Found Poetry 4

Often, when I'm reading prose, (usually creative non-fiction and nature-related essays) I discover during the re-reading, that certain passages sound very much like poems. I know this is nothing remarkable to writers and discerning readers, but it occurs frequently in my reading. This is my fourth example of "Found Poetry"...

"For our soul's health, we need to take -- or make -- these moments of stillness, when we can let the world of nature, and of nature's Creator, speak to us in our interior world."
~ Luci Shaw  

from: Water Lines New and Selected Poems © 2003


Photo Location:

Sierra Vista, Arizona


You may also enjoy:

Found Poetry 3 ~ December 9, 2019

Found Poetry 2 ~ October 3, 2016

Found Poetry ~ May 18, 2015

Path Through the Leaves

I found these old words
fallen from familiar trees 
and saved them here
to be surprised in the future.

Like years of autumn leaves
pressed into the pages
of the silent books
that wait on my library shelves.

A broad Sugar Maple leaf
preserved in soft yellow
somewhere inside
William Stafford's work.

A two-lobed Sassafras leaf,
the left-handed one,
flattened on the Michigan page
of my Rand McNally.

And American Beech, my favorite,
gathered in early November;
veins precisely pinnate,
perfect for bookmarks within:

Mary Oliver, Luci Shaw,
Dan Gerber, and David Lee;
to be discovered years later,
they mark my place in time.

Hoping what I've found
will not be lost,
but saved within
the pages of books.

To recall once again
the seasons of life,
my journey with words,
my path through the leaves.

© 2019 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1, 2, 3. Home Library

4. 5. Home Woods

6. Grattan Township - Kent County - Michigan

7. Fallasburg Park - Kent County - Michigan

Book Rock

In Memory of Mary Oliver (1935 ~ 2019)

When I remove this special rock
from the shoulder of the mountain,

and during the descent,
feel its weight inside my pack,

I picture it displayed
on my library shelf.

Or,

I may use its weight to hold open
a book of poems I'm reading

by Mary Oliver, William Stafford, 
Jane Kenyon, Ted Kooser,
Luci Shaw, or Dan Gerber, ...

as I sit on the bank
of this rocky river,
thinking about its source.

© 2019 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. & 2. Home Library - Cannonsburg, 

3. Elk River - Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Fragments of Poetry 18

"But see,
over there, like a
green wound in the shoulder
of the hill, like a new patch
in the quilt,
blazes a square of quite
improbable emerald.
With what audacity
the bright velvet assaults
our autumn senses:
each blade a reversal
of seasons, its upstart shoot
flagging the brief sun bursts,
the sap juicing to its tip,
ready, now, in November,
for the new year!"

~ from: "Winter Wheat" by Luci Shaw in Polishing the Petoskey Stone © 1990  p.125

You may also enjoy: 

Fragments of Poetry 16 - September 29, 2016

Fragments of Poetry 15 - February 8, 2016


Photo Locations: Oakfield Township - Kent County, Michigan 

Fragments of Poetry 15

"How astonishing it is
when some floating sense of exaltation
or desperation sharpens into
a phrase that bursts uninvited,
into consciousness, ... and soon
this little jewel of a thing is born
and grows up to be a poem."

~ Luci Shaw - from: What the Light Was Like © 2006



You may also enjoy:

Fragments of Poetry 14 ~ October 24, 2014

Fragments of Poetry 12 ~ February 12, 2014

Fragments of Poetry 9 ~ May 9, 2013


Jewelweed - Impatiens pallida~ Photography by Richard Havenga