TWO POEMS: A YEARNING and A PILGRIM SONG

…what is it about labor/that burnishes the surfaces it works/ over or levels down?...Change me,/I begged my beloved…

A YEARNING

That mute pebble rolled hither and thither

when the river current rushes downstream

after a thunderstorm, will it sit in the pond,

remain where it is lodged, stay unchanged?

In yet another rush, a stone crusher would

remake it into jagged edged crystal shaped

perhaps to a gem capping a band wrapped

around a fragile finger: an artisan’s manner

of altering the commonplace into a diadem.

But how will I change you? Into what shall

I change you? Would I were your Pygmalion,

maybe then, I could find my Galatea in you.

---Albert B. Casuga

05-19-11

Prompt Poem: “Song of Work” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/05/song-of-work/

What is it about cleared land that turns a lilting refrain into a burden, a shrill work song?

A PILGRIM SONG

When the gleaners return from potato patches at sundown,

they trudge back to their homes to the beat of a quiet refrain: 

“This land will be clear again, this crop will be good again.

We leave the roots to sprout at night, the leaves in the morning.

This land will be good again, this home will be fed again.

We leave the fires beneath cauldrons burning until morning.” 

What is it about cleared land that turns a lilting refrain

into a burden, a shrill work song?  What is it about the song

that lifts the load brought back into homes in the evening?

Is not the rhythm of work the rhythm of life? A song’s refrain?

---Albert B. Casuga

05-19-11

Poetic Prompt: “What is it about cleared cland that turns a lilting refrain into a burden, a shrill work song?” ---Morning Porch, 05-19-11, Dave Bonta, http://www.morningporch.com/2011/05/