Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group.

For the Faces I Will Never See

Christmas 2020

Long stretches of handling the hooks*
with rhythmic certainty
seamlessly moving forward on a row
occasionally looking up at a movie
seen before many times
(knowing which scene is coming)
sometimes losing track
of the sequencing cadence
or noticing the row does not look right,
counting, counting, ripping out,
saying a word not safe for work,
re-reading instructions
then back on track,
finishing the main pattern
and refining the border—
the final step—until
done at last!

For the faces I will never see,
you bundled newborns in other arms,
my love goes out to you.
I imagine my yarn
chucked against your chin,
but that is where my story ends.
Wear it well
and pay it forward
for children of your own
if you can.

*Crochet

Dave Baldwin

~ ~ ~ ~

Owl Love

Sometimes on my morning run,
I hear the call and response
of two owls.
They move around,
never in the same place twice,
but I know who they are
because the smaller of the two
is one white note higher
on the keyboard,
and each has a pitch
always the same.
No one owl initiates the call
every time.
They take turns.
The 2-hoot call is followed
by a two-Mississippi wait
for the 2-hoot response,
then they take 15 seconds
to think about it
before the next exchange.
I imagine both
are saying the same thing:
“I am yours.
I am here for you.”

Dave Baldwin

~ ~ ~ ~

Childhood Memories

Memories of my childhood
are hopelessly corrupt.
Facts are elusive.
The core event may stay the same,
protruding like a stone
in a turquoise tidal pool,
but ancillary facts appear,
disappear, reappear,
and shape-shift over time.

Facts are fleeting,
but feelings are forever
and absolutely incorruptible.
Memories are not unlike
the garden-variety dream
where the main takeaway
is not the inscrutable plot,
but the emotion I am feeling
when I awake.

Dave Baldwin

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dave Baldwin retired in 2017 from the Walt Disney Company after more than 40 years as a technical writer and editor. He lives in Lake Stevens.