Tag: poems about nature

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Creativity Poetry

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

Cast Away

I awoke this morning
feeling rudderless
alone and adrift
so I partnered myself
with sheets and pillows
in a meager attempt
to stop the sway
to right myself
between swells
of defeat
and despair
but finding no
equilibrium
I moored myself
to the day
and got on with it
albeit
without commitment
or fortitude
floated aimless
past noon
and afternoon
grateful for the sun’s setting
the welcome drift
of deep deep dreams.

Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. Photo by Josh Sorenson. 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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

May Musing

The cool breeze and I considered the change of season, wondered together how much time we had before she would leave again.

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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

21-Mid-April Morning

The morning
thick with sound
spring sound
a humid hovering
of birdsong
and flowersong
buds on trees
whispering
and soft soil
separated
by anxious green
almost ready
for the ministry
of bees
and butterflies
soon to be
tending
and tittering
a symphony
of what is
this moment
and what will be
at any moment
soon.

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

19-Oh Poop!

pathetic
pedestrians
perambulate,
place
pups’
poop
packets
permanently,
propped
presumptuously
pathside,
preserved
perpetually

Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. For more on this topic, order your copy of “There’s No Such Thing as the Poop Fairy” today! 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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

017-Prayer Wheel

The tree —
smooth and
shorn of its bark —
is like a prayer wheel,
calligraphy
etched by time,
and at once
my walk becomes
sacred

it is mantra
and
sutra,
praise
and
repentance,
invocation
and
intercession

god is on the wind
today,
Her blessings
arrive
in birdsong

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

15-My walk becomes an apology

I’m sorry

to the squirrel
and its dying beech

to the frog eggs
in the pool
in the woods
in this world

to the moss
upon which I walk

to the osprey
for my disturbance

I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry

the words come unbidden

all around the pond

this is just the way it is now

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

14-To the Starlings who have moved into the Privet Hedge on Short Beach Road

To the Starlings who have moved into the Privet Hedge on Short Beach Road,

Welcome.

Please stay as long as you like.

Help yourself to the bugs and slugs in the front garden. Enjoy the spread of sweet clover and violets in the lawn, but watch for the mower who arrives every two weeks on Friday.

There’s always shade under the boxwoods, if you need, and rain water in small pools along the mossy brick path.

In the back, you’ll find a bird feeder loosely tended, but often full of seeds, and an endless dance of bees among the honeysuckle by the old dogwood.

We have resident squirrels, a family of five jays, and a chipmunk who resides just south of the bird bath which we keep filled all summer long.

The pond out back offers the companion of frogs and turtles, crows and owls, a flock of your brothers and sisters, and at least one hawk for balance.

Pay no mind to the cat. She never goes outside, but does love her spot on the screen porch. Feel free to watch her watching you, that could go on for hours!

Now mind you, I do have one request.

What I ask only in return is this: please do not cross the wide wild way, west of the hedge. It’s fast and merciless. If you, out of instinct, fly that way ever, please stay high and alert.

And come home safely.

Always, Jen

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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

7-Just Enough

“Wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly.”  — St Francis of Assisi


The air is soft
70 degrees
and a breeze
that feels like
a worn cotton sheet
in the confluence
of seasons

just enough

and the smell is sweet
like fresh washed linens
floating on a line
a gentle tease
to soften the unease

the whisper-song
of nearby trees
is music
to appease

just enough

my heartfelt pleas
for peace

Poem & Photo ©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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

6-Pond Walk

the sound of one fish jumping

and only the osprey and I were privy

©2025, Jen Payne. Photo from Canva. 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.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

5-When the Harvesters Come

All along the highway
a brutal massacre
agony and destruction
jagged edges claw the sky
not even the grace of a clean cut
no time to spare
for the scream of chain saws
the equal labor-to-labor
dignity of tree felling
the man-versus-nature
earth shaking victory
(the silent apologies)
we are now
machine-efficient
cost-effective
and ruthless
with stands of trees laid bare
twisted to their breaking point
ripped and torn
delimbed, stripped, shredded
sun burning shaded places
raw spaces for the taking


©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.

Categories
Creativity

What of her, anyway?

They hardly slow down for me
solitary on the side of the road
walking before the heat rises,
so what of her, anyway?

There have been so many this year
one bunny, two bunny…
I count like my grandbaby advises
three bunny, four bunny…

Dead bunny.

