As part of the Arts Council of Ladysmith and District’s Love Project, the Waterfront Gallery asked writers and students to share poetry, which is now displayed downtown in the Royal LePage window until Feb. 15. The art’s council asked if the Chronicle would print some of the work. I happen to be a big fan of poetry and loved the idea. Inspired by the project, I decided to include one of my own poems on the page.
-Tyler Hay, Ladysmith Chronicle editor
Ladysmith: Gratitude 2
I run to the marina to be mesmerized
by jellyfish, and to forget
I may forever come home
to an empty house.
There is Syria and violence,
hunger and political scandal,
and I do nothing about these matters,
captivated by my petty griefs.
Eighteen visceral months
since a man’s professed love,
and me with my pathetic need
to hold another warm hand,
to be whispered to across a pillow.
I have no commerce, no potentiality.
Fridge bare but for dead-fallen apples
donated by friends.
And who could understand this planet
of no small desire,
or the joy found in valentines
masquerading as maple leaves.
Easy to blind facts of profound importance:
even the ragged moments are beautiful.
-Shelley A. Leedahl, from her upcoming collection, Go, (Radiant Press, spring 2022)
What Is Good
Wednesday afternoon hikes with Rachel,
who lives, as I do, in awe
of even the smallest wonders: sprays of grass
that end in star-flowers.
Pine scents. Ravens, and the birds we guess
through the memory-pull of song.
The multi-coloured salmonberries. Plucking season.
Appetizer before the full blush of blackberries.
Arbutus, peeling one page at a time.
They say Red. They say West Coast. They understand
that if I could paint, my life
would be altogether different.
It is good to sit on a ledge above the town
that is above the ocean. We point at islands
and hear nothing but tree-bones.
Silver lichen is good. And the rainbowed tinder fungus.
Also salamanders, remembering Slippery. Manifesting rain.
-Shelley A. Leedahl, from her upcoming collection, Go, (Radiant Press, spring 2022)
Springtime
(for Ruth)
Springtime, warm, not hot,
Moist, not humid, night.
Sings back to me
Of a grassy, blanketed hillside.
Clothed only in moonlight;
Her long, long hair shimmering
Down her shoulders like poem.
Everything that is
Loveliness
Wrapped carefully in an embrace.
Floating gently on that dream,
I smile.
-Jim Bearden
Patio Umbrella
That first warm spring day,
I opened the umbrella,
and a bat flew out:
the most shocking thing I’d seen
until I read your letter.
-Anita Kess
Your Poet’s Complaint
Should this poem not please you well
Think the fault yours not mine
Your beauty was too great a burden
A poet’s skill to reflect in line
And if I chose your image instead to make
The end would be the same
Since to measure your grace and light
Can neither brush nor pen
So if my syllables limp across the page
Or my brush upon your face some flaw betray
It is because by vain desire
I have of sweet defeat the taste
Since I wanted you to be today
My Aphrodite both in print and paint
-John Edwards
Rainy Day Sonnet
A rainy day reminds us why we love;
company comes easy on summer eves;
but when buckets pour, we must rise above
endless days as our time falls with the leaves.
Wherefore the sunshine be her gentle eyes
when water like tears flow on windowpanes
the sun, like a misguided poet lies;
she is my warmth with all about in chains.
The world slowed today to a dreary stall,
but she and I lay too and could not care
if we never move; keep us in these walls
to waste the days, and be a happy pair.
Rainy days remind us why we must love
in dark hours you do not care to speak of.
-Tyler Hay
A Song
A song is like a place in time,
A moment caught, eddies in the mind.
A lifetime spent, what things had meant.
Flights of fancy, winging in on
A tune they’re sent; ending with a rhyme.
-Jim L. Bearden