Poetry

Inspiration

By Elizabeth Harney, 2023

I didn’t expect to find the universe in my garden.
A garden I hardly tend
and moan about pruning
and bitch about weeding
and forget to water constantly.

But that doesn’t make the facts less true.
I have found the unexpected,
the amazing,
the untouchable.

Inspiration is here. Here?
Really, this is where she lands?

I’ve been looking everywhere.
Far away in foreign lands with art
made by historic hands.
Buried deep in musty books,
filled with old ideas and dead thoughts.

But instead of in grand philosophies
and unknowable truths,
she waits in my garden.

In dirty, creeping, unfurling ferns.
In dramatic shafts of sunlight
through the tree I need to trim.
In dancing bees that hum
between delicate blooms,
dripping pollen in their wakes.

“Which way?” I say.
“Right there,” she points at a gnarled root.
I aim my lens and shoot.

Time

By Elizabeth Harney, 2024

If I’m not busy, then I need to fill time.
I just can’t be idle. I don’t thrive with chill time.

Sit still? Take a breath? Don’t make me laugh.
I need stimulation, I’m ready for thrill time!

Give me movies, and art, and books, and things.
Give me so much to do, that I’ll want to will time --

— to please move slower, let me savor a moment!
Don’t make me think I’m just here to kill time.

Busy hands, busy mind — what’s coming next?
If I pause for a moment, then is there still time?

The tip of my pen

By Elizabeth Harney, 2024

Can I paint you a story with the tip of my pen?
I write the word apple, now that’s what you picture.
The power of words, can I show you again?

Let’s start in a forest, a nice quiet glen.
Breathe life into birds, now watch them flutter.
Did I paint you a picture with the tip of my pen?

Let’s travel to space, moving fast so stars blend.
A soup of galaxies, an interstellar mixture.
Such power from words! Shall I show you again?

Let’s head to the city, where the subways extend.
The cars on the tracks squeal louder, move quicker.
Did I just paint a picture with the tip of my pen?

Let’s go to the desert, a thunderstorm descends.
Animals burrow as the air’s getting thicker.
Oh, the power of words. Should I show you again?

Create like a god, but without the amens.
Turn musings into your own kind of scripture.
I’ll paint you a story with the tip of my pen.
Behold the power of words. Should we try it again?

Vocabularyclept* Poem

*A cut-up poetry form created by taking the words of an existing poem and rearranging them into something new.

“Hope” Remixed
by Elizabeth Harney, 2025

Without words and feathers
The tune perches — and stops.
Sings with all the hope in the soul,
at the thing that never is.

That little bird is heard — and kept
So the many and the sweetest
could abash in the gale.
Must be that sore, warm storm.

Chillest on the sea,
Strangest in the land of extremity,
Yet me — in it — I’ve asked,
and never heard a crumb.

Original: “Hope” is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Stay tuned for more poetic musings...