When I wrote the following poem nearly 24 years ago, I had never even seen a salamander. Still, it instantly became one of my favorites, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover salamanders in our back yard when we moved to North Carolina back in 2001. Both Amelia and Riley have grown up catching and loving them, too. Enjoy!

sal•a•man•der n. a mythological reptile resembling the lizard, that was said to live in fire.

Back in May, 1998, Beth and I joined most of her Kiefert and Julien families in Tallahassee, Florida, for the wedding of her sister Ann and Chuck Bowling. I married into my wife’s family back in 1992, so I was very much at home with everyone gathered, as we all enjoyed an unforgettable weekend together with Chuck’s family, and their many friends who joined in the fun. The day before their wedding, Ann and Chuck invited us all to join them at one of their favorite places: The Birdsong Nature Center. Located in Thomasville, Georgia, just above the Florida-Georgia border, Birdsong is a 565-acre preserve of wildflower meadows, forests, ponds and swamps. Home to a dazzling array of birds and wildlife, it’s pretty much heaven on Earth. We all learned a lot that day about nature, about Chuck’s father’s ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat … and a neat program where the center provides essential nesting homes for Bluebirds. So naturally, when Ann and Chuck’s daughter Grace was born, we decided to sponsor a Birdsong Nature Center Bluebird home in her name. And since my mother marked so many special occasions when I was growing up with the added gift of an original poem, I wrote this one for our first niece.

And then, when our second niece Claire was born in 2000, just 10 months ahead of our own baby girl, we kept the tradition alive with her own Birdsong Bluebird haven, and this dedication I wrote 10 years ago.

Happily, Birdsong’s still there in that lovely spot in Southern Georgia, and so are the Bluebird homes dedicated to our nieces. In many nice ways, it symbolizes Ann and Chuck’s values, a lot of cherished family memories, and two young ladies who are very special to a lot of us.

Drama
by Roger Darnell

the young gent measures his breath,
realizing that their eyes are blazing at his
beneath the brims of their hats, in the thin light.
the air is bitter cold; it stings his inner sanctum.
hadn’t his mother warned him about catching cold?
watch it, lucky says, he’s got a temper! our hero
hudson can’t sit back any longer. he kicks the
nearby bench and feigns enormous outrage.
you say you’re my friends, but I don’t think so.
a lot of other words steam through his mind
but no others pierce the thick silence.
the frigid air presses lucky and friends. a luminance
behind hudson makes him disappear in their squints.
the back-lit boy has betrayed some part of himself
in those previous seconds, for some social gain.
his mother waits patiently.
all his family will sit in judgment.
the group of boys shifts, sniffs, one coughs.
hudson knows his valor is gone;
unless…

It’s one of the few items from “just,” my first poetry collection, which I’ve published so far on this site. Though it touches many nerves for me, and hints at the place and station I’ve come from, somehow it feels good to expose it to the sunshine and fresh air which make up my life at present, with loved ones, friends and comrades many and strong. There was a time, not long ago, when things weren’t looking so good. Even then, the sense of better things to come was bright and clear.

by Roger Darnell

The things I find entertaining aren’t things I can write about.

I like to imagine stories about our cat, taming her world,

unafraid and attitudinal, eccentric and, well, beautiful. 

Our other cat inspires her own happy go lucky devil-may-care

cavalier and friendly tales… which are still just cat fancies.

Romantic stories from Europe, South America

and Pennsylvania Amish Country beginning to take pixel-life

in my imagination, are hopefully the right stuff and will someday

prove worthwhile things I will have written about.  For now

they’re still in the layer just above my vision, in a place I can’t see

because, looking, it rises above.  Yet I can imagine it and,

without looking, see it perfectly.  The work I’ll create, in a night

where the vein runs longer than this one.

Much longer….

 – August 14, 1997

Tomorrow it will be twenty-one years since I began writing the following poem. That’s another story, and perhaps, another post… maybe one for twenty-one years from tomorrow.

I selected the poem this evening after searching through the spreadsheet containing an archive of my poems with the date I wrote each one, collection information, and a column for me to track reviews underway with publications. The document was put together at another time in my life and career, when I was more diligent in submitting poetry to prestigious print publications and presses. Not sure if this one was ever submitted to magazines, but either way, I know the rights are mine :^). It’s part of my first collection, entitled “just.”

by Roger Darnell

In the clear blue light
slipping in behind the night
dawning daybreak shines in glory…
glowing glory giving sight

to the eyes closed tight
facing darkness in the fight
that will make the losers winners
when light enters, making bright

hopes for one more chance
in this joyous world to dance
just to wake up in the morning…
welcome morning, new romance!

Copyright Roger Darnell . All Rights Reserved.