The Freeing Wind

Trapped inside by this humid haze

My thoughts, a foggy slug

Dullness is the drink of the day,

—I can barely breathe!

—I can barely move!

and I don’t care if I do either…

But, then a cool breeze starts to play

among the leaves in my backyard,

and dappled sunlight does a dance

on the surface of the deck and table

igniting just a little spark of life in me.

Suddenly the trees begin to sway

they clap their hands as Wind blows

all the humidity away!

I turn the roaring air conditioner off!

Flinging windows wide,

I let the Wind inside!

Now the sounds of Nature fill my ears

My thoughts, my mind becoming clear,

I just need to go outside it seems,

And awaken from these lethargic dreams!

~Kathie Adams Brown (September 9, 2015)

Summer Sunday Morning in Maine

I wake to the scent of the salty sea
Black-capped chickadees call to me,
Morning fog floats on the bay,
sea gulls call and fly away,
This is my life on the coast of Maine
where no two days are ever the same.

~Kathie Adams Brown (August 30, 2015)

The Fog of Summer

The damp days of summer,

The green and the gray,

The wet grass on bare feet,

fog rolling across the lawn in gossamer curtains.

I feel a chill in the air,

The harbinger of change—a hint

of Autumn in late July.

There are more summer days ahead,

filled with sunshine, sand, and warmth.

There are waves to ride and sandcastles to build, but

always the winter chill

barks like a dog on a chain

tied up at the back of the barn

where I try to forget him,

and hope I will silence him with starvation.

But he will bide his time and grow strong again.

One day he will break his chain

and glide over the north county in his loping stride

bringing ice on his breath

and snow in his fur

to banish the summer sun

and the autumn plenty.

He carries hunger in his belly

and gobbles up hope.

~Kathie Adams Brown (July 20, 2015)

Summer Rain

I just want to sit and listen to this rain

I want to turn off the manmade world and let Nature sooth my soul.

The repeated phrases of a vireo’s song are dripping from the trees.

Tufted titmice, gray as this stormy sky, scold and call from foliage

embracing me like verdant arms.

This summer rain in the north woods is a lovely place to be;

If the earth is my mother, then,

I am snuggling into her breast

and listening to her beating heart,

and this rain is not the sound of weeping but,

a soothing lullaby.

~Kathie Adams Brown (July 1, 2015)

It is You I know

We are old in our love

on a Saturday morn

We have lived a long time together

We move in a smooth dance

through these familiar rooms,

all the steps memorized

from years of practice

even as we change and grow

It is You I know.

Kathie Adams Brown (March 14, 2015)

Happy Anniversary, Gus!

A Spring Evening in Maine

I stood in the misty green at dusk

and heard the cuckoo’s call,

in the dark green woods

the pewee’s song

rang through the glittering trees,

overhead a flock of waxwings

went zinging across the sky,

and there in this tranquil, greening spring,

Here in this misty dark I stand,

Content.

~Kathie Adams Brown (June 4, 2014)

Spring Haze

Moving down the road

Like a bird in flight

Colors flashing by

Sprinkled with sunlight

All becomes a blur

Whizzing quickly by me

In a flowered haze

Of blossoms and new leaves

Lavender and gold

Chartreuse green and lime

Cranberry red maple blooms

Set against the pines

All against a sky

Of blue beyond all blues,

While woolly clouds scamper

Over all these brilliant hues

I find the springtime haze

Makes me feel so high

It sets my mind aflame,

It makes me feel alive!

~Kathie Adams Brown (May 19, 2015)

Not the best artwork, but I was having fun!

My Child

It is a terrible love

this fierce mother’s love I feel,

for my child.

She does not understand it,

my childless daughter,

she cannot comprehend how I feel,

or why

I would go to the ends of the earth for her,

I would fight to the death for her,

I would suffer any pain for her,

and wash her soul in healing tears.

She is my daughter.

She is my child.

That’s all.

And that’s everything.

~Kathie Adams Brown ( April 16, 2015)

Happy Mother's Day

The River and the Bridge

Down by the ancient river

Its silver boards shine with the age of time

clear water trips over river stones

chattering merrily as it goes

beneath the covered bridge.

Is this new water or old

flowing over these stones?

Does it remember Time

and all that has happened here,

before there was a bridge,

before there was a road,

before there was a forest?

