In Celebration of Verses

 

For National Poetry Month, here’s a new poem and new reviews of poetry books I’m reading! I hope you’ll be inspired to read and share poems, and maybe write some of your own. 

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Click Here to Listen to the Reading of My Poem Below

Awake and Dreaming

There’s a sleepiness in the sun’s rays, a soft warmth in this hour.

Day settling in, wrapping me in a cloak of light. A hush is broken 

by chitters, high and low-voiced calls from hidden singers in tall trees. 

I think of the cat, her black outline stretched across the couch in sleep, 

consider the habits and dreams of nocturnal creatures. How my brain 

kept buzzing, thoughts twisting and turning overnight, blankets tangled, 

sheets bunched. How like a prowling creature I became, awake 

and wandering like the cat mewing at 3:30am. How in the brightness

of day these nocturnal moments seem an alternate universe, not the same one

that spins with a tapestry of white cloud stitched on blue sky. Not the same one

where birdsong lingers, wind-chimes ringing soft, echoing in the breeze.

My toes warmed by still and strong rays of light, seeping in, reminding me 

how it feels: to be here, to be awake, to be mindful of how much I need

the sun, the green, the air and its wind — the day and its aliveness. 

How nearer to comfort we can be in spaces among flutters of wings, 

choruses of wind, distant hum of humanity. The only things present,

the only things felt: the falling of everything else. It is a rest akin 

to sleep and yet, here I sit, eyes wide open to a fast moving sky, trees 

beaming with green and gold, blossoms bursting, birdsong rising, the day 

loud, declaiming Spring’s arrival, my skin pink with the rosiness 

of an hour spent on the patio, not asleep but awake 

and dreaming, dreaming.  

Copyright @Stacie Eirich April 23, 2024

I’ll have another new poetry book review, of You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World up at the end of the month. Edited and Introduced by our current U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón, I’m already enjoying it! Look for the review on my YouTube channel. 

Check out National Poetry Month resources here: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month

Read the April 2024 issue of Poetry Magazine here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/162238/april-2024#toc

Thank you for stopping by my blog today, for reading & listening. 

Happy National Poetry Month, 

💖🌸✍️📚🌷🦋🌳Stacie