The War and Treaty (Folk Fest '24 poem #1)

two great big voices 

from the earth 

                      arrow out 

from the stage 

in this grassy field 

turned ampetheater 

turned gathering place 

of folks slowly sinking into earth 

to absorb this music so modern and yet 

reaching back to the days of 

grassy fields and swaying crops

cousins

up on the bunk 

the boy is eight the girl is one 

wearing brown overall shorts

she loves her cousin who makes her 

smile and laugh with the energy of a worker bee 

gathering pollen on the blue flowers outside our sunroom 

he picks her up and runs around the room 

and puts her down 

aden 

she says 

and he does it again 

aden 

and he does it again 

until his legs start to buckle with the weight 

and here they sit on his bunk 

his large eyes looking out 

speaking tomes about what lies behind 

he holds her wrist so she doesn’t fall 

her mouth forming a smile 

so close to her big cousin

Adolf Ens (elegy) 1933-2024

TB 

18 months in Ninette 

and then  everything broke like branches in the woods

from science to faith 

    from facts to love 

        from chemistry to seminary  

thin family man with soft voice 

loved birds and birdsong on a bicycle 

to teach his classes 

thick glasses reading student lives 

in their rapt faces 

sometimes legends 

are left behind 

because of a nudge at Ninette

Hawaii

this land 

emergent from blue pacific 

violent eruptions

lava breaches above the water line 

rounding mountains high over the beaches below 

and we stand here on the rim 

eons later 

and hot gasses still rise around the crater of creation 

even though modern life ubers all around 

oblivious to the miracle of

this emergent land

Rick Braun Janzen (1961-2024) elegy

I didn’t know you anymore 

just those three short years from 15 to 17 

but we shared an age and came of age together 

and I knew that smile and I knew that laugh 

and we sang tenor together in that high school choir 

that became a miracle of permanent memory 

in our 60s 

we walked through the snow 

bundled up from the cold 

until one set of prints finds the cold 

too hard to bear 

and lightens until no trace is left 

upon the clean white covering

first steps

on two tiny feet 

she leaves her mother’s arms and 

walks 

two steps towards cousin 

waiting with arms stretched toward 

so happy she giggles a belly laugh 

before crumpling into cousin’s lap 

and everyone laughs and claps 

because these first steps travel 

so far around the world 

in fact leaving footsteps 

we can only half imagine 

but we know the hug 

will always be there

in arms that catch and hold

card

downy woodpecker print

in black and white 

small splotches of white 

snow falling in the night 

black sky 

bird 

white breasted 

perched on tree 

midwinter cold 

it’s magic on cardstock 

cuz I can hear the knock knock

of beak on bark 

on a silent Christmas card 

and I think of how to 

save this world