Wonder if the driver slowed at all,
considered his violation,
said a prayer if not for her
then for the three babes
one bunny, two bunny…
asleep in the down
dreaming of their mum
and mornings in dewed grass.

But what of her anyway?
She, no matter,
just a long red stripe
over which I step this morning
—  there but for the grace of god —
wary of the next car coming
light speed around the bend.


Photo & poem ©2024 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.

Categories
Creativity

they were once a family of four

I see them on the side of the road
have to hold back tears or
suffer similar fate —
we are merciless these days
our endless race
to get from here to there
nevermind the casualties —
so I file them away with
Roadside Tragedies
too much to bear for any family

until they reappear in a dream
their sweet furred selves,
mom and her babes
masked and giggling
running circles on
a green shag carpet that
could be grass or forest
or pillowed green moss

a soft landing for heartache,
respite from the cruelties
of our hard, brutal world

©2024 Jen Payne. Photo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife. 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.

Categories
Creativity

Morning Casualty

Was I the only one to pray for you
before the sun fully arrived
to take you back to summer ashes
or sky burial, feted by crowsong

Was I the only one to remember your face
masked among morning shadows,
wondering if the cat and I could see you —
it was just yesterday, my sweet friend

Was I the only one to tend to you
roadside ravaged and alone,
laying you down in soft green comfort
a gathering of god-words at your feet.

Photo by Anne Desch. Poem ©2024 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.

Categories
Creativity

Witness

The chipmunk,
through no fault of his own,
sat trailside wounded
perhaps I interrupted his prayer —
final words on the wind —
but he startled slowly
and limped across my path
with labored breath
into the shady solace
of honeysuckle
as I whispered comfort
in a soft, quiet voice
stayed a while as witness

found myself still thinking
about that chipmunk
through no fault of his own
wounded, trailside
as the blue car crashed
more silently than you might think
into the white minivan
on the busy byway
pieces of metal flying
in front of me, wondering

did he die without fear
quietly — there — in sweet release?

Poem ©2024 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.

Categories
Creativity

Morning Cast

Deep in the woods
a spider casts her story
across my eyelids
invites an intricate dream
of fine woven memory
raindrops as sweet wine, and
stars come down to glisten, listen
eavesdrop into her delicate days
the tightrope balance
of patience and power
the writhe and wriggle
in her sacred dance,
even she wonders sometimes
what stories they have to tell —
the ant, the fly, the beetle —
but pays no mind
for hunger is deep
and instinctive,
she whispers,
it knows small mercy.

Photo by Phil Kallahar. Poem ©2024 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

10 – Tribute

There was no time
for gratitude
or remembrance

how the bees
loved her in spring,
the blossoms
full of promise

how the Robins
sought refuge in her
abundant branches,
suffered storms
raised families

no time hold
the memory
of her sweet fruit,
consider
its ripeness
one last time

to thank her for
summer shade,
the filigree
of shadows,
the soft
unexpected breezes

nor even to
regard the lichen
and velvety moss
that gathered
in her neglect,
embraced her
unpruned limbs

One hopes
the axman
soothed her,
that the
Jays and Doves
were nearby
comfort

Poem ©2024, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

9 – Old(ish) Woman Walking

It’s a snake and turtle day at the pond
66° and everything seems enchanted

suddenly!

except my winter hips
which long for the agile ease
of the black racer

except my worried brain
that envies the tranquil turtle
and its sunshine meditations

but my ears still hear
know the garter under leaves
understand the ire of the wren
the wingbeats of the heron

my heart still marvels at the
osprey’s enthusiasm
to sing love songs
for yet another season

Poem ©2024, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Inroads

The deer path
has been excavated
from its intimate
trail of mossy secrets
to a course hewn
five feet wide
accommodating us, of course,
but not the slow poetry
of listening
here, where the
January thaws laid bare
a Caretaker’s House
like Brigadoon, brief
or here, where in the
sunrise silence
one could hear
the Lady Ferns
unfurl in fanfare
nor here, where
small Spring Beauties
gathered in gossip beneath
the wise old Oak
who bears witness now
only to the wreckage,
the red blaze nailed deep
without apology.

Photo & Poem ©2023, 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. .

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

The Bear Prince


Once upon a time
there was a bear
and he lived
just around the corner
from the footbridge
where the jays
still caw about a troll
and hummingbirds
wax poetic about
jewelweed
on the banks of
the stream.
It was there, one day,
a woman stood in
utter disbelief
as rain fell
on a sunny day
and the breeze
turned into music.
People around her raced by
fear in their breath
eyes full of warning,
but she, being a brave sort
(or merely hopeless)
walked up the path,
around the corner,
and asked the bear to dance.