Does this water remember the glacier it came from,

or when this bridge was built?

How many horses and buggies passed over

before cars came this way

sputtering exhaust into blue sky

proclaiming a new way and a new day?

Are the bridge and river friends

or enemies in an endless battle?

Does the river want to be free?

Does the bridge want to hang on just a little longer?

This bridge is a tie to the past

and a road to the future.

This river is the measure of Time

And the depository of memories,

Life Blood to the world.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 29, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 /30 Poems in 30 Days

Prompt 28: Bridges

I Just Want to be Outside

I have been so busy

The words bottled up inside

Like a dam

Built across my brain,

Holding back the tide

Bogged down by responsibilities,

I am lost inside

I must be outside to find release,

I must be outside to find my peace,

I need to go outside,

to find my inner calm,

I just want to be outside!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 25, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

Questions by the Restless Sea

Standing on the silver shore

by the shining sea

Seabirds fly

and seabirds dive,

Like thoughts inside of me

as ocean waves toss and roll

so my heart heaves inside:

Will I go or, will I stay

Here by this restless tide?

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 27, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

A Seaside Goodbye to My Son

It was just a

walk to the bay, where

silver water shines, and

steel wool clouds cover the sky

perfumed with the scent of the salty sea,

today it is the fragrance of parting.

You are my son,

Tall man and strong,

I see my son,

I see my boy,

in the man you have become.

I am content with who you are.

My heart swells like the sea,

inflated by this tide of love,

these few moments together

before you fly away from me again,

a free bird.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 25, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

No Time to Write

I do not have time to write a poem,

To do it I need to be alone,

It has been such a busy week,

I’ve had no time for what I seek!

The words and images just won’t come to me,

No metaphors or similes,

I’ll have to write another day,

When words and I have time to play!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 25, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

Hallelujah Forest

I've been waiting for the music of this dark night,

warm on an evening in April

Spring peepers singing from dark, wet woods,

vernal pools alive

with the Rites of Spring

I stand in the darkness listening

as the chorus swells and fills the air

rising like a tide from the forest—

Handel's Hallelujah,

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy,

this is the music I hear

in this woodland cathedral,

rising from the vernal pools

with croaking voices singing,

and all the peepers peeping,

Majestic voices of

Amphibian Angels.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 16, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

Nana's House

The white Victorian on the edge of the green

gingerbread lace hanging from the eaves

veranda on the corner

neatly tucked in.

Enter through the red front door

you are welcomed,

wrapped in love, embraced by time,

these old things that once were hers:

that old rug, faded and worn,

that certain floorboard that squeaks and sets the tea cups rattling

in the china cupboard

when you pass by.

There is her rocker, empty now but still, I hear its distant music.

I know the yellow paint is peeling off the kitchen walls,

and views out these windows are wobbly from antique glass panes,

but, this room holds her presence,

—cooking at the stove

—feeding grandpa at the old gray Formica table

—preparing holiday dinners

—grading student papers in the evening.

Nana’s house is where we gathered

as a family clan so many years ago.

Now everyone has moved on

far and wide and involved

In their own lives

Yet we all have threads trailing behind us

and tying us back

to this old Home.

 ~Kathie Adams Brown (April 13, 2014)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

The Vanity of the Smug

You would not think a man would be shot

For a simple broken taillight.

You would not think a police officer would

shoot a man in the back in cold-blooded murder.

I did not know that broken taillights and running away in fear

were crimes punishable by death

and carried out by one man

as judge, jury and executioner, but

apparently in some parts of this country this is so,

especially if the officer is white

and the person who was murdered commits the crime

of being poor and black.

And the Smug Man Stands

over the dead man with his hands on his hips

and a shield on his breast,

and lies once again.

But this time,

This Time

His shield does not protect!

His shield does not keep him from the consequences of his lie,

because of an ordinary man

and his video camera

Which records the truth

and reveals the lie.

And a nation rises up and says, NO MORE!

And the people rise up and scream, NO MORE!

I do not want to see what I see.

I do not want to believe what I see.

I want to turn away.

I do not want to watch that man being gunned down.

I want to turn the channel and see something nice.

But therein lies the problem.

We need to LOOK!

WE need to see!

