So, I have been studying poetry for over two years now, mostly with Matthew Lippman who has been such a great teacher. I used to write a lot of poetry when I was younger, but then it became too painful for me to continue, so I took a hiatus of a few decades. My poetry is pretty personal and I never used to share it with anyone. And I still find it quite the emotional work-out to write poetry, but I try to write one every week. Now I have started submitting them for publication and am pleased to have gotten one published online.
It's here in the Winter Solstice edition of Mused published by the Bella Online Literary Review.
I haven't posted any of my poems on my blog because many places consider them previously published if they are on your blog. But here is the one from Mused ...
A Watched Pot
Natalie Rowe
From countless kettles, I’ve streamed
the oxygenated water, watched
the orange pekoe eruption
of copper-brown clouds
bursting from white gauze.
But I often lack the patience
to await a rolling boil, wandering away
until the click of the auto shut-off
summons me back to the kitchen.
After the alarm, I set a timer:
exactly seven minutes steeping
so as to make neither bitter brew
lukewarmed with a surfeit of milk,
nor pallid mugful strengthened
by the cheat of a squeezed bag.
My husband will make me a cuppa cuppa
as he calls it; sometimes as a balm
sometimes as an apology, sometimes
because he simply does not know
what to say or do beyond offering
the British cure-all: a steaming cup
of tannins and theanine.
And I´ll sip it from a chipped mug
older than our marriage but
just as familiar and imperfect, and
think about the way you can
wander away from each other
until something whistles you back.
