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Stuart Nottingham Grief When Linda Nottingham's father died in April, Lori Fraind suggested we do a round robin on grief. The invitation to participate went out, noting that we have all experienced grief over the loss of a loved one. Lori furnished us with the first line. Linda is our Web Master and Lori (otherwise known as BRASH) is our contest chair. Here is the poem: Grief When grief hangs in the trees like flocking birds, and limbs droop low beneath the weight of it, when somber doves cry out in mournful thirds, then, with their only word, to silence quit. Heads bowed as if in fervent, soulful prayer must rise and scan the world; new life redeems the loves, the leaves uncover deeper layers that ease the sting of melancholy dreams. Then shall the birds of grief take wing and fly. Though they return to peck your scattered crumbs, they search for peace, and on His words rely with faith, like schoolchildren doing their sums. They recall a life that soared like a song, and a throbbing pain that lingered all too long. The following poets, in order of contribution, created this sonnet: Lori C. Fraind, Lorraine Benedetto, Laura J. Bobrow, Dean Burgess, Gretchen Howerton, Mike Juster, Tom Lombardo, Ed Lull, Jackie Moore, Elisavietta Ritchie, Rosemary Schmidt, Lavonne Schoneman, Jack Underhill, Bob Young. Linda tells me he mother has read and reread the poem many times. Each time she gets an added something from it. She is amazed that fourteen poets, none of whom even knew her husband, so well expressed his life and her grief at his death. She is very appreciative. Flags Upside Down In my charge for the second sonnet I gave a broad subject of Cuban Americans in Miami flying the Stars and Stripes upside down (a signal for distress), flaunting of the Cuban flag in Miami, and flying the Confederate flag on state capital buildings in South Carolina. This charge is diffuse and does not involve all of us in the way that grief as a subject does. I think most of the problems with this second sonnet were a result of the charge I gave the poets. Here is the poem: Flags Upside Down In the times when flags fly upside down and every heart is reeling with distress; when travesty and tragedy abound, emotion seems inclined toward ugliness. Unfurled, the flag reports their plea from hell to all who turn deaf ears. Perhaps they'll hear this gesture, louder than the loudest yell of media's momentous mayhem, or broadcast tear, and brothers, come together for to help them respond, would lift them from their desolation and arm in arm, proclaim their freedom's anthem restore pride in the nation. In cataclysm's juxtaposition tell the memory of a nation is still well. Poets in order of their contribution are: Lori C. Fraind, B.R. Culbertson, Clint Johnson, John Hansen, Kay Gantt, Linda Nottingham (lines 6 & 7), Brash again, Mike Juster, Laura Bobrow, Gretchen Howerton and Dean Gurgess (lines 13 & 14).
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