Richard Robbins, The Oratory of All Souls

Looking for the Man in a Field

Would the man stand at the end of a knife, the turned-up head of cauliflower.

Would the man wipe sweat from his face, fold a red handkerchief for his pocket.

Would he sit in the dust and shade beside his truck and laugh between bites of a sandwich.

Would he whistle as long as the tractor starts.

Would the man say a rosary for each row of grapes or lettuce.

Would the man curse or befriend the sun.

Would he become the movement of an arm, a leg.

Would he think himself some other place, on a front walk where Marisol, Peter, where even Hector the good dog would greet him after the light had failed.

Would the man burn to nothing like morning fog in the rows.

Would the man leave his shadow there.

Would he walk back out of darkness like a ghost or like dawn.

Would any word he is saying come from the dark, the light, or the vine.

Did it find the man in the field.

Did he and the field move inside each other until the word found his tongue.

Further details

Kelly Sargent, Seeing Voices:Poetry in Motion

Rumors of Spring

An empty checkered vase rests on the shelf,

dusty and long abandoned. 

You once were a bud,

and I held you.

Though divine in design

and regal in intention,

you sipped water from modest, tiny roots;
an unkept promise. 

Even near sunlight 

you lived in a shadow,

dependent upon movements of 

hands on a clock.
 

Until,

a nascent meadow revealed itself   

beyond our paned window,

cradling twins of another kind. 

You tentatively took leave,

and found your place. 

Sunlight illuminated you

and struck you luminescent. 

I watched you play in teal-tinted rains

and marveled as your auburn hair 

absorbed autumn’s last dusk.

You were named as nature had promised. 

And soon, 

with rumors of spring made real,

You 

bloomed. 

Further details

Ram Krishna Singh, Poems and Micro Poems

Here and Now

I don’t deify poets or politicians

nor trade in faith for bread

I don’t sell gods and goddesses

spirit is not my profession

nor do I give moral discourse

for life in the next world

I am a man like millions

who dream struggle and die

and nobody mourns

my drifty silence

hidden in darkness

flecks of light

enough to weigh down

here and now

Further details