We need to see IT!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 10, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30  Poems in 30 Days

I Don't Know Whether

I don’t know whether

It’s the weather

That moves me to wrote poetry,

Or moves me to climb a tree!

If I had some feathers

I would not mind the weather.

I could perch outside in a tree,

Or fly above the canopy!

And I would not wonder whether

It would be snow, or rain, or sunny weather,

I’d just take flight with all my feathers

In whatever weather!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 10, 2015)

National Poetry Writing Month/ 30 Poems in 30 Days 2015

Monday Morning Aubade on a Spring Day in Maine

You wake me and I bandage your toe,

me in my night gown, you already dressed,

I put my glasses on, and shake cobwebs from my brain.

It’s a cold, mostly gray, spring day,

and the sparrows are filling the yard with song.

With my brief glance out the picture window that overlooks the bay

I see the tide slipping out.

It is as if a great silvery silk curtain

with eiders embroidered on its surface

is slowly and steadily being drawn back.

But back to your toe, the infected one,

I clean and bandage it

You dress your feet,

We have a brief embrace at the kitchen door,

then off you go to work

as the lemony sun slides up from the horizon only to disappear

in the shrouded sky,

while I grab my pen to write.

This is our morning good-bye—a tender routine after 38 years.

Tomorrow the details will be different, but the love will be the same.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 6, 2015)

aubade-music suitable to greeting the dawn or morning; a song about two lovers parting at dawn.

Prompt 6 from the NaPoWriMo / 30 Poems in 30 Days website

At Last

At last the warm air drifted in

after a long, cold and bitter winter

a day when birds landed in droves

and fresh warm air filled the land.

I, breathing the scent of that warmth,  

cast off my chores for the day,

and stayed outside.

All day.

It was as if I had been released from a long imprisonment.

I walked through mud that sucked at my shoes.

I listened to the trickle of melting snow as it formed puddles around me.

The music of song sparrows drifted over the wet, melting earth

—a song of joy to me!

And then in the evening, as dusk settled like a fawn to the ground,

the peenting of woodcocks was heard

and the winnowing of their wings in an eager mating flight display

and I stood in the yard, my mouth agape,

Listening to the music of spring—at last!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 4, 2015)

NaPoWriMo/ 30 Poems in 30 Days

The Old Red Barn

There is a place of dreams,

an old red barn with memories

of my grandfather who was

and now is not,

Buried beneath a granite slab

with Nana now by his side.

How do I recall the days that were?

With him walking the earth

With him feeding the cows

With him cutting the hay

With him in his chair silently puffing his pipe

With him fishing along the banks of Black Ledge Creek

With him rushing out the door during Christmas dinner, donning his fireman’s hat as he went.

With him that one and only time he let me help pluck the feathers from the warm breast of a pheasant he had shot—a task usually reserved for his grandsons.

And we stood behind the old red barn

Where his fishing boat stayed in the winter

Only to be towed back to Moosehead Lake in Maine the next summer

To the place of his dreams and deep desires,

the place he brought his bride to all those long years ago,

the place that he loved,

the place of his being,

the place that he died one summer.

But the old red barn is empty now

Save for his memory

or his ghost.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 1, 2015)

Maine is Not

Maine is not Arizona.

It does not have saguaros and ocotillos and cacti

You cannot wear flip flops all year round.

You cannot grow oranges in Maine.

There are no nectar feeding bats in Maine,

and the fragrance of creosote bush does not perfume the air after the rain.

There is no song of the desert toad singing its wild mating cry during the monsoon.

In Maine there are not ten kinds of hummingbirds flying around.

In fact, in Maine, only one species is found!

Maine is not sunny, day after day after day.

Maine is not flat and dusty and dry,

Maine is not landlocked.

Maine is not predictable,

Maine is not tame.

Maine is not crowded or bustling or boring.

You cannot escape nature in Maine.

You cannot drive very far in a straight line,

and in Maine, “You can’t get there from here.”

In summer you cannot stay outside too long because of humidity, mosquitoes, black flies, and ticks.

In winter you cannot stay outside because of snow and ice and below zero temperatures

with high, gusty winds to drive the point home.

Maine does not have rattlesnakes, scorpions, or tarantulas.

Maine does not have Spanish style houses.

There is no place else like Maine.

