I, Georgia

Here in the wild place
The rocky place
Here on this canvas
I am true to myself

The canvas speaks of charms
The brush laid on
With tints in sweeps
All flourishes

And the tempest
Inside my heart of cold
Black stone
Bursts forth in waves
Of petals and pedernals

None so wonderful as these
Have eased my heart 'ere now
To be as one
With the canvas and stone
The leaves and the trees
In this wild, dry land
Is all I need to be

Free of restraints and
Gentle complaints
I soar with the mind
Of a child

My brush brings me home
To wander
In the broom

There I may find it
The next
Piece

Barbara Butler McCoy

[Photo: "Equine Pelvis with Sky," after Georgia
O'Keeffe's "Pelvis with the Distance"; sculpture
of a horse out of driftwood outside the Hunter
Museum, Chattanooga, TN; July 2009]

Blues

Flying with the blues
Anytime and where I choose
Where'd I leave my shoes?

Barbara Butler McCoy

[Photo: Hyacinth Macaws at the Tennessee Aquarium,
Chattanooga, TN; July 2009]

[This poem is a response to the four, challenge #12]

Dogwood

I could tell you of
the dogwood trembling above
as it feels spring's love

Barbara Butler McCoy

[Photo: a dogwood blossom on the
tree in my courtyard; April, 2009]

Roundabout

She believes
believes in love.
What else can she do?
She takes the roundabout.
For so long she has
endured the runaround.

Round and round,
again,
in and out and about,
again,
since she stepped from her shell
hoping to end her exile.
Celestial body riding
the tracks of her tears.

A pilgrim to these shores
where uncertainty leaves us
reeling.
She knows and we will learn
our broken hearts,
hearts with room for ladders
to Beauty's divine mystery.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[Photo: a scooter I spotted
near the Woodruff Arts
Center; Atlanta, GA; April 2009]

Sisters' Windows (a response to The Four, Challenge No. 11)

Some sisters escape -
escape what blinds,
obscures the view,
escape the pain.

Sisters open their
shutters, see light,
focus their eyes
and expose life.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[This poem was also submitted as
a response to Challenge No. 11 from
The Four and suggested by Kirsten Crilly:
"Then swing your window open, the one
with fresh air and good eastern light
and watch for wings, edges, new
beginnings." Monique Duvall]

[Photo: Window above doorway,
Candler Building; Atlanta, GA;
March 2009]

The Maiden Springtime/La Jeune Fille Printemps/La Doncella Primavera

The Maiden Springtime,
her eyes the leaves
of the vine,
like water
with her eyes
She drinks the sun
until they burst,
her rosy spheres,
the fruit of the vine.

La Jeune Fille Printemps,
ses yeux les feuilles
de la vigne,
comme l'eau
avec ses yeux
bois le soleil
eclatent,
ses orbes rose,
le fruit de la vigne.

La Doncella Primavera,
sus ojos las hojas
de las vids,
como el agua
con sus ojos
bebe el sol
reventan,
sus esferas rojas,
la fruta de las vids.

Barbara Butler McCoy

[Photo: Berries after yesterday's rain.]

The Dancer

(A sonnet in honor of William Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, 1564.)

Dancing in time to the song of your heart,
No small thing this singing ever of bliss,
From which you rose, your ev'ry loving part.
Beautiful you, you must remember this.

Everlasting impermanence, dancing
To your enchanting meter round the globe.
Restoring hope, so much more than glancing,
For those who do between your lines so probe.

Wherefore art thou so constant, love?
Perchance your eyes do note the beat you hear
While these my soles, tattooed so red as blood,
Dance upon the lines you wrote so clear.

Now may I say I am fix'd in my dance?
I am here willed, not here by happenstance.

Barbara Butler McCoy

["Ballet Olympia," Paul Manship, as conceived by John Portman,
outside SunTrust Building, Peachtree St., Atlanta]

Ornamental

They know not this, the collectors of me,
The rough, rough nature of the beast I am
As the plastic stiff face is all they see.
Yet 'hind mine eyes I think therefore I am.

A stranger here, someone's beauty I think,
With all my tomorrows and hereafter
To thoughts of my yesterdays ever linked,
An everlasting soul in love, laughter.

Any who try to bring some me to heel
Or bribe me with a plastic pink Corvette
Will find somehow I found a tongue quite real,
Laced up with words, lightning they'll not forget.

Too, the sick pink mansion in Malibu
Without apology I do eschew.

Barbara Butler McCoy
(submitted, also, as a response to
Challenge #5, the four)

Response #4

Love joined us that day
Love made the cradle to sway
Love is all I say

Barbara Butler McCoy

Response to #3

My broken toucan
Fallen victim of rough hands
Waits to fly again

Barbara Butler McCoy

Ships

Floating out to sea
Along the Chattahoochee
Just some geese and me

Barbara Butler McCoy

I, Pilgrim

I, pilgrim
wandering soul
reaching forward
palm to palm
from a hero's pose
I kiss the holy bridge
where loving souls of saints
have trod before me
Palm to stone
this moment joins lives now,
lives then,
now again
My benediction
a font of loving praise
for those before,
after
Who wander the bridge

Barbara Butler McCoy

[This photo shows the underside of a bridge
crossing the Chattahoochee River in Fulton county.
It evokes a medieval cathedral to me, one likely reached
across a bridge.]

Tears

In the sylvan Sunday silence
While preachers pass the plate
The palms catch lest they evaporate
Celestial tears whose birth was violence.

Lifelines bleeding on ruined palms,
Sweetly etched before birth,
By those misguided erased of worth.
Tears bear mute witness in savage calm.

Barbara Butler McCoy

Outpost

I am come here
Forgotten outpost
Roof open to the sky
Open to celestial light

Notes for the ear
Whispers from a ghost
Music to make you cry
Music, river, dancing light

Roses, too, hear
Climbing round a post
Scent to falls will fly
Perfume river at cloud height


Then from your bower
Mandalas composed
Your sand tossed up to fly
Testament of your truth, might

Your light so clear
Here I am to toast
Here you run and meet sky
Here I find celestial sight

Barbara Butler McCoy


[I am enchanted by the work of Robert Hite. This structure, whatever it may be, I found along the canal in Augusta in October '08. All this time I have sought a poem for it and today I found the one.]