Like everything else this week, my Poetry Friday post is a day late. I had a minor medical procedure on Monday (everything is fine) that left me discombobulated all week. My posts have been few and far between lately, but it is the first of the month, which means…the Inkling challenge! Margaret asked us to “Explore the use of anaphora in a poem, how the repetition of a line or phrase can add depth to the theme.” She suggested Jericho Brown’s poem “Crossing” as a mentor text. Coincidentally, I had been captivated by “Landscape with Things,” by Alexandria Hall, after hearing it on The Slowdown recently and was already playing with Hall’s repetition of the phrase “and still…”
Still
smudges of clouds streak
across the brightening sky
as pricks of light
from distant stars fade away.
And still a fox creeps
along the frayed edges
of the field, hunting for voles.
Still juice is poured,
coffee brewed, eggs scrambled.
Children wait at the driveway’s edge
to be transported to their futures.
And still the spider spins
her web above the rhododendron,
invisible to unsuspecting gnats and flies.
Still mist rises from the pond
as trucks rumble past,
their drivers focused on
the end of the journey.
No one notices
the heron, silent and still,
until she lifts her great
blue wings and flies away.
Draft, © Catherine Flynn, 2023
Please be sure to visit my fellow Inklings to read their responses to Margaret’s challenge:
Heidi @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret @ Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Then head over to Tanita’s blog, {fiction, instead of lies}, for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
I’m swooning.
The “smudges of clouds,” the children waiting “to be transported to their futures,” the switch back from more time-based stills to “still mist,” and the ultimate in stillness to end the poem — a blue heron.
Lovely. Simply lovely.
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Beautiful, such calming yet active stillness unfolds in each stanza, and twist with “still” as heron “flies away.”
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So much happening (and so many vivid images) amidst so much stillness. Beautiful, Catherine.
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This is gorgeous, Catherine. I’m always drawn to the word “still” and you use it to such powerful effect here! Ending with the flight of the heron is masterful! So lovely!
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What a gorgeous photo to illustrate that gorgeous last stanza. Beautiful repetition, Catherine.
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I love how the meaning of the word changes in the last stanza, the turn. The heron’s wing span is majestic
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This is just lovely, with shades of Mary Oliver — the whole idea of this panoply of wonder happening outside while breakfast is on the table and the morning hustle continues. Really gorgeous!
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Beautiful use of “still” – I love the gently zooming in, then out – from the natural world to the world of our everydays
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