LAKE SUPERIOR PANTOUM

ON THE DUNE

limber grasses tango

waves flaunt white ruffles 

pines arrange cool shade

roll with the lake breeze

waves flaunt white ruffles 

polish rocks along the shore

roll with the lake breeze

trace patterns in the sand

polished rocks along the shore

shadows of the gulls circle

trace patterns in the sand

just for you and me

shadows of the gull circle

limber grasses tango

just for you and me

to rest in the pine shade

        -Deb Johnston

Emberlight Festival, August 2021, Ironwood Michigan 1st Runner-up

On Emily Dickinson’s Birthday

In Memorial – Barb Cranford, Poet

Snowstorm, December 10

on the highway

sirens groan

deep in the woods

the house is still

sirens moans

woodstove hums

my house is still

on Emily’s birthday

woodstove purrs

and snowplow drones

on Dickinson’s birthday

while I share this poem

snowplows fade

on the highway

as I write my poems

deep in the woods

           —Barb Cranford

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, 

As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, 

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, 

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.   

—Walt Whitman

An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was  in the summer of 1865 during a period of national mourning of the president’s assassination on April 14, 1865.