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SPRING SHOWER
The air is gently graying
Birds call the rain
Grass reaches up
Trees gently wave.
The wind sighs
A screen door rattles nervously
Curtains billow
And the first drop plops upon the pavement
April 73
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SWEET INNOCENT
Soft sapling greens and yellows
Blue
sky
Mirrors
a robin’s egg
Billowing
springtime clouds
And
buffing breezes.
Spirit soaring
With expectation
Vibrant muscles ready for the challenge
Dear God
Let fate be kind
May 73
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NIPISSING MYSTERY
Insane
namesake of the cold
northern moon
Wailing
the depths
of
mystery
Distant
epochs
beyond
man’s ken
To the virginal tangled underbrush
Where
brooding mate
Attends
and echoes
Down the centuries of evolution
Call
call
call
and
echoing call
Til’ the
Mesmerized moon
Shivers.
Diane Kemp
Jan 74
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NEW SPONGE
Smell
of a distant shore
Salt, seaweed, sodden wood
Washed
by constant tides
Upon a pebbled beach.
Screaming, sweeping gulls
Aflight
at drizzle’s edge,
As I print
My search
Among
the treasures
Of
the shore.
Feb 74
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TAKAKA FALLS
Takaka River proudly throws
her
foaming water
out
over
the precipice
for
the admiring sun
Then lets it drop
Thundering
onto
a rocky outcrop
to
bounce again
high
into
the sunlight
Exploding white blossoming clouds
of spray
and smoky mist.
The cliff face sweats
Straining to hold the avalanche
and
tiny rivulets race along
unable
to keep up
June
74
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LAKE LOUISE
Flashing bright to black
in
turquoise moods
Grandeur sends her arboreal army
marching
on the hills
Intent upon the heights of rock still bare
And
all around the mountain giants preen
Their massive ridg’d
cliff faces
Spilling gravel to their feet
Amid the tenuous junipers
While further down the lake in valley crags
The silent, sun caught glaciers wait
their
narcissistic spring.
June 74
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LAKE
NIPISSING
Nipissing is always blue and grey
Rocks and reeds and crying gulls
And drizzle.
I’ve heard of late September evenings
Swept with flickering colour,
Of summer smiling in the waves
In cool and quiet reaches
Where silver pickerel
Laze the afternoon.
I’ve heard that otters slide along the bank
Beyond
the white birch copse
And brilliant blue jays scream at breakfast
As busy tugs shunt logs across the lake.
But Nipissing
Was
always blue and grey
When
I was there
Sept.
74
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THE ROAD TO LYNX LAKE
Slanted maple trees in uniforms
of
green and grey
press
struggling
up the hill
Beside an open wound
of
earth and stone
And on the heights
The older trees with waving arms
Entreat
The
strugglers on
Promising honors yet to come
When watched with awe
They’ll
troop
The
regimental colours, scarlet
Gold
and green
Across the autumn hills.
May
75
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COMING SPRING
Magnolias swell
Voluptuous buds and daffodils incline
Their heads
Forsythia fires blaze and grass
Is thick and damp.
Now a month’s fecundity
Calls forth the cherry tree’s white veil
The apple blossom’s blush
And combs the heady breeze of spring
Laden sweet with pollen.
Pressed against the earth she feels
The overwhelming wonderment
The loneliness
That knows this springtide month
Has passed her by.
May 75
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MUSKOKA MORNING
The day began uncertain
Grey clouds and water pondering each
other
The
clouds held back the morning sun
Weighing
all the options
Brooding thoughts of rain.
But
now
The
lake is rippling
The clouds are stretching high and thin.
Embarrassed
with her tardiness
The sun is busy drawing up
the
moisture from the grass
To make another
gorgeous
day.
June 75
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LYNX LAKE
My canvas
can
be any scrap of paper
For I’m the one
that
paints with words.
Today
I’ll lay a wash of early May
upon
a lake
That’s
silent with the sound of loons
I’ll set white threads of birch
along
the shore
Amid
the spikes of pine
And wash a haze of early green
across
the hills
That fade to distant
blue.
June 75
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AUTUMN PRELUDE
The deepening summer
etches
shadow patches
in the trees
Squirrels watch and frogs are stilled.
Now the quiet,
Now
soft and soughing breezes
whisper
on the hills
Humming
a velvet prelude
To
fall’s fantasia
When
woodwinds breathe in bronze
and
orange vibrance
Cellos
surge in saffron sweeps and cymbals
Crash
In reds that rend the
hills.
August 76
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NOVEMBER
Autumn colours faded
To November’s peace in browns
And greys
That settle on the hills,
Subtle shadings of a year at rest.
Pallid yellows
Hold the day’s brief sun
Of memories in meditation
Awaiting
Winter’s sleep.
Nov. 76
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DAWN’S
POEM
High
above the river
Upstream over Mallorytown
a
line of geese
flies penciled in the sky
Against
the thin stretched April clouds.
Suspended in the shifting
wind
The struggling line
takes
voice
And
calls the sound of northern muskeg,
rivers thick
with reeds
Cool summer’s banquet on the flats
of Hudson’s
Bay
‘Til
overhead
the many throated
echo of Precambrian wilds
In powered raucous flight
pounds rhythms
of sedition
On the drumhead
of my Saxon constancy.
April 78
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SEPTEMBER MORNING
Autumn’s truest days
Are wet and warm
With mist along the morning lowlands
lush with fruit
Among the dying weeds.
A noontime sun can burn the mist
But now
The morning talks of winter
And I must drink
The muted colours on the hills
Before I put away the summer
For another year.
Sept.78
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JULY
Capricious springtime’s
Urgent blossomed hues
Lie remnant
After June’s
Lush summer storms,
Green silver
Shades of certainty
Embrace a sated vibrancy;
The sun is high,
The breeze is warm
And earth’s abundance swells.
July
80
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WAITING AUGUST
A chain saw whines staccato
in
the woods
The breeze is nervous
Across the lake black, silent stands
of
pine
Gather the last of August’s
sleep
Before
the autumn marches
Down
from Baffin Island
In triumph
Keeping
the woods awake
at
night
With call of geese
And
shivering
Northern
lights
Aug
. 75
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