This week let’s write a celebration or celebratory poem. You can celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new or you can celebrate some artist’s work or any beauty you experience Even though it’s Monday morning and things look bleak, there’s still plenty to celebrate so post your poetry in the comments below.
About Bartholomew Barker
Bartholomew Barker is one of the organizers of Living Poetry, a collection of poets and poetry lovers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
Living Poetry 
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | December 27, 2021, 8:05 PMI almost referenced omicron but thought it was too specific.
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | December 28, 2021, 11:49 AMA time for all things, comes a day when making a din is just the thing! What new space such a row will usher in is is left to chance and hope.
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Posted by ts19page | December 30, 2021, 8:45 AMAuld Lang Sine
The missives arrive by snail mail
homage to parental relationships
long separated by distance and now death
They used to sound like bragging
When children were young, every achievement was extraordinary
But in the subtext of their young adults’ passage to maturity
There is celebration for launching even struggling adults into the world
They now sound like collective exhalation
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Posted by Second Act Blogger | December 28, 2021, 11:47 AMAn homage to the Christmas letter. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | December 28, 2021, 5:37 PMThe Christmas Letter was a subject of conversation at our house too. I am especially glad that you mentioned it as sounding like bragging…yet all pride is ameliorated by exhaustion and relief.. as you say.
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Posted by ts19page | December 30, 2021, 8:43 AMThe earthmovers are all gone
Graders done with their work
Out with the old pines
the broad oaks and scraggly maples
new in late 40’s
when the boy who
would have been
the old farmer
did not come home
from his duty and bondage
No, now in are acres of Tifway 419
and spritely little Sky-pencils
two per lot
and whatever greenery
that was available on that day
from the horticultural wholesaler
planted on the corner lots
at the cross of
Windemere and Piney Ridge.
Gone are the Catbirds
Quiet mimics of the damp and dim
So too are the Pileateds
Searching for any remaining woods
Somewhere over the county line
No, this is no longer the woods
or an unkempt pasture land
lying fallow for another year
It is now the new exciting subdivision
treeless
with a fine selection of upscale
one and two story homes
sprouting wooden stockades
and elegant faux wrought iron fences
multi-color plastic play sets
brightly colored only until the first frost
by when the summer sun will have cooked
the bright reds and blues
into rose and periwinkle
And with all this luxurious overabundance
there is still cause to cheer (literally)
for now is epoch of the Bluebird
color stolen from the rainbow
a rusty chest borrowed
from this land’s finest tobacco soil
For a thousand days
he will rule unchallenged
Lord of this ecological wasteland
free to do whatever Bluebirds do
and to lend their “Chur Cheerily Cheer” song
to our never-ending workdays
welcoming us back from wherever
our duty and bondage takes us
Yes, the time will come when Robins
and Mockingbirds will arrive
the latter to sing all night
to a bright April moon
the former stealing the Piedmont soil’s red
for their own decoration
And the Bluebirds will all be gone
Those icons of the happiness
Like the Longleaf and the White Oak
and the farm that would have been
if some soldier’s aim were not true
But now
Now is time to be glad
Because it is the time of the false pastures
each 1/6th of an acre
This is the time of the Bluebird
that carries the color of our dreams on his back
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Posted by Chris Clarke | December 29, 2021, 11:54 AMVery nice. I especially like the way you describe the catbirds as “quiet mimics of the damp and dim”. Well done.
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | December 29, 2021, 6:12 PMA thoughtful picture of North Carolina and its bird life. I like the ‘time of the Bluebird’, and the nostalgia for the past with yet the joy of continuance the Bluebird represents.
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Posted by ts19page | December 30, 2021, 8:40 AMI think you did well not to mention a specific malady as each new year must have something to leave behind.
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Posted by ts19page | December 30, 2021, 8:46 AMPosting a contribution to the prompt here:
Celebration
The precession of our love
became a sign of depth
what spins may bore
into the heft of life.
Season follows season in
keen exchange, just enough
to keep us knowing who
we are,
Until we do not know
who we are,
yet hold immense
care in our hands.
Each frost a thaw
into warm and tremulous Spring,
Summers languid under pendant sun,
heavy clouds, rampant weeds.
The Fall comes always again,
and Winter in red fruit, gathered green.
We light a single flame to mark
the celebration, this ardent spark.
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Posted by ts19page | December 30, 2021, 8:48 AMExcellent use of precession at the top and a lovely closing stanza. Well done!
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Posted by Bartholomew Barker | December 30, 2021, 5:30 PM