Author: Elizabeth Bennefeld

NaPoWriMo APRIL 2022 – a


April is Global/National Poetry Writing Month. Writing a poem a day.

First 7 days of poems

fir trees stand guard at the head 
           of the trail leading to the peak
greening meadows celebrate
           the return of warmth and sunlight
spring melt runoff jumps from rock 
           to rill to laughing mountain streams

[sijo.] copyright © 2022-04-01, by lizl bennefeld.

again I can hear
robins singing from their trees
springtime's dawn

[haiku.] copyright © 2022-04-02, by lizl bennefeld.

late at night
waiting for morning
mourning

[haiku.] copyright © 2022-04-03, by lizl bennefeld.

frost on last year's grass
sleet and snow promised by noon
going into night
        the March lion has taught
        April lambs how to roar and bite

[tanka.] copyright © 2022-04-03, by lizl bennefeld.
[An old English proverb: "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb."]


moonlight on the waves
as far as my eyes can see
pebbles on the shore
        I still hear you whispering
        that you someday will return

[tanka.] copyright © 2022-04-04, by lizl bennefeld.


out in the rainstorm
rooks play "King of the Castle"
laughter and wet wings

[haiku.] copyright © 2022-04-05, by lizl bennefeld.


late at night
thoughts start to wander
down worn paths
     ponder choices...like
     what to think of death

it does not matter
what path thoughts might take
make your choice
     we'll know or we won't...
     trust laughter and love

[micropoetry/tanka pair.] copyright 2022-04-06 by lizl bennefeld.

raindrops on the wind
intermixed with ice and snow
melting as they fall
      wind gusts brush the window panes
      as I fall back into sleep

[tanka.] copyright 2022-04-06 by lizl bennefeld.


passion does not become me, 
       although I stand in stillness
when the mourning doves share their sorrows,
       and my hot tears flow free
I feel the Earth's pulsing heart 
       beat in rhythm with the sea

[sijo.] Copyright © 2022-04-07/08, by Liz Bennefeld.

Warming up for NaPoWriMo 28th

Lighthouse and Storm


April is Global/National Poetry Writing Month. Warming up for writing a poem a day.

watching ocean waves
from atop the lighthouse tower—
softly on the rocks

     make the windows watertight
     firm against late autumn storms

[tanka.] copyright © 2022-03-28, by lizl bennefeld

“Lighthouse And Storm (Explored)” by jarr1520 is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0. (Not modified.)

This poem was posted also at QuiltedPoetry (dot) wordpress (dot) com in response to this week’s #RonovanWrites #haiku writing #challenge.

Warming up for NaPoWriMo 26th


April is Global/National Poetry Writing Month. Warming up for writing a poem a day.

“naming the dead”

we number and name our dead
        those we  have known or knew about 
the lists grow longer with each night
        that passes, each lingering breath
the last breaths that we'll count are ours...
       freed from numbers and the names

Copyright © 2022-03-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.

Note: Also posted to Quilted Poetry blog.

Warming up for NaPoWriMo


April is Global/National Poetry Writing Month. Warming up for writing a poem a day.

bright sunlight
magnified by ice
cold welcome

[haiku.] Copyright © 2022-03-24, by Lizl Bennefeld.


false cobwebs
grey mold on the grass
early spring

[senryu.] Copyright © 2022-03-24, by Lizl Bennefeld.


crisp and clear
not a cloud in sight 
dawn bird song

[haiku.] Copyright © 2022-03-24, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Aside

Looking back over the past few years — the suffocating wildfires and the Covid-19 pandemic — I marvel at the difference that has taken place in terms of my involvement in and passion for seeking out my feelings and creating poetry that might express what I am thinking and feeling. For attempting to see the world from my own viewpoint, rather than relying on the opinions of others.

I think that I am changing. Finding a different focus? Feeling less threatened, perhaps, by the thought of running out of time to do what I have thought was important. But life isn’t like that. It ends when it ends, and what I have done is what I have accomplished. What I have not accomplished, no longer relevant. The world goes on without me, and my “space” fades and disappears as people whose lives I have shared adapt and continue…and the same for each of us in turn. I am not at the center of my world.

The ripples that are now in the stream fade away as the water flows on and mingles with other ripples and currents. Made by Nature or Other or competing forces. The present and the future make their own realities as they travel their own paths. And those paths may end. And it will not be because of anything I have said or done…or because of who or what I am, whoever that might have been or as perceived through others’ senses and minds.

