

is dependent on sharing these

little yet wide-set observations of what

it is to be so alive, so raw, so real,

so open to the forgiveness of humble

wind. these necessities hold us, carry us.