Welcome back to Poem for Your Thoughts! I hope you all enjoyed your break and read some poetry! If one of those aspects is lacking in your life, this is the column for you! If there are any authors you would like to dive into or even a specific poem you would like to analyze, please let me know in the comment section below! Each edition will include two poems, the first being a featured piece written by a famous poet that will be analyzed and interpreted according to my point of view. Of course, everyone’s interpretation is different and valid, and the comment section will be open for any further discussion. The second piece is written by yours truly and will be open to complete interpretation and analysis. Go forth, enjoy, and as you read, remember: “It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

Poem One: Praisesong by Sarah Browning
At the coffee shop you love,
white mugs heavy on the table
between us, young baristas—
spiky haired and impatient—
cannot imagine how two people
so old to them can feel so wanton,
coffee growing cold between us,
middle-aged bodies growing hot
under the other’s gaze. Even now,
apart, you send me songs so I may
listen to love from the golden throat
of a saxophone, piano keys playing
jazz across my soft belly.
How is it the tide of terror
has quit rising in me, or rises
and recedes as tides do, bringing
sea glass worked smooth
and lovely by the sheer fact
of time, bringing trash—
plastic mesh and old sneakers—
useless things now we might
bag up and remove, bringing
a lapping tongue of water up
over our toes as we hold hands< and walk along its edge—>
carefully, gleefully, both.

Thoughts: I decided to pick a modern poem for this week’s edition, and this one is plucked right from 2017. From the elegant Sarah Browning, this is a very sentimental and heartfelt poem. The speaker focuses on the subtle beauties of her relationship and her descriptions truly touch the heart. remembering the cups of coffee they’ve shared and the songs her lover still sings to her develops the romantic and nostalgic tone of the poem. There is a simple love shared between the speaker and her significant others that is so intricate and beautiful, she cannot help but bleed her emotions through the lines of this wonderful poem. An excellent piece of poetry.

Poem Two: Life Without by D.C.

She  pulled back the motionless gray curtain covering beauty,

And the colors of the world shifted into fragile stained glass.

 I saw it, the blazing morning star, lumbering in the sky.

Mother Nature fought her finest battle, all in vein.

My gaze was averted, her silhouette standing akimbo in the shade of the oak.

Her presence, a deep ripple within still waters.

Gazing into the iris of passion itself, I was nearly blinded.

Green grasses and towering tree tops pay eternal homage.

My feet waver beneath me, my body is weak at this incomparable sight.

Jesus Christ, what beauty you died for!

God Almighty, this must be the answer to my fondest prayers.

My soul is fluttering in space, unwilling to return.

Life without this dream is meaningless, insignificant, complete folly.

Life without you, love, is worthless.

My greatest fear: to die without you, for I would have not truly lived.

-D.C.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Poem For Your Thoughts! Let me know your opinions on my poem and the gorgeous Sarah Browning poem in the comments section below!