Welcome to where I am, where my kitchen's always messy, a pot's (or a poet) always about to boil over, a dog is always begging to be fed. Drafts of poems on the counter. Windows filled with leaves. Wind. Clouds moving over the mountains. If you like poetry, books, and music--especially dog howls when a siren unwinds down the hill-- you'll like it here.


MY NEW AUTHOR'S SITE, KATHRYNSTRIPLINGBYER.COM, THAT I MYSELF SET UP THROUGH WEEBLY.COM, IS NOW UP. I HAD FUN CREATING THIS SITE AND WOULD RECOMMEND WEEBLY.COM TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A WEBSITE. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY NEW SITE TO KEEP UP WITH EVENTS RELATED TO MY NEW BOOK.


MY NC POET LAUREATE BLOG, MY LAUREATE'S LASSO, WILL REMAIN UP AS AN ARCHIVE OF NC POETS, GRADES K-INFINITY! I INVITE YOU TO VISIT WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ SOME GOOD POEMS.

VISIT MY NEW BLOG, MOUNTAIN WOMAN, WHERE YOU WILL FIND UPDATES ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY KITCHEN, IN THE ENVIRONMENT, IN MY IMAGINATION, IN MY GARDEN, AND AMONG MY MOUNTAIN WOMEN FRIENDS.




Saturday, April 23, 2011

EASTER: FOR JIM ON SILER'S BALD

(Photo credit: www.hikingthesmokys.blogspot.com)

Today is my husband's birthday. We have been married 41 years, which is hard to believe. I wrote this poem shortly after we were married. I think it's a perfect Easter poem, as well as a birthday celebration.


For Jim On Siler's Bald

Dizzy with you on the edge,
after what seemed like hours of climbing
toward sunlight, I stepped
back and studied a hawk floating
over the valley like a kite

somebody let go of. Why speak
of life changing its seasons
again? How the hardwoods
bore leaves into view or
the bears brushed off sleep
like a cobweb to follow the light
growing long on the leafmold
where earthworms fished,
busy as fingers? That happened

as always. But wind?
I remember the hawk riding
on it to nowhere I knew
when we lay down in thin air
to sleep with the rest of the creatures
the earth was about to awaken.

"For Jim On Siler's Bald" appeared in The Girl In the Midst of the Harvest (Texas Tech University Press, 1986).


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