Maine is not Arizona.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 1, 2015)

Messalonskee Lake in Maine 6-23-14

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

Day One Prompt: A Poem of Negation

Regrets

Santa Rita Mountains in Arizona 8-7-2010

I guess it’s too late to be a ballerina, lithe, graceful and pretty.

I guess it’s too late to own my own horse and ride wildly over the fields.

I guess it’s too late to build a log cabin, all from scratch with my own trees and on my own land.

I guess it’s too late to live in the mountains, far away from anyone or anything.

I guess it’s too late to live in Idaho, a place more wild and beautiful than I could have imagined.

I guess it’s too late to be an Indian princess and live in a teepee and wear a buckskin dress and moccasins.

I guess it’s too late to become a doctor and practice in some faraway place where I am most needed.

I know it’s too late to save my poor dog, the beautiful Irish Setter—poetry in motion. I let him down. He was my friend. He was my heart.

But it is never too late to sing my own song, or write my own story.

It is never too late to love, or forgive,

or to dream.

~ Kathie Adams Brown (4-1-15)

I Like a Windy Day

I like a windy day,

When the wind comes to tease and play

And we prance and dance around the meadow.

I like the wind to toss the leaves

To bend the trees,

And make them clap their hands.

I like to feel like a wild pony

And run and kick

And toss my mane and tail.

But this fierce arctic wind is a nasty bastard

And I wish he would go back from whence he came.

Kathie Adams Brown (March 22, 2015)

National Poetry Writing Month starts in one week! NaPoWriMo 2015

A Battle with the North Wind

You roaring wind,

You arctic sledgehammer

pounding out of the north,

I turn my face to you

and beat my wings to fly

You push me back,

You seek to overpower me,

and still my chest expands,

My sinews elastic and powerful as my lungs

fill with your icy breath.

You push me back, and back, and back,

I feel my pinions fill and spread

with the power of your wind,

as we do battle.

You pour a winter’s weariness upon us,

refusing to release your grip,

while I fly on with a fierce hope

into Spring.

Kathie Adams Brown (March 22, 2015)

For World Poetry Day 2015 (One day late!)

To Reach for the Sky

Cattle Egret in CA 2012

What joy it is to reach for the sky

Arms open wide

to receive all there is,

or to celebrate

and cheer

With elation.

These arms of mine

So taken for granted

Are essential things

I use them every day—in so many ways;

to hug, to reach, to grasp,

to perform essential tasks!

How wondrously and marvelously made we are,

Birthed into this world, perfectly formed,

We crawl and walk and run through life

Arms outstretched and open wide

As if we were always born to fly.

By Kathie Adams Brown (March 15, 2015)

Common Terns, Chatham, MA 2011

Gray Day

Looking out the window panes

On a gray landscape;

Gray squirrels playing on gray tree trunks,

Gray sky waiting

Steel clouds billow and flatten

Dove skies bleed

Drops of liquid silver

Dull earth waits for water it cannot absorb

Gray birds sing in wet trees

Late winter rain turns gently to snow

And paints the world in white despair again.

Kathie Adams Brown (March 14, 2015)

Why are You Singing

Tufted Titmouse

Why are you singing, Mr. Titmouse?

Do you not know a blizzard is on the way?

I hear notes of romance

In your song this morning.

Are you declaring your territory,

Or enticing a mate?

It’ll be awhile yet before the nesting is begun,

But just to hear your song gives me hope

—that all is not lost

—that winter is not endless

—that crocuses will bloom again, and

—that somewhere under all that snow, there is, indeed, grass.

~Kathie Adams Brown (February 14, 2015)

Red Ribbons

Cardinals are the bright
red ribbons in the landscape
calling, "cheer, cheer, cheer"

Winter Woods

Winter woods are gray and silent,

Soft, and deep, and frosty,

In pine and spruce scented air,

Ice crystals cling like jeweled lichen,

Birch trees shining silver against the other pewter trees,

Branches all askew,

Reaching for the sky,

With green draped hemlocks

Dancing in the glen,

The whistling winds sings

Winter’s here again.

The tiny trumpet call of nuthatches

Breaks the woodland’s sleep,

And it’s then that I remember,

“I have promises to keep.”

So softly I pad back

Down this winter woodland trail,

To the waiting warmth of my winter cottage,

To my winter woodland home.

Kathie Adams Brown (12-30-14)