ODES TO THINGS, 2 poems, ODE TO A PENCIL, ODE TO MY WATER FLASK(Hammer)

ODE TO A PENCIL

Pencil, you are a ray of golden sun 

blazing in a field of unripe corn.

You are the wheat bending in the breeze

waiting for an artist to come along,

say, van Gogh, with his bundle of tools, 

to waken from his siesta 

beneath the haywain

and immortalize it in a painting

before he lends an ear 

to his old friend, Gauguin.

Pencil, you are a place 

where blackbirds and crows 

patrol the hedgerows like shadows,

and you whisper secret words 

to the ears of corn 

patiently listening in the field.

Your eraser, pink as a newborn dawn,

does not diminish your mighty voice.

I love the piney scent trapped 

within your Ticonderoga 

cedar heartwood—

it speaks of pungent forests 

on steep mountain slopes, 

where a conjunction of rivers 

stitches its way to the sea.

if I were to squander your stories, 

you might lie fallow, 

not plowing the empty fields 

in the siege of my mind,

losing me on graphite trailheads,

or leading me deeper into the wilderness.

Pencil, you are a fortress of thought.

And your stories, immortal as time,

are merely hibernating, 

waiting for another day, 

perhaps a day that never comes,

or for a night that never ends.

ODE TO MY WATER FLASK

You are the magenta sequence

of the last shuddering throes 

of the fiery sunset, 

you are the turquoise of the sea,

and inside you are round as a thought,

and dark as night, perhaps 

even the full moon sleeps inside you.

You are a brisk mountain stream

for you hold cool, clear water, 

more precious than life itself. 

Ancient artesian wells 

and underground rivers 

were your immortal ancestors.

Sweet stalagmites in dark caves 

pointed to the secret depths 

of darkness and serpentine 

passageways leading to the sea

where clouds on the horizon 

are laden with the promise 

of distant rain, perhaps

pondering the mystery

of a squall far out to sea.

5/27/20

Class poems for Hammer Montessori ES