PAD Day 5: Mary Oliver and the Periodic Table

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo:

(1) write a poem with an element from the periodic table in the title, and 

(2) write a nature poem in the style of, or inspired by, Mary Oliver.

I don't know how "Oliver-esque" my poem is, and I took the element prompt rather literally. (I could have made it a little easier with an element like "Gold", "Silver", "Lead", or "Iron".)  So here is today's effort.

Carbon

neighborhood landmark

my flowering apple tree

is early this year

the bees, ahead of schedule

already on early shift

the hawk circling

while morning rabbits scatter

seeking tender shoots

new leaves begin to unfurl

green factories in the sun

on my morning walk

the thing that's seen and unseen

precious building block

we only think of it in

a charred match, a barbecue grill

it's in my exhaled air

the same air the plants take in -

carbon-based life forms

(oh no, now I sound too much

like a Star Trek episode)

primordial stew

invisible molecules

look how far you've come

the world bursts like a seed pod

with me just passing through it

Speaking of Mary Oliver, here is a poem I wrote as a tribute to her several years ago:

Opening

(for Mary Oliver)

Not a religious man,

I try to define what prayer is –
I like your metaphors.

Prayer for you

is a green grasshopper
flying from your hand.

A pond of lilies

is a prayer heard and answered,

you say.

I watch a rabbit, hip-deep in dew,

breakfast on morning grass,
then leisurely lope away.

I see red crescendo sunrise,
coloring clouds that slept

invisible all night.

Prayer is what we send of ourselves

into the world
and what comes back.

Prayer is opening

our hearts and heads
to the heavens,

when we think

of nothing
and everything at once.


And lastly, here's a "bonus" element poem just for fun:

Her Elements of Style

platinum, silver,

gold, but not zirconium -

not the cubic kind