Do Unto Others

She seemed lost
or tired
(or both, like me)
the carpenter bee
sitting in my driveway
hot in the midday sun,
and while she wasn’t too keen
on being seen,
or moved, for that matter,
I shuttled her onto a notecard —
Post Office, Library, Lettuce —
and sat her down safely
on the cool peaty mulch
in the shade of shrubs
in full purple bloom,
left a small puddle of water
in case she was thirsty,
then said a little prayer
so small and so large
in everything, do to others
what you would have them do to you,
Amen.

Photo & poem ©2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

Some Days I Just Want the Jiffy Corn Muffin

• 

• 

Taking center stage in the felt and fiber exhibit
was a shrouded human-size figure,
death wrapped in yellow
— the color of butter and bees —
but called Chrysalis to imply resilience

resilience in the face of everything

OMG, the everything we face sometimes feels like death —
its foul smell invading even the simple pleasures

it’s hard to ignore the crises in woods that are dying
it’s hard to ignore the crises in the violence of a Sunday drive
it’s hard to ignore the crises when even my favorite characters are battling hate and headlines

every thing of the injustice

I long for the days when my favorite characters could just fall off ferry boats and have sex in on-call rooms.

When their soundtrack was mine on a Sunday drive that didn’t require white knuckles and a prayer.

When the woods were lush and fertile, the promise of the butterfly born from the Chrysalis, color and light and HOPE.

It makes you want to lie down, wrap covers around your tired body, and sleep a deep and dreamless sleep,

because these days even the dreams are pockmarked and ravaged

and you wake gasping for breath, the bile of it all burning your throat,

a burn that nothing will assuage…except the last Jiffy corn muffin
dripping with butter and drizzled with honey,

a final gift from the bees, who swoop and swarm en masse, before leaving for good.

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. An ekphrastic poem contemplating the juxtaposition of Chrysalis Shroud for LGBTQ: Allies Supporting Resilience by Annie Collier and Kim Hahn, and Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix by LeBrie Rich in the national exhibition FELT: Fiber Transformed that was on view at the Guilford Art Center, March-April 2023. Photos by Ashley Seneco.

If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

Finding Exile

Preparing herself for the inevitable,
the sandpiper —
usually found along the coast
makes her home now
by a small pond in the woods
three miles from shore.
It’s quiet here, most days,
except when the wind
carries clamor from the south,
and she’s been welcomed
graciously
by the turtles and frogs,
the heron and wood ducks.
They’ve come here, too,
this protected space
with ample shade and shallows
to share with anyone who needs
asylum from the rising conflict.
You might say we are refugees,
displaced from the familiar
by forces not of our making
finding exile here,
making life despite the storm,
saying grace for the bounty

Photo & poem ©2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

28 – New Eden Revealed

I have lived in this house they called New Eden for 25 years on a quarter acre lot around the corner from Long Island Sound.

There’s a claggy pond out back, and a nature preserve just a stone’s throw away.

It’s Heaven, really, never mind the state road on the other side of the eight foot privet that keeps the peace.

The day I moved in, two bright green parakeets landed on a branch of the great old Maple in the back corner of the yard.

They seemed as auspicious as the lilac, beloved since first sight, blooming at the edge of the driveway.

Every year, I pray the lilac will bloom again, that the Maple will survive another storm to keep company with her resident squirrels and raccoons. And me.

She and I wept together when the grand Oak came down, and we still laugh at dusk when the rabbits come out to play.

Seasons come and go here at a predictable pace,

the sublime hush of winter steps aside for spring birds who sing in sparks of poetry usually lost in the busy buzz of summer

before the breeze of autumn shivers the knotweed and startles the monarchs who make no tracks, but the field mice do

tiny footprints criss-cross with bird notes and the straight firm steps of the coyote

turtles come and go, too, snakes, hawks, owls, and once a frog so big I thought he might be a prince!

this sweet spot has revealed its secrets for ages — snowdrops bloom where never planted, a robin’s nest appears beside a window, and salamanders tuck in by the bird feeder

just last week I discovered a small sliver of ocean just to the south, in between some saplings, hidden from view until now

No wonder the ospreys fly so low, and waves sometimes wake me from dreams.

