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

Bus Rides

One day in December, years ago
I rode the bus to Seattle
down Highway 99 –
along the risky thoroughfare
that sobers and surprises.
Keeping heart and eyes open wide.

The evening ride home gutted me.
Thrusts of visible poverty,
addiction and swollen disease
slumped in a wheelchair, moaning
directly across the aisle.

Riders felt pity, compassion or fear.
Some went numb enough to
keep getting along with their lives.
My seatmate came nearly unglued,
kicking the wheel with “shut up!”,
escaping at the next stop.
At the end of the line,
with no known way to help

I just went home.

The following day, a dam of grief
broke open for that man and all the
human damage I saw throughout the city.
The lament flowed into a lake of desire
for more treks into discomfort.
I told my friend “I really need to go
down there again.” Let’s go, she said.

So that is just what we did,
until the pandemic shut us down.
We E-Lined to town over and over –
in silence, open-handed, wide-eyed,
listening, praying, being with.

Those rides were disquieting gifts
that I really needed.
I still need today.

Denise Meade

~ ~ ~ ~

Ebey’s Landing

I doubt that I will ever see
a finer beach beside the sea ~
one who bears her stones so bold,
whose textured stories new and old
could not in aeons all be told.

Let’s walk for hours or days, you and I.
To our left, the sea and above, blue sky.
To our right, hills rolling sweetly green,
farmlands and flowers clothed in a sheen
creating a most splendid scene.

The tide when low, the sun when out
create the wide path that lovingly shouts
“Come wander, come walk for miles or days,
come amble, come listen, come pray.
Come heed what the hills and the shore,
what God and the sea have to say.

(With acknowledgement of Joyce Kilmer)

Denise Meade

~ ~ ~ ~

Ode to Hummingbirds

For ages I’ve called you
my angel birds
as you seem nearly miraculous.

I suppose you’re no more
miraculous than a beetle,
but I love you so much more!
No other creature
so closely scans my face
in curiosity.

Do you delight in
your tiny wings
as they maneuver the leaves,
making them bow and fan
as you feed?
Your powerful precision
shifts the microcosm.
You drain feeders and flowers,
draw human eyes into
focused wonder.
We attend your
magnificence in awe.

To no avail, I’ve tried to talk
you out of the ongoing
competition with your own kind.
The airdance is spectacular
as you spar and lay
dizzying claim to nectar.
Can’t you just share?
There’s plenty, my teeny friends.

We work hard to keep you as
welcome residents of our yard,
tending our flowers,
filling our feeders,
always thawing them
in frozen months.

Thank you for your presence here,
little angels.
Please tarry. Please stay!

Denise Meade

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Denise Meade has lived in Edmonds for 35 years, where she and her husband have raised and launched four kids, and love being a part of this growing community. An on-again, off-again, very amateur poet since her early teens, she was happy to be warmly welcomed in to the Edmonds Poetry Group a few years ago. She is also an amateur photographer and occasionally puts both creative outlets together, especially as inspired by nature.