IMAGE: Poor little bear!, John Bauer, 1912. Poem ©2023, 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.

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

I Keep Writing Epitaphs

Last night, I snuck
across the pond
to the half-cut trees,
their slaughtered limbs
strewn across the yard
of the large new house
and listened while
spiders and ants
and caterpillars
evacuated, slowly.
I knelt below the
one last Maple
in whose branches
I once spied
turkeys sleeping
and I apologized
in whispers
that sounded like
midnight bird wings,
while my tears
collected in pools
around her sweet trunk
and we listened
as the stars departed
and the sun rose
and the marsh hawk
came to pay its respects
one last time.

Image: Google map of the pond and trees. Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

She Sees It is All Connected

Orb weaver
Webweaver
Storykeeper

wonders at the
man and woman
who move
beneath her —
the fine strings of connection
they don’t seem to notice

the man moves
and the woman follows
the woman speaks
and the man nods
somehow symbiotic

each of them
picks berries from
the autumn olive —
share the savoring —
pause and pucker
at the bittersweet

yesterday’s web
tangles in the woman’s hair
and the man assists —
white web entwined with
silver strands he hadn’t noticed
as threads of memory
spark around them

I wonder what you will look like with gray hair

but wisps of time and love
their midnight musings
only float on sunbeams now
as ephemeral as
she herself
her dance
on fine filaments
the dew, the stars,
the Universe

Photo by Rick Otten. Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

The Mimics of a Lifetime

The weight of a catbird
in its final sleep
too close to the road
is surprisingly heavy,
as if all of her songs —
the whistles and whines
the cheeps and chirps
the mimics of a lifetime —
are stored within
her feathers
so soft to the touch.
I pray my long gentle strokes,
my whispered comforts,
might wake her
to forage with her chicks
once more
and I stay hopeful
for fifty-one steps
until I lay her, quiet, still
in the cool soft moss
of the shaded yard,
where the stalwart maple
keeps eternal watch.

IMAGE: Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

in what we have done

I used to hear god here

delight in her transformations,                                             I’m so sorry

day upon day

season into season,

now she is mostly quiet

nursing deep, fatal wounds

while I mostly grieve,

whisper apologies to the trees                              I’m sorry

toss offerings of acorns

into the beech grove,

a futile mea culpa                    I’m sorry


               I’m sorry




Photos & Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Punctuated Equilibrium


I think to warn the
hummingbird
of the black snake
I met along the trail,
then remember:
snakes don’t fly,
and even the racer
would be too slow
anyway
for the flit flit flit
of this apparition
I can’t blink to see
a solo staring contest
until my eyes tear up
 
sure, sure — blame it on the bird
 
my eyes were teared already
on this quiet, dying Sunday,
summer seeping into fall
but more than that
the things we can’t ignore,
the changes that might
someday soon
require the snake to fly
for its supper after all


Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory of evolution that claims that change happens suddenly over short periods of time followed by long periods of no change. IMAGE: Tree of Life. Charles Darwin’s 1837 first diagram of an evolutionary tree sketch, from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837). Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

May all beings…

There’s a spider
crawling on the Buddha
that sits on my desk,
and I wonder
if she —
the spider —
is praying,
wonder if I might
ask her
to do so
on my behalf
for the
butterfly
I have no heart
to remember,
its blacktop
last breaths
and wingbeats
were things
I could not bear
this morning
on my way
to the woods
that are
themselves
dying.
Good Lord,
if I stop
to kneel down
for each
and all of it,
there would be
no time left.


Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Namaste

The great horned owl at 4

wondered at the bell buoy

and its slow solemn song;

he considered then

the leaf steps of a frog

and the tap tap tap of rain

and oh! what of the

the cricket chorus

the cat and mouse games

and that woman

there

in child pose or prayer

sharing his inquisitions

who? h-who? who? who?


Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS. Poem ©2023, 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Do Unto Others

She seemed lost
or tired
(or both, like me)
the carpenter bee
sitting in my driveway
hot in the midday sun,
and while she wasn’t too keen
on being seen,
or moved, for that matter,
I shuttled her onto a notecard —
Post Office, Library, Lettuce —
and sat her down safely
on the cool peaty mulch
in the shade of shrubs
in full purple bloom,
left a small puddle of water
in case she was thirsty,
then said a little prayer
so small and so large
in everything, do to others
what you would have them do to you,
Amen.


