Circling

In memory of Aaron Havenga (April 2, 1975 ~ November 20, 1994)

Pure joy

radiates from his face

at age four, as he spins

in his circle of life.

Making a small, round wave

in Lake Michigan

that still reaches me,

still touches me.

I've been circling 

for decades

into the future

without him.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Pentwater State Park - Pentwater, Michigan

Photo by Mary Havenga © 1979

 

Power of Words

 

I believe in the power of words

to awaken our slumbering souls.

The inexpressible joy 

at the birth of your child.

The shattering, shocking blow

at the tragic loss of your child.

The depth of desire

in a sincere, meaningful love.

The loyal contentment

of a trustworthy marriage.

The dependable certainty

from a reliable faith.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Arriving

 

Have you allowed time

to blossom in your memories?

Recalling the precious moments

when you felt alive and real?

Bringing your quiet past

into a shared life of joy.

 

Writing poems can do this.

In the gardens of your mind.

The words are always arriving, 

ready to bloom.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Luton Park - Rockford, Michigan 

(Orange Butterflyweed) 

Yellowing

 

April is leaning forward,

greeting the arrival of spring

with patient exuberance.

Yellowing these warmer days

with happy thickets of Forsythia,

and  Daffodils trumpeting with joy.

© 2024 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Home Garden - Cannonsburg, Michigan

2. Home Road - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Thomas Merton

"There is in all things an inexhaustible  sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from unseen roots of all created being."

~ Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968) 


Photo Location:

Grand Teton National Park - Moose, Wyoming

Must Be Present to Win

If the growing light of dawn
is what awakens birds,
how can this mystical light
be translated into words?

Indigo Bunting

Each of your precious days begin
with unlimited potential to hear
these exquisite, elegant birdsongs;
please be present, draw near.

© 2016 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Grand Teton National Park - Wyoming

2. Indigo Bunting - Cannonsburg State Game Area - Cannonsburg, Michigan 

Hope

Photo Location:

Rocky Mountain National Park ~ Colorado 

Found Poetry

Often, when I'm reading prose, (usually creative non-fiction, and nature-related essays) I discover during the re-reading, that some sentences and passages sound very much like poems. I know this is nothing remarkable to writers and readers, but it happens with such frequency in my reading, that I've decided to begin a new category at my blog and call it:

"Found Poetry"

My first example comes from one of the best non-fiction writers of the past few decades; an author in the top five of my all-time list of favorites. Her name is Diane Ackerman.

The following passage is from Dawn Light (Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day) by Diane Ackerman. 

"Then the canvas of our awareness fills with a vastness so ancient, astonishing, and visceral that we can neither understand nor turn away from it because it speaks a dialect of bone, whispers through our cells with revelry and relief about the joy of finding oneself alive, again, on one more morning, as night sails off, replaced by a floating world of color and birdsong." - p. 51

Dawn Light - © 2009 Diane Ackerman

Fragments of Poetry 14

"When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird.

When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf."

Excerpt from: "Prayers and Sayings of a Mad Farmer" 
- New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry  (Wendell Berry) p. 149  © 2012



You may also enjoy other "Fragments of Poetry" by:

William Stafford - December 16, 2012, and Mary Oliver - August 18, 2012



Photo Locations:

1. Wood Thrush - Home Woods

2. Sugar Maple leaf - Fallasburg Park  (Fallasburg) Page Creek , Kent County, Michigan

3. Silver Maple leaf - Grand River, (Grand) Kent County, Michigan (Michigan) 

In the Present

I'm taking my time,
entering the present,
allowing the nature
of my surroundings
to gather gently,
drift in slowly,
like the soft glow 
of restful luminosity.

I inhale deeply 
the favored scent
of Ponderosa Pine;
the bark and needles
warmed by afternoon sun.

Quieting myself,
the chorus of birdsong
becomes more noticeable;
amplifying the joy
inside my soul.

Like a silvery veil of rain
drifting over distant foothills,
and nourishing the pines,
I bathe in the shower of words
offered by the Holy Spirit.

I am moved by sight, scent, and sound,
and a sense of his presence within.

© 2014 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. & 4. Tin Cup, Colorado (Colorado)

2. Rocky Mountain National Park, (RMNP) Colorado

3. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan (Michigan)