Blog - Page 21 of 127 - Liz Garton Scanlon

A Beam of Light: In Honor of Mary Lee Hahn

Posted May 21, 2021

This week is all about celebrating Mary Lee, retiring from teaching after 37 years, after so many lives inspired and touched. Here’s to the days ahead, friend — the days of poetry on the page and on the river. Knowing that the ripple effects of all the good you’ve done will last forever.

This Beam of Light
for Mary Lee Hahn – Poet, Teacher, Flycaster, Friend

Laying the long line upon the water
with such quiet care
it might as well be a beam
of light, a bit of a poetry (just
a few words, just the right ones)
landing as if they’d always been there,
waiting to be plucked up
by a thousand children, hungry
for what’s right in front of them –
the whole world in a drop
of water, barely
making a ripple
on the surface,
but patiently
steadily
faithfully
dropping
way
down
deep.

(Art by Marcus Cline)

#MarvelousMaryLee
#PoemsforMaryLee

Poetry Friday is at Wondering and Wondering today — and you’ll find lots more love for Mary Lee there!

Poetry Project — APRIL 2021

Posted April 30, 2021

The Prompt: To write ‘In the Style Of’ Linda Hogan’s Innocence!

That (exquisite!) poem opens like this:
There is nothing more innocent
than…

I started similarly, and ran with it. My poem is far less lovely and much more annoyed than Hogan’s but, to be fair, hers was an awful lot to live up to for us mortals! Anyway, here goes.

BAMBOO
By Liz Garton Scanlon
After Linda Hogan’s Innocence

There is nothing more determined
than the subterranean shoots
of backyard bamboo, rhizomes advancing
like an electric grid, like an army,
disregarding fences and foundations.
There is no compromise, no working it out
or slowing it down, no way to say
what was determined now feels
aggressive to me, I feel
attacked

because as soon as I speak
or take to the soil with hoe or pick axe
another culm emerges, soft as grass
nearly the same green as a caterpillar
and exactly as tender.
I forget, just that quickly,

that culms become stalks, hollow and wooden.
In the face of that windswept tenderness,
I forget, forgive, relax –
a whole determined world beneath my feet.