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

10 – Grieving Place, II

before the painted parking lines
and engineered bridges
before the pervasive blazes
that welcomed every one
before the storm
that created a war zone
there was a trail in the woods
a simple trail
that wound from an unpaved lot
up a long, slow incline
and down, slowly, into Eden
or Shangri-La
or Paradise
or whatever you call the place
that brings you back
to yourself
without contortions
without effort
except for moving
and breathing
and letting go
and paying attention
to the song of white pines,
and the path of the pileated,
to the fetal curl of spring ferns
and the sweet Spring Beauty
so small but significant
you get down on your knees
like a prayer
whisper your apologies
for the trespass
weep at the loss of her
secret spot, there
at the base the Oak now fallen,
our heavy footfall
her sure demise

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

7 – Tribute: Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock

A most graceful dense mounding shrub with broadly spreading branches that create a weeping effect with the deep green, finely textured foliage.

What would the old tree say
of her current predicament —
wedged between the state road
and the utility substation,
her circadian rhythm
forever disrupted
by the flashing traffic light,
her water source, runoff from the
nearby shopping plaza

More than a century ago,
she lived here on farmland acres,
and they named her Weeping
despite her attributes —
a vernal fountain of perpetual joy —
she, a specimen, divine
fated to become more beautiful
a champion of time

But the hour is cruel
marches against the Sargent’s desire
changes our perception of beauty
sephos, Sepphōra, Sephora®

Her graceful curves and
fountain sprays of green
have grayed, and she is deaf
to the song of her breeze

She is not long for this world
— and probably for the best —
we insist ourselves so loudly now
even the bees are grieving.

 

 

Photo by Mary Johnson. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne Inspired by the Weeping Hemlock near my house in Branford, CT. Read more in “Weeping Hemlock Gets TLC” by Marcia Chambers (2012), and “Closing the Book on Sargent’s Weeping Hemlock” by Peter Del Tredici, Arnoldia magazine. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

4- Whispers & Jingles

 It’s a whispers and jingles day in the woods
 
late winter winds wind through the pines
 
who whisper secrets to each other
 
then toss them across the pond
 
confidences crowdsurfing treetops
 
while beach leaves tambourine
 
a tintinnabulation

of tinkling and jingling

mingling

in breezes teasing spring

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

3 – Reformation

You forget you already know god,
walk her hallowed halls each day,

run your hands along her life lines
as you caretake her sanctuary

You swim in her holy water,
feel her pulse in the tides

breathe her incense,
read scripture in the trees

you sing to the divine,
its holy spirit aloft on wings

How could you forget god is everywhere
where you breathe and where your step

there’s no need to lockstep,
posture, or preach

salvation is just a walk away
then, and again, and today

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

1 – April Comes This Morning

It is certainly not quiet this morning…
5am and the spring peepers are already
singing their songs, a chorus of them
proclaims     April!     bright and loud
and
just an hour ago, the coyotes joined in
rejoicing in triumph,
that soulful sound as seasons change

and now the rain begins
no surprise

April showers bring May flowers

besides
thunder in the east was fair warning
a storm approaches

quick or wicked
we never know except
soon the birds will wake
shake off their damp wings
call out to the dawn again
another day     for the lucky ones

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Written the morning after a wave of deadly tornadoes swept across the country. Photo by Damir Mijailovic. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Late December Bird Watch

The mourning doves are here for the winter,
eight by this morning’s count at the feeder before

eight by their count now on the slight-sagged branch
where they wait out the starlings
with hope there is something left

that galaxy of stars like a black hole
devours everything
leaves morsels for small sparrows at least
who will sneak back later to peck out
their gratitude in code on the frost

I read it sometimes, their code of thanks,
wonder if they know I timed it —
spread seeds as soon as the doves arrived,
before the stars descended with the moon

made myself large by the side door
a warning, a warrior

let them have their take, those eight
grief is a hungry thing
even the weeping is enough to lay a table bare

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. Photo by Jennifer Snyder, Project Feederwatch

They’re building infrastructure in the woods

There are tractor marks in the rabbit warren,
that sweet spot on the path where the
bittersweet and grapevines arbored the trail,
where the sounds of commerce faded just enough to hear
the rabbits waiting for you to pass.

It’s bulldozed wide, now four-persons across
nevermind the rabbits
or the winter sparrows who found refuge there
or the jays who loved the grapes
or the pileated whose only recourse
is to tap out an S.O.S. on a nearby dying ash

They’re building infrastructure in the woods, you see
plowing back desperate saplings,
piling debris where the wild asters grew
flattening out the turtles’ fertile slopes

laying instead their misplaced traprock paths
and sweet-smelling lumbered bridges
giving us more room to tramp about
another ingress marked by colored flags
nailed deep into the skins of trees

Tell me please…
Will the rabbits find sanctuary before the snow?
Were the turtles buried alive?
Do the trees weep before the hammer strikes?

