The latest submissions for Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group.

 

Fall Colors

Autumn is a time of freedom,

a time to step out of the box,

a time for trees to stand up and be noticed,

a time to disregard subtleties,

 

a time to change nature’s social order!

 

a time for trees to escape from the monochromatic nightmare and boredom

of ubiquitous surly green leaves,

 

a time for a wardrobe change!

 

a time for tree leaves to sport fashionable colors: sunlit crimsons, tangerine tinged golds, and caramel apple browns,

 

a time of glorious pageantry,

 

a time for autumn’s chill to smugly turn a cold shoulder to the languishing presence of summer,

 

in the waning moments of the season, trees remember that autumn is their only

ally,

a staunch supporter of fall colors right to exist,

 

as the onslaught of winter cavalierly enslaves the landscape and stealthily sliences woodland voices,

 

a solitary leaf still flush with color lies stoically upon

freshly fallen snow.

Gerald M. Bigelow

~ ~ ~ ~

They Came in Droves

 

They came in droves to visit my Grandfather,

sun-ripened in California, but all sprouted

some place else

 

well dressed in gabardine, with subdued flowered shirts,

Panama hats in summer,

sharply creased felts at other times

 

sometimes they came on Saturday afternoons,

often, early on Friday evenings,

 

always respectful, always laughing,

hand-rolled Cuban cigars ritually lit upon entering

the front door,

 

they always retired to the kitchen where my Great-grandmother lingered,

all conversation waited patiently for her departure,

as if by magic, shot glasses appeared in each well-manicured hand,

some filled with Four Roses, others filled with Old Crow,

 

my dog and I always watched silently from the service porch,

listening as the dominoes slapped (lively) on the table,

taunting one another as only friends can do,

 

the light in the kitchen grew brighter as the hour got later,

I never knew who won those games or how those stories ended,

I never even figured out who kept putting me to bed,

must have been Uncle Big Boy with his Havana stogie

and his stuttering laugh,

 

the next day I always asked my dog to tell me,

how the stories ended, who won those games,

and where the glasses of whiskey came from,

 

but all I ever figured out was,

they came in droves to visit my Grandfather.

Gerald M. Bigelow

~ ~ ~ ~

Gerald Bigelow is a retired aerospace IT Executive. Previously published in the Arizona Centennial Anthology and in Between the Lines, he is a board member for EPIC Group Writers and chairs a monthly poetry group. He edited and contributed to Soundings from the Salish Sea (A Pacific Northwest Poetry Anthology).

In 2019, he was selected to read his poetry with the Washington State Poet Laureate.He helped establish a bi-monthly Poet’s Corner featurette in My Edmonds News to showcase the work of local poets.He has a new book of poetry on Amazon entitled “Memories Looking Through a Screen Door”.

The EPIC Poetry Group has been in existence for four years. It is open to the members of the public (free of charge) who are interested expressing and improving their poetry writing skills. The group meets the second Tuesday of the month at the Edmonds Library from 6-7:45 p.m.