Tag: Cape Cod

Clamor

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 28, 2025
2 Comments on Clamor

I am back on terra firma, sound rushing through my feet and up in a cacophony of thought, worry, consternation that somehow fades on the coast, transitions into whitecaps and whale song, a quiet not to be found among these common conflicts at home, the roar of traffic, the flight plan overhead, the bells and buzzes of business.

How is the sound of the ocean and all its occupants some two miles deep meager competition to the loudness of this day today? The ever present noise of them and us and this…even here in my beloved woods.

Poem & Photo ©2025 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about nature, Poetry

Creativity Poetry

Inspiration: A Riff

It is often
effortless
this charge
a light somewhere
a word
a phrase
a road highlighted
on an internal GPS
how to get from here
[ thought ]
to there
[ something written ]
with little but
an invisible arrow
a compelling
a compulsion
an understanding
that it’s fleeting
unforgiving
fickle
if not me and mine
then someone else
somewhere else
will get it
catch it
in whatever way
they have learned to catch
mitt, net, rain barrel

I prefer mine
organic
open a door
a window
my arms
let the words come right in
no ceremony
or formality
no place settings
and certainly
no roughhousing
(live and let live,
I always say)

you wanna be a good poem
or a bad poem,
one anointed with laurels
or just doddering
in the margins?
come on out
with all your slick juices
scream and wail and
take that first breath, baby!

and then there it is
whatever it is
good, bad, mediocre

I don’t mind them
any of them, really
they’re warm-ups
stretches
practice runs
compost

take a deep breath

because the good ones?
Mmm, yeah,
the good ones,
they glow!
preternaturally
hum and buzz
and vibrate a little
so you have to keep
reading them
over and over
pinching a dream
is this real?

You just birthed
an angel, mama —
a wild wondrous angel —
watch her fly!

Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. Photo by Eusebiu Soica. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Inspiration, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about inspiration, poems about writing, Poetry

Creativity Poetry

Screen Porch, 4 a.m.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about death, poems about dying, poems about silence, Poetry, Race Point Beach, Writing

Creativity Poetry

Love is Blind

Hindsight is 20/20
except when
what you’d been seeing
then, back then,
was larger than life,
grander than anything
you could imagine
and so enormously
out of proportion that…
now, hindsight is
microscopic
requiring
broken circles of glass —
that you try not to bite down on
too hard or else you might
bleed even more than
you already have —
to see what was
right in front of your eyes
all along
how minuscule you had
to make yourself
to fit into that space
that small mindedness
that box with clearly defined edges
(and no imagination)
but these are things
you don’t see through
rose colored glasses
their purpose only
to color inside the lines
with one conforming color
the vision of what
you were programmed
to think you wanted
that small sweet girl
and her dolls playing
make believe
building castles out of
miss-matched pieces
instead of telescopes
with which to see
the much bigger picture.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about death, poems about dying, poems about silence, Poetry, Race Point Beach, Writing

Creativity Poetry

Morning Haiku

Why did the turkey

jump the fence

wings beat with effort

Photo from National Park Service. Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about death, poems about dying, poems about silence, Poetry, Race Point Beach, Writing

Creativity Poetry

The Morning’s Palette

Radar shows the storm
purple and red and gold
but all I see for miles
are shades of Cape Cod gray
pale where the sky should be
a graphite-thin horizon line
its boats like ghosts
and a graduated green-gray ocean
punctuated by the occasional
wild white cap making its way to shore
even the trees are gray this morning
their late spring effort almost forgot
inside this passing storm
whose endings promise blue.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about death, poems about dying, poems about silence, Poetry, Race Point Beach, Writing

Creativity Poetry

Sunset Day

Bring me here, darling,
the day I die.
Let’s hope the seals
bob curiously at our folly
and the black cap gulls
make us laugh along with them.

Let’s manifest giant waves —
the kind little boys scream into —
and a full moon that plays
hide and seek
with the setting sun
behind billowed clouds
and tall green grasses.

We can celebrate whale spouts
and whale tails
and the fine thin lines
of birds come back —
that life goes on
and a moment of joy
can last forever, here,
a laugh, a dance, and love
worn smooth with time.

We’ll hope for a cold spring day
you and me alone on the dunes
and that one final breathtaking breeze
to push me forward into oblivion.

