Time Traveling: poem

Showing posts with label poem. Show all posts

Monday, April 7, 2025

We need we need we need we need .... a Time Traveling poem by Anne Selden Annab

We need we need we need we need

It could be

that climate change

is just

climate constant as

it has always been

before

we recorded details...

Before we had flood zoning

with satellite maps to chart change

and erosion. Before we had

insurance or savings to rebuild.

Before we had evacuation plans

and green lights to go.

Before all this electricity

we need we need we need we need we need

constantly to survive our interconnected

world of haves and have nots.

Meanwhile

Unexpected Ups and downs

with winds raging and rain, storms and floods

and unemployment rising, trees falling,

homes destroyed...

People's lives, families, and communities

ripped apart. Leaving no trace-

just trash.

Sunday, January 5, 2025

The Major Oak

British Library digitised image from page 430 of "The Illustrated Guide to Sheffield and the surrounding district, etc", by John Taylor, of Sheffield. Sheffield, 1879.

The Major Oak

There is a tree

in England-

a huge old oak

THE MAJOR OAK

a symbol

that sprawls significant

holding birds, book readers,

dreamers, tourists

and workers

to name just a few.

Long ago, it is said,

Robin Hood crept up

having taken

from some

obscenely wealthy CEOs

to give to the poor...

hiding in its branches

from corporate greed.

Monday, March 20, 2023

Sculpting Snow Nudes

The one lane bridge & Glen Allen Mill on the Yellow Breeches Creek

Sculpting Snow Nudes

Did anyone call my mother

to let her know

that my teenage self

(way back when) was

sculpting reclining snow nudes-

voluptuous beings shaped

in newly fallen fresh snow

every winter

on the white bridge.

A narrow one lane white bridge

across the creek of our childhood

down a country road

across from the old mill

still there.

Red bricks, blue sky, white bridge, brown earth-

winter skating on a frozen pond

my virgin self imaging art

before it melts.

My Thoughts Slip

Last night dressed for bed

looking down at the blanket

wondering what we'll do this winter

when it is cold again- then startled

when I remember it is winter now,

and I am embarrassed

ashamed...

Time and time again my thoughts slip

as more and more shadows become 3-D

reality.

Days of the week blur- months- years

all blur, faster than the speed of light

thoughts bend, names get lost

words falter, fall away, I lose my mind

I think, as I lose my memory, maybe...

But I feel,

I feel kindness,

I feel love,

I feel beauty,

I feel safe sometimes

so very safe

by my self.

Friday, August 6, 2021

The Sand Now ... an Aging poem by Anne Selden Annab

The Sand Now

The sand now

is such a challenge.

Balance, strength

endurance.

I think I can't,

just can't.

Every ten small

staggering

steps

I stop,

just can't...

catch my breath.

But I do

and onward

towards the ocean

I trudge

exhausted

overwhelmed

and yet

such delight

as the Atlantic

grows louder,

closer, I can

just barely

can,

and am.

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Cicada

Cicada .... a Time Traveling Poem

by Anne Selden Annab

Cicadas - East Coast, Mid-Atlantic

come tunneling out

Brood X - every 17 years.

The name is as it sounds.

Once when I was a little girl

camping in a pup tent, no tarp,

warm earth where the lawn edge

meets the fence and field beyond.

That summer night, early,

the earth erupted...

It was not fun.

17 years later,

divorced, one child, I was

a single mother working,

living downtown far far away

from the cicadas emerging

and the learned fears of childhood.

Then into my forties, 17 years later,

remarried, safe, respected,

3 almost grown children

and my delight

in hearing the woods hum

as we hike, collecting some

but certainly not all cicada shells-

nymph exoskeletons.

Now into my sixties,

slowing down

out for a country drive

in the passenger seat.

Revisiting childhood haunts.

Here and there, some green trees

with leaves on twig tips brown, flagging,

as the tree fed cicadas prepare

to drop back to earth,

tunnel back down

to feed on roots.

I feed on freedom ... a Time Traveling Poem

by Anne Selden Annab

I feed on freedom-

wind in my hair freedom

birds sing freedom

flowers bloom freedom...

Freedom from ugliness.

Freedom from anouther's rage

(funny how my own rage

feels so innocuous.)

Freedom from violence,

freedom from cruelty,

freedom from hunger

and joblessness.

Freedom from servitude

and slavery and homelessness.

Freedom from starvation

Freedom from selfishness,

I think... I hope ... Oh and the freedom to think,

and hope,

maybe even say what I think freedom.

Freedom to mourn the removal

of exquisite equine statues

and historic generosity...

Noble gestures once respected

and honored like gravestones

and old bones buried long ago.

Technology changes how we move forward,

from formal carved, upright headstones on

a hillside- to the opposite with countless

totally flat memorial plates, like trap doors

in a mowed expanse of grass lawn dotted by

tight bunches of cut flowers marking here

and there... to wilding now with native flowers

and new forests absorbing urns

that are compost for ashes.

Planned stretches of meadows

with birdhouses,

or meditation grooves

with water features... woods with paths,

living parks to mourn and honor our dead

while we the living still have the freedom

to wander and wonder what if...

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Selecting ... poem by Anne Selden Annab

Bernard d'Agesci (1757-1828), La justice,
Holds scales in one hand and in the other hand a book with "Dieu, la Loi, et le Roi" on one page and the Golden rule on the other page.

Selecting

Always
things can go either way... we
the people more often than not will
what will be
with our energy
and investments:

So break away from naysayers
and negative nasty connections
for they build delusions
full of wounds
and failure.

Cherish good
seek it out
find it where you are now-
willing better times to come

Be of those who welcome life
negotiated step by step
to be balance
to be walking forward
to be dancing along the way
with whim as goodness wins...

Be of the will that gets things done
Be of the way where the Golden Rule
illuminates

Be of the stars
guiding ships
where bridges can't reach

Be of the will
willing
to shape destiny.

Post Woke

Post Woke- A Time Traveling Poem by Anne Selden Annab

I look forward to Post-Woke

when true hope has a chance

to climb up and replace

misplaced entertainments

that prance about as News.

A Post-Woke world

where online activists

no longer pedal hate

and scorn for America,

races or religions or

whatever.

A Post-Woke world

where virtue signaling

is not admired.

A Post-Woke world

where "Green"

is less advertising logo

and more an honest effort

to save our earth.