Photo & poem ©2023, 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 gif

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Some Days I Just Want the Jiffy Corn Muffin

Taking center stage in the felt and fiber exhibit
was a shrouded human-size figure,
death wrapped in yellow
— the color of butter and bees —
but called Chrysalis to imply resilience

resilience in the face of everything

OMG, the everything we face sometimes feels like death —
its foul smell invading even the simple pleasures

it’s hard to ignore the crises in woods that are dying
it’s hard to ignore the crises in the violence of a Sunday drive
it’s hard to ignore the crises when even my favorite characters are battling hate and headlines

every thing of the injustice

I long for the days when my favorite characters could just fall off ferry boats and have sex in on-call rooms.

When their soundtrack was mine on a Sunday drive that didn’t require white knuckles and a prayer.

When the woods were lush and fertile, the promise of the butterfly born from the Chrysalis, color and light and HOPE.

It makes you want to lie down, wrap covers around your tired body, and sleep a deep and dreamless sleep,

because these days even the dreams are pockmarked and ravaged

and you wake gasping for breath, the bile of it all burning your throat,

a burn that nothing will assuage…except the last Jiffy corn muffin
dripping with butter and drizzled with honey,

a final gift from the bees, who swoop and swarm en masse, before leaving for good.


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. An ekphrastic poem contemplating the juxtaposition of Chrysalis Shroud for LGBTQ: Allies Supporting Resilience by Annie Collier and Kim Hahn, and Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix by LeBrie Rich in the national exhibition FELT: Fiber Transformed that was on view at the Guilford Art Center, March-April 2023. Photos by Ashley Seneco.

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 gif

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Finding Exile

Preparing herself for the inevitable,
the sandpiper —
usually found along the coast
makes her home now
by a small pond in the woods
three miles from shore.
It’s quiet here, most days,
except when the wind
carries clamor from the south,
and she’s been welcomed
graciously
by the turtles and frogs,
the heron and wood ducks.
They’ve come here, too,
this protected space
with ample shade and shallows
to share with anyone who needs
asylum from the rising conflict.
You might say we are refugees,
displaced from the familiar
by forces not of our making
finding exile here,
making life despite the storm,
saying grace for the bounty


Photo & poem ©2023, 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 gif

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

28 – New Eden Revealed


I have lived in this house they called New Eden for 25 years on a quarter acre lot around the corner from Long Island Sound.

There’s a claggy pond out back, and a nature preserve just a stone’s throw away.

It’s Heaven, really, never mind the state road on the other side of the eight foot privet that keeps the peace.

The day I moved in, two bright green parakeets landed on a branch of the great old Maple in the back corner of the yard.

They seemed as auspicious as the lilac, beloved since first sight, blooming at the edge of the driveway.

Every year, I pray the lilac will bloom again, that the Maple will survive another storm to keep company with her resident squirrels and raccoons. And me.

She and I wept together when the grand Oak came down, and we still laugh at dusk when the rabbits come out to play.

Seasons come and go here at a predictable pace,

the sublime hush of winter steps aside for spring birds who sing in sparks of poetry usually lost in the busy buzz of summer

before the breeze of autumn shivers the knotweed and startles the monarchs who make no tracks, but the field mice do

tiny footprints criss-cross with bird notes and the straight firm steps of the coyote

turtles come and go, too, snakes, hawks, owls, and once a frog so big I thought he might be a prince!

this sweet spot has revealed its secrets for ages — snowdrops bloom where never planted, a robin’s nest appears beside a window, and salamanders tuck in by the bird feeder

just last week I discovered a small sliver of ocean just to the south, in between some saplings, hidden from view until now

No wonder the ospreys fly so low, and waves sometimes wake me from dreams.



Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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 gif

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

10 – Grieving Place, II


before the painted parking lines
and engineered bridges
before the pervasive blazes
that welcomed every one
before the storm
that created a war zone
there was a trail in the woods
a simple trail
that wound from an unpaved lot
up a long, slow incline
and down, slowly, into Eden
or Shangri-La
or Paradise
or whatever you call the place
that brings you back
to yourself
without contortions
without effort
except for moving
and breathing
and letting go
and paying attention
to the song of white pines,
and the path of the pileated,
to the fetal curl of spring ferns
and the sweet Spring Beauty
so small but significant
you get down on your knees
like a prayer
whisper your apologies
for the trespass
weep at the loss of her
secret spot, there
at the base the Oak now fallen,
our heavy footfall
her sure demise

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

7 – Tribute: Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock

A most graceful dense mounding shrub with broadly spreading branches that create a weeping effect with the deep green, finely textured foliage.


