A great big thank you to all who entered the contest.  There were so many excellent poems, and so many poems that touched me deeply that I decided midway to enlist the help of an impartial judge who has nothing to do with my online world.  My father, C. Stuart Vibert.  Highly qualified both as a lifetime student of literature and the arts, and a talented writer in his own right. He has the distinction of having two stories published in the first edition of City Lights Magazine. 

My criteria was the poem that moved me the most.  For me, a poem needs to encapsulate an emotion, and so many of them did.  I had physical reactions upon reading many of them, feeling immediately moved.

An area of concern that made judging difficult for me:  I have long term relationships with many of the poets who submitted poems.  I didn’t want the relationships with the writers to interfere with my choices.  I printed out all of the poems but without the names attached.  Of course, I did remember some of the authors of each poem, but not all of them.  I then read each poem out loud.  I put aside poems that didn’t read well.  I put aside poems that were written in rhyme and meter but the meter tripped up in places.  It came down to about 10 poems which I starred as promising.  From those poems I had three potential winners in my mind.  I then gave the poems to my father and with no knowledge of any of the writers whatsoever, he picked the same three. The decision was so close I’ve decided the runners up will also receive a print!

My top three choices and how they moved me:

3rd Runner Up: Rachel Westfall of The Waxing Moon

The moon’s slow grace runs golden through
the apple fields as though it knows
those amber honey words she’d lapped
in slow and patient strokes from her
sweet lover’s tongue before they slipped
away so fleetingly, and now
each night she haunts the fields in search
of something lost that precious night
of belfire, bower, hair entwined
with ribbons bright, spring blossoms strewn–
her youth, perhaps, or maiden’s charm
spilled carelessly on meadow loam–
yet morning finds her, endlessly
still older, worn, creased paper-thin
feet moss-dew bathed, brow blessed by night,
kissed by the newborn sun

__

Exquisite imagery and wording, this poem moved me far back into the past, into the days of youth that are forever gone.  I admit that when I got to the end, I completely choked up.  A tear for past dreams.  Thank you Rachel.

2nd Runner Up:  Blake aka Tom Hirons of Coyopa

All Winter,
Three stark trees
Watched me.

In fire and snow;
In the grip of
Ice and longing;
I looked up from
Blood and stone
And saw them
Watching.

I thought that Spring
Would never come
And the trees would
Not green again.

I thought that Life
Would never start
And my heart would
Not beat again.

All Winter,
Three stark trees
Watched me.

I watched back
And waited,
Though it felt like
Dying to wait.

And Spring came.

Three green trees
Watch me.

I climb over the gate
And go towards them.

Three green trees
Watch me run.

___

This poem was  a reenactment of the recent events of Winter turning into Spring as seen from my painting window.  In the poem, Tom takes me from the stillness and the stark cold *in* of Winter: the sitting and staring, hoping, waiting, longing and lounging too much into the head and endless sense of cocooning,  to  running toward the joyous return of Spring and all that it brings.  Simple words, beautiful flow of grace, this poem makes me want to dance.

1st Place: Sarah Hina of Murmurs

I can hear
the nightingale
waltzing with indigo
when swaddled
within a gauze
of light

Yet the lark
will half me
a wafer of dawn
if I should
sink these knees
in some honeyed
blight

Wherever I pause,
life jumps across,
as I chase
and laugh
the waves
with a loon
as my albatross

____

This poem moved me in layers.  When I first read it I knew it was among my top choices, but then it began to haunt me.   It woke me up in the middle of the night in fact.  This poem moves me connection by connection.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that my mind works by connecting metaphors and codes, one to the other.  Sarah has done that here like a master.  I will try to decipher for you.  First, it brings into the field the sound of birds.  An image can’t capture the sound of birds, so only the imagination can bring that into the forefront, but I assure you, in reality, the birds are there.

But not just any birds.  As the image would suggest,  these are the birds of night and day, the nightingale and the lark.  The same nightingale and lark, I presume, that confused Romeo and Juliet, those star crossed lovers who were hoping for a little more darkness to be able to revel in their light (before they were separated forever by fate).

Star crossed lovers.  A mythology that can plague those who believe in it, and make them behave completely insane.  And so the nightingale dances with the indigo when even a little golden light might shine on him, getting more and more covered in blue.  And so the lark who may sing in the glorious rays of dawn will sink in the hidden darkness of the honeyed blight.  And these beliefs that any of that star crossed lover mythology is real, all the actions that we do to chase it, that is our insanity.  For those of us who experience this over and over again, even though we know better, the loon (the tendency toward fantasy), is the albatross.

In my opinion, the pure genius of this poem took it over the top on wings.

Sarah’s novel Plum Blossoms in Paris is being published in August. You can preorder her book here

The winner of the drawing was Sandie Rhodes!

Congratulations Sarah, ‘Blake’ aka Tom, Rachel and Sandie!

Thank you all for entering, it was an absolute joy to read your submissions.  I plan to make these contests a regular feature on my blog.  Stay tuned!