A “secret” Facebook community of WWf(a)C writers participates in NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) each April/National Poetry Month.  Many of us look forward to this communal wordfest all year.  This is my second full-fledged, all-in experience, and I LOVE IT!!

PLEASE, if you have any inclination to do so, join us!  It’s only Day 6. Interesting info on poets, poetry, different forms and formulations are posted fresh each day at: http://www.napowrimo.net/ Contact me or any other participant for an invitation to our page, and see where it might take you!

Here are two of my favorite personal efforts from this month.

Day 3: Elegy

Elegy for a Killshot

She comes to me more
and more often
in dream.
Embraced again
in the comfort
of her shining,
steady
presence,
made whole again,
as from childhood,
I ache
with longing.
She never wavered.

In those last nights,
as she faded
from herself,
occasional terror,
and a never-before-seen
unleashing
of sharp intellect
on a world unprepared.
Perhaps
a glimpse into where
that killer croquet shot,
honed
on her grandfather’s farm,
unleashed
even on her own
small, surprised children,
lived unimagined.

Day 4: Enigma

You came
from nothing, and,
they say,
to nothing
you will return.

We rubbed two sticks together,
ancient, archetypal rituals,
et voila,
you were.
A miracle,
a sudden, startling
presence in the room,
fiercely observant,
utterly there.

We do our very best,
pour ourselves
day upon day
into the miraculous
vessel, the presence
that day after day,
becomes more resplendent,
resonant, responsive.

And then, seemingly as soon
as you appeared,
you are nearly
out of sight,
on the horizon,
almost mirage.
Leaving
something
like absence,
but for your indelible
imprint of unbearable love.

Mary Peckham for the Poplar Grove Muse