The future will create itself. And I will be…whoever or whatever one becomes as the materials that now constitute myself become other and reform into many other shapes and forms, living things or inert. Detached and reused in their turn. Erosion, regrowth, or nothing at all. Or from stardust to stardust once again.

The days and the years

Poems written by me in a former century

A retrospective

I am in the process of reviewing my folders and notebooks of prose and poetry written between 1956 and the end of the twentieth century. As I get it organized, I think I will copy sections to the blog I recently started. Trying to get things organized a bit.

“The Far Voyage”
By Elizabeth “Lizl” Bennefeld
Inspired by Andre Norton’s The Stars Are Ours (1954)

At rest at last upon a foreign soil
that never knew the step of man before.
beneath the rocket’s fins,
red sand and rock stretch forth
to undergird bright, glistening azure seas.

Beyond their landing place,
up gentle, rolling hills,
far travelers, lost refugees
from Earth’s perpetual wars,
survey vast, untouched fields of grain,
their purple tassels swaying in a breeze
that also brushes golden fruit,
which hangs, sun ripened,
from the bordering trees.

A welcome haven, this new world,
to shelter those who fled in fear
before the waves of senseless hate
for all that’s different,
those who would not bow
to serve untruth or cruelty.

With gathered driftwood,
fires are lit beside a newfound sea,
to warm the bodies and the hearts
of those who now are free.

And as the night descends,
moons race across the sky.
And, one by one, new stars appear
in constellations that will light
new nights, new hopes, new dreams.

Before their weary eyes,
new shapes they seem to see-
a lamb, a dove, an olive-sprig wreath,
all signs of eternal peace.

Are they the promise of a new beginning,
or just a cruel mockery?

My first poem, 1955/56.

this poet’s mind
is like a sponge
it’s empty
under pressure

1967-04-01

when I feel your hands
sweep over me
when I feel you, warm
against me
when I hear you
whispering
I love you
the dream becomes reality
reality, a dream
for just a
moment

1967-06-27

moon beyond the clouds
placed in its path by cold winds
winter’s thin-blown shroud

1967

Vision clouded, noise drifts in
to fill my picture of the world.
The drinks I’ve had don’t isolate,
but merely shift the focus to the sounds…
less easily avoided than the sight.

If I were sober, now,
I’d shut it out—that senseless murmuring
but here I sit, inertia-bound
and listen vainly
for the echoes of my mind.

1970-04-18

April Odds & Ends

too many dreams and
so little time to follow
any to its end

if they don’t bathe in sunlight
daffodils will never bloom

Copyright © 2021/04/30, by Liz Bennefeld.

lying on the sand
looking up at Ocean’s mirror
the rain dropping through
brief remnants of the daylight and
their echoes—the stars and the moons

Copyright © 2021/04/30, by Liz Bennefeld.

TV noise …
I saw it before
Star Trek reruns eternally

Copyright © 2021/04/30, by Liz Bennefeld.

Poems in addition to the ones assigned to April days. Still looking through text files for poems I may have missed along the way.

Liz

 

April to May – NaPoWriMo Day 22

“A Path to Summer”

At the edge of winter
Promises of spring flowers and
Rising temperatures with sunshine,
Ice hangs from the eaves and
Lies in wait, nearly invisible
————-still, that
Makes the daily walk to the mailbox
An exciting dance of life or death
Yet a welcome break in the routine

[acrostic poem.] Copyright © 2021-04-22, by Liz Bennefeld.

Photo by Izzy Park on Unsplash

Transformed – NaPoWriMo Day 21

Truth
Reappears
As the days and hours flow
Night and daylight blend
Sunlight bows to moonlight
Flowers bloom in my imagination
Only to transform themselves
Rest for a time again
Melding reality with impossibilities
All has become new and beautiful
Tied together by love
I rejoice with this new world
Once a barren, endless plain
Now filled with possibilities

[acrostic poem.] Copyright © 2021-04-21, by Liz Bennefeld.

Image by Bessi from Pixabay

Before the snow – NaPoWriMo Day 11

New Leaves

After a dry, breezy week and weekend with yard work and new leaves on the bushes, Monday finds us damp and misty, with light rain and snow from late this afternoon through Tuesday night. Welcome moisture after the dry grass and carrying water in a cup to pour around the emerging wildflower plants.

 
 

new leaves garbed in green
unfold into warm sunlight
despite rising winds

tomorrow night’s soon enough
to doze under falling snow

 
[tanka.] Copyright © 2020-04-11, by Lizl Bennefeld.