Mary+Altamuro

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**"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know this is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?" - Emily Dickinson ** =====



**Ode To My Backyard**
The savage, passionate cold The snow enveloping everything The shocking, splintery winds The serenity of it all

Always familiar, yet always something new

The flowers The rhododendrons The bees The butterflies

Lulling and quixotic, fragrant and free

The carrots The blueberry bushes The tomatoes The peppers

A ritual, that took place every year

The breeze The grass The trees The crisp air

The seasons have passed, as well as much time, yet you were always there to comfort me.

**Hospitality Creek**
The smell of the cedar lake The warmth of facing the sun The campground One of my favorite places to be

It was always a calming place The feel of the metal steps under my feet It was a familiar sensation But something was wrong

He seemed ready to slide down But there was hesitation in his eyes A mischievous grin I knew so well He turned to me and smirked

He prepared to slide Backwards into the water His excited disposition Couldn’t help but transfer to me

His expression changed in less than a second Fear flashed across his face and mine As he slipped and fell towards me Towards the bottom of the steps

The weight of him on top of me The taste and smell of blood The air forced from my lungs It was a moment I would never forget

My own well-being A priority of mine the second he fell on me Was now reversed I could only wonder how he was

Was he hurt? Yes. Could I do anything? No.

Hours seemed to pass as we waited He was lifted from on top of me Finally, I could breathe again But my concern was still for him

I was probably crying I can’t remember that so clearly I could only remember sitting with my mom Still wet with blood, confused and anxious

**While We Still Have Feet**
Dancing above the homes of the dead below us reaching for the surface grabbing ankles and heels

Strain, longing and reminiscing honor through flowers and visits every month still grabbing ankles and heels

Come on, Sweetheart, let's go dancing while we still have feet.

(Line and inspiration taken from: David Budbill's "Tomorrow")

The Seasons Are Changing
Its constantly there and ever-changing Sometimes it is cold, breezy and biting Sometimes the wind shifts, the leaves rearranging Or sometimes its fragrant, warm and inviting

I love the birds and the buzzing bees Watching them land among the flowers and trees Spring and summer, the warmer of the four You can see it and smell it as you step out your door

I love the leaves blowing in the breeze And the snow as it drifts gracefully to the ground Everything outside left there to freeze The last two, fall and winter, are all around

Those were the days when we could tell the season by the weather But now its unpredictable, we need to get it together

**Analysis of My Poetry**
When writing poetry I like to break away from the structure of proper grammar. I have a harder time when trying to write specific types of poems with specific structure and rules. When writing poetry I like to use line breaks as dramatic pauses in my poems. My lines are most often short because I break off to go to the next line where I would pause if I were reading the poem out loud. I find writing poetry to be a very relaxing and calming experience if it is free form poetry. If I am assigned to write a certain type of structured poem, I feel stressed and pressured to follow the rules exactly, and I can’t seem to convey my ideas in the way I wanted to. Free from poems just seem to flow from ideas, feelings and senses into letters, words and phrases and I feel that they are one of the best ways to accurately describe how I am feeling about something.

**Tomorrow**
Tomorrow we are bones and ash, the roots of weeds poking through our skulls.

Today, simple clothes, empty mind, full stomach, alive, aware, right here, right now.

Drunk on music, who needs wine?

Come on, Sweetheart, let's go dancing while we still have feet.

**WINTER: TONIGHT: SUNSET**
Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road, my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first

through the woods, then out into the open fields past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop

and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue, green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.

I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening

a prayer for being here, today, now, alive in this life, in this evening, under this sky.

**Sometimes**
Sometimes when day after day we have cloudless blue skies, warm temperatures, colorful trees and brilliant sun, when it seems like all this will go on forever,

when I harvest vegetables from the garden all day, then drink tea and doze in the late afternoon sun, and in the evening one night make pickled beets and green tomato chutney, the next red tomato chutney, and the day after that pick the fruits of my arbor and make grape jam,

when we walk in the woods every evening over fallen leaves, through yellow light, when nights are cool, and days warm,

when I am so happy I am afraid I might explode or disappear or somehow be taken away from all this,

at those times when I feel so happy, so good, so alive, so in love with the world, with my own sensuous, beautiful life, suddenly

I think about all the suffering and pain in the world, the agony and dying. I think about all those people being tortured, right now, in my name. But I still feel happy and good, alive and in love with the world and with my lucky, guilty, sensuous, beautiful life because,

I know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be taken from me, and therefore I've got to say, right now, what I feel and know and see, I've got to say, right now, how beautiful and sweet this world can be.

**Analysis of The Work of David Budbill**
David Budbill seems to focus a lot on nature and his surroundings in his poems. He finds beauty in his surroundings and likes to help other people see this beauty too. He finds comfort in the seasons and their different weathers and pleasures. He appreciates everything and anything that is colorful, bright, fragrant and just makes you feel good throughout all your senses. A great example of this would be lines five to ten of David Budbill’s //Winter: Tonight: Sunset//. He is very thankful that he is here on Earth to feel these things, and that the world is gracious enough to provide them. He sees all these good things in the world and still feels guilty sometimes because some people don’t experience these wonderful things that he is experiencing. He doesn’t take anything for granted and he also often focuses on this in his poems. We see this very clearly in the last four lines (lines 20-23) of David Budbill’s poem //Sometimes//. He knows that one’s life could be taken away from them at any minute, so you should make the best of it while you still can. He wants people to appreciate things while they still have them. David explicitly illustrates both good and bad in his poems. He shows the reader beauty, captivating and sensuous, and describes it with excruciating detail that can leave you breathless (in a good way). After grabbing you like this he crosses over to heartlessness, and rips all those good feelings out from under you and your heart stops. You feel as if you have been punched in the gut and you can’t get any air. Nevertheless, his most amazing quality would not be either of these, but his ability to bring you back after this and make you feel good again, but you now know because of David Budbill, that you can’t take anything for granted.