To the Lovely Green Beetles Who Carried My Notes into the Afternoon
Such beauty should not be bound,
thus I tied loose knots,
knowing you would slip free
and shed my words
as they were meant,
across browned lawns,
just over the cedar fence
or at the curb’s edge,
never to be assembled,
and better for it.
* * *
This appeared in riverSedge Volume 29, Issue 1, released in October 2016, and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second. I first encountered riverSedge in 1983, and vowed that one day my poetry would be published in this journal. It took a while…
O at the Edges 
such beautiful words
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Thank you, Beth!
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I love this little poem and its title – it’s a balm
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Thanks, Lynne. Probably inspired by James Wright. I can’t imagine that it wasn’t. Ha!
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Yes, I can see that – echoes of cowbells in the afternoon…but I love how you went in a different direction, more elegant ars poetica.
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I return to his poems often — his line breaks and seemingly simple modifiers were perfect!
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Love the perspective here, Bob — both the self-deprecation and wise appreciation for those beetles. I’ve written so much that would have been better carted off than assembled. 🙂
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Thank you, Cate. I often think my poems would be better if someone else had written them. 🙂
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Definitely a puzzler – wondering what material you were knotting – roping beetles and then letting them slip free … And were the words just a jumble, perhaps a list of expletives suitable for commentary on then-current world events? Or somewhat assembled into poetry before carried away by the dutiful beetles? [I sense a bit of chewing by beetles, and a probable pleasure in that on their part …]
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Tiny beetle lassos! Beetle ingestion seems a fitting reward for my poetry. I’d be delighted if my words were filtered through a beetle’s digestive system!
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I know these words well Robert, and I’ll be reciting your poem at my Geelong Writers poetry classroom next week, when are requested to bring along a poem of our choice
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Oh, Ivor. I am honored! Thank you!
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My poetry group are impressed by writings and I have 2 of your Chapbooks to take along for ‘show and tell’
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