Stirling Lake by Margaret A. Dukes 7/28/09

Lying on my back in the lake
feeling the warmth at the top of the thermocline
watching the shiny blue-green tree swallow
zoom low
and the almost indiscernible movement
of layers of cumulus clouds
rise higher
stamps my brain with happiness
to be alive in summer.

Song for the Missing July 7, 2009 Copyright by Margaret A. Dukes

I loved you so for your creativity
acting out the four stages of man
from Shakespeare, pulling the costumes
out of a suitcase for each change.

I loved you for the songs you
wrote but never shared with us
only with your sometime girlfriend
who gave them to us when you died.

All your letters from Vietnam
were in the closet that flooded
but I have them, now moldy
in my basement….a project for

my retirement. You introduced me
to Shurbert’s “Unfinished Symphony”
but claimed I introduced it to you
when I played it for you in the hospital.

I bought you Elton’s John’s Latest album
put it in the portable CD player
placed the earplugs in your ears
then you slept from the morphine.

When you woke up you told me
Elton John was always good.
I miss you now and always.
Remember those games we played:

Our bedrooms across the hall
from each other, we placed
pillows in the hall and leaned
on them to speak to one another.

We called it “Pill Crawl”, our
secret to connect in the middle
of the night when we were supposed
to be sleeping in bed.

Oh brother of mine, Oh
special gem, I sing for you
now and can’t reach the high note
my voice only in lower registers.

Fawns from July 22, 2006

Fawns July 22, 2006 Copyright Margaret A. Dukes

Headlights open the scene

Fawns lie on the lawn

only their heads visible.

Ears twist to the sound

of the car in the driveway.

Rain summers their skin;

Draws me to their silence.


I know when the car door opens

even if I were to tiptoe

they know human danger;

it will send them scatter shot away.

I flick the light off, sit in the dark car,

yearn to join them,

on the slope in the wet grass.

Rules for the Poet copyright Margaret A Dukes 6/28/09

Rules for the Poet 6/28/09 Copyright Margaret A. Dukes


1. Don't ever go anywhere without a pen (a pencil "will do" if pens "are few".)

2 Read and memorize great poets' poems. I am lucky Sister Julius, my high school English teacher made us do that. "When I consider how my light is spent", the time spent memorizing poems was worth it.

3. Walk the path of other poets. "It's full of hazards, as all paths are" but it is the one you must choose before you go down your own.

4. You must praise beginining poets.

5. Collect words, any whose sound you love. They will feed you later. Ratchet, for instance, I haven't used that word in a poem yet, but I will one day.

6. Be still sometimes in the natural world.

7. Live in the spirit of kindness.

8. Find the truth, discover where the first impulse for a poem leads you.

9. Savor the moments when inspiration comes.

10. Keep writing past the pain.

Notes on the rules above.
1. Emily Dickinson XCVII
TO make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,—
One clover, and a bee,
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do
If bees are few.
2. John Milton – “On his blindness” – “When I consider how my light is spent.”
3. John Kennedy – Cuban Missile crisis speech which I memorized when I was in high school, includes the words: "The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our committments here and around the world. The one path we shall never choose and that is the path of surrender or submission."
4. Inspired by Adam Zagazewski refrain – “You must praise the mutilated world.”
5. Pablo Neruda's prose poem THE WORD starts out with this line: “I love words so much I want to fit them all in my poem.”
6. Remember Thoreau
7. Everyone is hungering for kindness and compassion.
8. Robert Frost said something like this, "If you are not surprised by the poem..."
9. Positive psychology findings include the tenet that happiness can be enhanced via “savoring.”
10. Pablo Cruise song, “Love will find a way” includes the words "Once you get past the pain."

Last Call

Last Call June 25, 2006

I threw the phone
across the room
from my prone position
in the bed
after answering
in the middle of the night.

My Mother said
my Brother was dead.
She left for the hospital,
told me later
his body was still warm
when she got there.

In the funeral car,
I threatened suicide,
my Father said,
"I will not bury
another of my children."

Ten months later
he was dead too.
Not by a phone call
did I get the news
but walking into the house
after returning from England
I saw the empty hospital bed
in the middle of the living room.
My sister said, "Sit down."

Success / Failure

I took a note somewhere with this sentence and wonder if anyone can identify where it comes from: "The greatest success is closest to the greatest failure." It strikes me that this is a reason to remain optimistic despite the circumstances in which one finds oneself.

For instance, if you lose your job, it may give you an opportunity to explore a career turn, a variation. such that your next job will play to your strenghts more and you will find you are happier when using your strenghts instead of trying to correct your limitations.

Wendell Berry has said, "Be optimistic even though you have considered all the facts."

The Return

The Return Sept 30, 2006

Where do you go when you
write a poem?
To the green of the field
the blue of the sky
the string of the cello
the back of the throat?

Can you come back
from there
enriched with an aria,
a duet or a chorus?

Find you voice
among the others
strong and clear
and well trained

--letting go
with clear abandon
when you reach the
high note.