Photo (Race Point Beach, Cape Cod) and Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about death, poems about dying, poems about silence, Poetry, Race Point Beach, Writing

Creativity Poetry

About Silence

To cultivate silence

is a monstrous effort

in this loud, mad world.

Photo and Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about silence, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

30-Love Underfoot

Heart-shaped rocks
underfoot
all around
on the grassy path
and sand dune
from here to the shore
and at the water’s edge

(dare I say even in the palm of the Garçon
at the pâtisserie
whose smile needed no translation)

Hearts!

There was a time I would have
come home with enough
heart-shaped rocks
to border a banister,
fill a bowl and basket,
lined them up to show
the Garçon
in the morning
with coffee and croissants

but I am content now to find
moon stones instead
translucent
round and easy
love in the stars,
the sky, the universe
enough

Photo and Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Anthropocene, Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, heart shaped rocks, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature writing, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about nature, poems about possibility, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

29-Possibility

In a persistent
effort
to weave a web
the spider
imperceptible
casts her
silver filaments
from the uppermost
spire of a
wintered
beach plum
one thin
budded branch
from which
a hundred casts
arc and fall
arc and fall
her small labors
shimmering
in afternoon light
prayers of
possibility
glittering

Photo by Matt Hardy. Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Anthropocene, Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature writing, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about nature, poems about possibility, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

28-The View from Here

There is a slice
of ocean
outside
my window
and in it
the world
from a view
just above
a confluence
of birdsong
and whalesong
the mechanics
of the day
juxtaposed to
sweet, sweet
silence.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Anthropocene, Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature writing, Poem, Poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about nature, Poetry, Writing

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

The Whale Show

No one seems to notice the whale doing backflips down the aisle. Small and almost indiscernible from the waves in the bay, maybe it’s the lighting that gives it a forced perspective. Because there, to the east, the sun sits center stage and setting. So while 30 faces bask in the golden glow of stardom, just one looks east at a sideshow not to be missed.

Tags Cape Cod, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, poems about Cape Cod, Poetry, poets, Three Chairs Publishing

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 6

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 6, 2024
No Comments on Great Cape Escape – Day 6

“I have a room all to myself; it is nature.” — Henry David Thoreau

Retracing my steps at Nauset Beach…

Lunch at Coast Guard Beach

Nauset Light

Newcomb Hollow Beach

Driving the loop at Province Lands

A final sunset at Herring Cove

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Henry David Thoreau, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 5

Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Enjoyed a Poets in the Park Walk around Blackwater Pond with the National Park Service. This was poet Mary Oliver’s favorite place to contemplate nature and poetry.

This was a long day that included a hike, shopping in Provincetown, Wicked Little Letters, and a late afternoon hike to Highland Light. This is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod.

The view from Highland Light

Sunset at Herring Cove while watching whales breach in Cape Cod Bay

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Mary Oliver, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 4

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 4, 2024
No Comments on Great Cape Escape – Day 4

“Hope is radical openness for surprise — for the unimaginable. If that is the attitude with which we look, listen, and open all of our senses, we enter into a meaningful relationship with whatever Life offers us at a given moment.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast

A quiet walk at Head of the Meadow

A good day to write, rest, read. Repeat.

The gift of a rainbow…

And sunset over Provincetown

Tags Brother David Steindl-Rast, Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 3

Full Moon at Head of the Meadow

“I began to make plans for what my future might be—what once felt like a mad dash to the end of a cliff now felt like an interesting path in a beautiful wood that may or may not lead to the top of a mountain. And yes, the chances of my arrival at that destination were uncertain, but oh! What a mountain! And oh! What a view! And what a pleasure it was to keep moving forward.” ― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

Coast Guard Beach, Eastham

Sunset from Head of the Meadow, waiting for the Moon

The Frog Moon rises

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Kelly Barnhill, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, When Women Were Dragons, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 2

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 2, 2024
No Comments on Great Cape Escape – Day 2

“Anytime we approach a state of awe, we are in relationship with divinity. We are awake.” — The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Book

Sunrise on the first full day

Time and spaces to read, write, and regroup.

Morning walk in Truo, Provincetown in the distance.

Feeling very grateful…

First view of Nauset Beach in Orleans, my favorite beach.

Much later in the day, sunset at Race Point Beach.

Sun sets, moon rises…

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, National Seashore, Retreat, The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Book, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 1

“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”  

― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now