April is National Poetry Month, so to celebrate, I am publishing one poem each Friday in April. Just like I believe everyone’s an artist, I also believe everyone’s a poet.
About 26 years ago, I wrote this sestina. I’m not sure how to describe this type of highly structured poem – or even if I wrote it in the correct format. I know it was difficult to write.
To find out more about a sestina’s format, click here.
I had forgotten I wrote this poem – until I recently found it tucked away in my file cabinet. It was hauntingly dated about one month before I would be diagnosed with breast cancer.
I love the glorious Great Smoky Mountains, here in the United States. Visiting this heavenly place forever left its imprint on me.
What better way to kick off National Poetry Month than to share the poem with you, dear readers.
Following the poem is my first painting of the mountains. I’ve shown the painting before, but it happens to pair nicely with the poem, so I’ve included it again.
Smoky Mountain Snapshot
Day’s preamble, morning mist
descends upon downy ridges
and severs fleeced peaks
from foothills in fog’s drowsy measure.
Sky-islands suspended in gaps –
softness is their signature.
Salamanders are their signature –
in streams that rush in rustic measure.
Cataracts wash over ridges
of jagged crag and eroded peaks.
Water’s syllables turn to mist
that whispers in grotto-gaps.
Coves and meadows are gaps,
where homesteads hint of human signature,
now home to deer, browsing on new-day mist,
and bear and cub in wooded corridors. Ridges
of grooved bark guide the red spider, as peaks
overlap in sun-filtered measure.
She lives in precise measure –
daunted by unknown corridors and floating peaks.
She wants paths, but there are gaps
to her knowledge and blue mist
that severs line from signature.
What is gained by shapeless ridges?
She prefers anchored ridges
of tree roots and drops of mist
on leaves. She breathes woodland signature.
The stranger lingers in gaps
of reverie and hears the liquid measure
of waterfalls on jagged peaks.
She gazes at hazy peaks,
undefined fragments in smoky gaps.
She forfeits precise measure,
for there is no line to signature.
As mystery breathes on ridges,
the stranger finds peace, even in mist.
The unknown is home to drowsy mist,
and peace preamble to shapeless measure.
Mystery lingers, even in signature.
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