3 poems by Mary Margaret Carlisle

Mary Margaret Carlisle is a writer, editor, poet, workshop leader, and a judge of competition writing and performances.  She is a lifetime member of the Poetry Society of Texas – Gulf Coast Poets, and is an active member of many writing and poetry groups.

The three poems below; a prayer of monarchs, Driftline, and The Glimmering Deepness of Silence, appear in her book of poems, heart of a word. 

 

a prayer of monarchs

the baby’s breath is impossibly alive

so crowded that pollen laden bees

cannot alight amidst the monarchs

whose black, orange and silver wings

fold slowly like hands in prayer at chapel

 

 

Driftline

 

A dozen bobbers float

a thin line out across the lake

water black in the shadows

 

a small riff of wind

slowly pulls line

from the stalling-gear

 

silver wigglers and golden shiners

on teardrop lures drag out

to where widemouth bass lurk

 

near the sunken islands

as the San Marcos River rises

out of Aquarina Springs

 

and dusk, like monofilament

thrown from a fiberglass pole

slides across the horizon

 

hooking the sun right out of the sky

 

 

The Glimmering Deepness of Silence

 

Tonight the sky is littered with stars

half a moon hangs from our neighbor’s gutter

I wonder about the other half,

and what might make it hide in darkness

 

I know that if you speak

you will tell me of physics

celestial happenings

and all those things out of reach

 

until you run out of words.

I know you will not look up and out

but will only recognize the noisy stars glittering

from car windshields and storefront windows,

 

and tonight, speaking on and on

you will ignore the silence

falling from half a moon

just next door 

 

~Mary Margaret Carlisle