What would the old tree say
of her current predicament —
wedged between the state road
and the utility substation,
her circadian rhythm
forever disrupted
by the flashing traffic light,
her water source, runoff from the
nearby shopping plaza

More than a century ago,
she lived here on farmland acres,
and they named her Weeping
despite her attributes —
a vernal fountain of perpetual joy —
she, a specimen, divine
fated to become more beautiful
a champion of time

But the hour is cruel
marches against the Sargent’s desire
changes our perception of beauty
sephos, Sepphōra, Sephora®

Her graceful curves and
fountain sprays of green
have grayed, and she is deaf
to the song of her breeze

She is not long for this world
— and probably for the best —
we insist ourselves so loudly now
even the bees are grieving.

 

 

Photo by Mary Johnson. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne Inspired by the Weeping Hemlock near my house in Branford, CT. Read more in “Weeping Hemlock Gets TLC” by Marcia Chambers (2012), and “Closing the Book on Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock” by Peter Del Tredici, Arnoldia magazine. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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.

Categories
National Poetry Month Poetry Writing

4- Whispers & Jingles


 It’s a whispers and jingles day in the woods
 
late winter winds wind through the pines
 
who whisper secrets to each other
 
then toss them across the pond
 
confidences crowdsurfing treetops
 
while beach leaves tambourine
 
a tintinnabulation

of tinkling and jingling

mingling

in breezes teasing spring



Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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.

Categories
National Poetry Month Poetry Writing

3 – Reformation


You forget you already know god,
walk her hallowed halls each day,

run your hands along her life lines
as you caretake her sanctuary

You swim in her holy water,
feel her pulse in the tides

breathe her incense,
read scripture in the trees

you sing to the divine,
its holy spirit aloft on wings

How could you forget god is everywhere
where you breathe and where your step

there’s no need to lockstep,
posture, or preach

salvation is just a walk away
then, and again, and today

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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.

Categories
National Poetry Month Nature Poetry

1 – April Comes This Morning



It is certainly not quiet this morning…
5am and the spring peepers are already
singing their songs, a chorus of them
proclaims     April!     bright and loud
and
just an hour ago, the coyotes joined in
rejoicing in triumph,
that soulful sound as seasons change

and now the rain begins
no surprise

April showers bring May flowers

besides
thunder in the east was fair warning
a storm approaches

quick or wicked
we never know except
soon the birds will wake
shake off their damp wings
call out to the dawn again
another day     for the lucky ones


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Written the morning after a wave of deadly tornadoes swept across the country. Photo by Damir Mijailovic. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry 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.

Categories
Grief Poetry

Late December Bird Watch

The mourning doves are here for the winter,
eight by this morning’s count at the feeder before

eight by their count now on the slight-sagged branch
where they wait out the starlings
with hope there is something left

that galaxy of stars like a black hole
devours everything
leaves morsels for small sparrows at least
who will sneak back later to peck out
their gratitude in code on the frost

I read it sometimes, their code of thanks,
wonder if they know I timed it —
spread seeds as soon as the doves arrived,
before the stars descended with the moon

made myself large by the side door
a warning, a warrior

let them have their take, those eight
grief is a hungry thing
even the weeping is enough to lay a table bare

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. Photo by Jennifer Snyder, Project Feederwatch

Categories
Nature Poetry

They’re building infrastructure in the woods


There are tractor marks in the rabbit warren,
that sweet spot on the path where the
bittersweet and grapevines arbored the trail,
where the sounds of commerce faded just enough to hear
the rabbits waiting for you to pass.

It’s bulldozed wide, now four-persons across
nevermind the rabbits
or the winter sparrows who found refuge there
or the jays who loved the grapes
or the pileated whose only recourse
is to tap out an S.O.S. on a nearby dying ash

They’re building infrastructure in the woods, you see
plowing back desperate saplings,
piling debris where the wild asters grew
flattening out the turtles’ fertile slopes

laying instead their misplaced traprock paths
and sweet-smelling lumbered bridges
giving us more room to tramp about
another ingress marked by colored flags
nailed deep into the skins of trees

Tell me please…
Will the rabbits find sanctuary before the snow?
Were the turtles buried alive?
Do the trees weep before the hammer strikes?