Poem and photo ©2022, Jen Payne

Summer Song at 4 a.m.

Lone Seagull

due east of the

Bell Buoy at Mermaid Rocks

is background vocal for

katy-did
katy-did
katy-did
she-did

and the
cicada cricket
chorus

while the frog
in the marsh
sings solo tenor

only
interrupted
by the
footsteps
of a deer

so I,
barefoot too,
ask her:

do you hear
the sound of stars?

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne

Swan Song

The swan has lost her mate,
so I wade ankle-deep in the
shallow pond and

with breath like water

crossover
lie child pose
in her nest
surrogate heart
close to her side
and whisper

Far away, there once
lived a king
who had eleven sons
and one daughter…

---

Poem ©2022, Jen Payne. IMAGE: The Wild Swans, illustration by Joseph Smith, Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, 1965.

Grace

The bee in the meadow
is chanting,
its words imperceivable
but for the rhythm
the vibration like my own
chanting      sometimes
before I start the day
and the bee, like me
is quick in its reverence
quick prayer
like the mealtime grace
of my childhood

God is great
God is good
let us thank him
for this food

Amen

Ommmmm

Bzzzzzzzz

ABOVE: The adoration of Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) by Bicolored Agapostemon Sweat Bee (Agapostemon viriscens). Photo and poem by Jen Payne.

In the ruins of my cathedral

In the ruins of my cathedral
I can still hear the angels sing
they from their loft of branches
and I on bended knee
begging for absolution
that will not come

not from the pine at the pulpit
sheared off in the storm

not from the maple
whose leaves filtered light
more beautifully than glass

not from the elm or the ash
who lie beneath my feet
extinguished by our blaze
our red hot disregard

so keenly unconcerned
that we are of this and part of this
and crumbling at our very foundation

the beech knows
its grief spreads
like sickness now

leaf to leaf

branch to branch

tree to tree

in the ruins of my cathedral

1 – Morning Haiku

cardinal on my schedule

doesn’t need to notice clocks

sings sweet song at six

Poem and Photo ©2021, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Month. Are you fascinated by time, too? Then order a copy of MANIFEST (zine): It’s About Time today!

Waning Crescent

The moon and I shared space today

before the world awoke

and though we both were silent

it felt as if we spoke

about this wild spinning thing

and how it does transpire

the comedy and tragedy

and all the little fires

That golden wink up in the sky

a secret shared with me

our sweet spot in the morning

its rare tranquility.

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. Photos from The Lilith Zone.

Encroachment

I am sure the red fox wonders,
as does the otter and friends,

what happened to the horizon,

why the light that’s not a star shines
from sun down to sun up
with no seeming purpose,

why the fresh salt air is slow to come

The gulls know, of course

They see from the sky
the new and larger rooftops,
the wide expanses of useless green,
the decks and porches and drives,
the construction constructed from the edge of their pond to the edge of the harbor

They see even, in the biggest living room
of the biggest house
the big screen TV,
which,
on certain mornings,
lights the horizon just like a sun,
casts shadows on the fox
and the otter
who will never know again
the rush of first light and certain breezes.

Our Sad Riddle

Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.

My nephew, fresh from the pages of Tolkien,
sees a fish carcass on the beach,
predicts Gollum! though we both wonder.
He considers the waves left from a storm,
the wind that blows us each askew,
thinks with furrowed brow, like me
as I sift through those things I know:
the trespass of raw sewage
and slick film of leached oil,
the change of warming waters,
our persistent lack of rain.
But he’s off on a new adventure now,
throwing boulders with grunts and gasps,
Take that! he yells, a holler into the wind
as loud as mine would be if allowed
to grieve the things he cannot see.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. One of the riddles of Bilbo and Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Thursday Rain

The contrast of
misty gray
against
May green
in the treetops
out the window
tells me it’s raining
before I even hear
the gentle tapping
on leaves
and grass
and spring flowers
bowed in gratitude
for the veil of quiet
descending

even poets bow
for the respite
stay inside
the rain says,
there’s a poem waiting

Photo and Poem ©2020, Jen Payne