Poem and photo ©2022, Jen Payne

Categories
Creativity Poetry

Summer Song at 4 a.m.



Lone Seagull

due east of the

Bell Buoy at Mermaid Rocks

is background vocal for

katy-did
katy-did
katy-did
she-did

and the
cicada cricket
chorus

while the frog
in the marsh
sings solo tenor

only
interrupted
by the
footsteps
of a deer

so I,
barefoot too,
ask her:

do you hear
the sound of stars?

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne

Categories
Creativity

Swan Song

The swan has lost her mate,
so I wade ankle-deep in the
shallow pond and

with breath like water

crossover
lie child pose
in her nest
surrogate heart
close to her side
and whisper

Far away, there once
lived a king
who had eleven sons
and one daughter…

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. IMAGE: The Wild Swans, illustration by Joseph Smith, Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, 1965.

Categories
Creativity

Grace

The bee in the meadow
is chanting,
its words imperceivable
but for the rhythm
the vibration like my own
chanting      sometimes
before I start the day
and the bee, like me
is quick in its reverence
quick prayer
like the mealtime grace
of my childhood

God is great
God is good
let us thank him
for this food

Amen

Ommmmm

Bzzzzzzzz

ABOVE: The adoration of Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) by Bicolored Agapostemon Sweat Bee (Agapostemon viriscens). Photo and poem by Jen Payne.

Categories
Creativity

In the ruins of my cathedral

In the ruins of my cathedral
I can still hear the angels sing
they from their loft of branches
and I on bended knee
begging for absolution
that will not come

not from the pine at the pulpit
sheared off in the storm

not from the maple
whose leaves filtered light
more beautifully than glass

not from the elm or the ash
who lie beneath my feet
extinguished by our blaze
our red hot disregard

so keenly unconcerned
that we are of this and part of this
and crumbling at our very foundation

the beech knows
its grief spreads
like sickness now

leaf to leaf

branch to branch

tree to tree

in the ruins of my cathedral


Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

1 – Morning Haiku

cardinal on my schedule

doesn’t need to notice clocks

sings sweet song at six

Poem and Photo ©2021, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Are you fascinated by time, too? Then order a copy of MANIFEST (zine): It’s About Time today!
Categories
Poetry Writing

Waning Crescent

The moon and I shared space today

before the world awoke

and though we both were silent

it felt as if we spoke

about this wild spinning thing

and how it does transpire

the comedy and tragedy

and all the little fires

That golden wink up in the sky

a secret shared with me

our sweet spot in the morning

its rare tranquility.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. Photos from The Lilith Zone.
Categories
Creativity

Encroachment

I am sure the red fox wonders,
as does the otter and friends,

what happened to the horizon,

why the light that’s not a star shines
from sun down to sun up
with no seeming purpose,

why the fresh salt air is slow to come

The gulls know, of course

They see from the sky
the new and larger rooftops,
the wide expanses of useless green,
the decks and porches and drives,
the construction constructed from the edge of their pond to the edge of the harbor

They see even, in the biggest living room
of the biggest house
the big screen TV,
which,
on certain mornings,
lights the horizon just like a sun,
casts shadows on the fox
and the otter
who will never know again
the rush of first light and certain breezes.

Categories
Poetry Writing

Our Sad Riddle

Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

My nephew, fresh from the pages of Tolkien,
sees a fish carcass on the beach,
predicts Gollum! though we both wonder.
He considers the waves left from a storm,
the wind that blows us each askew,
thinks with furrowed brow, like me
as I sift through those things I know:
the trespass of raw sewage
and slick film of leached oil,
the change of warming waters,
our persistent lack of rain.
But he’s off on a new adventure now,
throwing boulders with grunts and gasps,
Take that! he yells, a holler into the wind
as loud as mine would be if allowed
to grieve the things he cannot see.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. One of the riddles of Bilbo and Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Categories
Nature Poetry

Thursday Rain

The contrast of
misty gray
against
May green
in the treetops
out the window
tells me it’s raining
before I even hear
the gentle tapping
on leaves
and grass
and spring flowers
bowed in gratitude
for the veil of quiet
descending

even poets bow
for the respite
stay inside
the rain says,
there’s a poem waiting

Photo and Poem ©2020, Jen Payne