Morning at the Jetty
Between the deluge
and the storm to come,
I pause to praise the blue
leaking through dank clouds.
Praise too, the pelicans
diving for breakfast,
the neighbors who wave hello,
fishermen casting lines
into the roiling sea below.
Between the deluge
and the storm to come,
I praise this life as given,
to quell my daily fear
the worst may yet appear.
*
Progress (Post Intraocular Surgery)
The fruit flies
I swat from my eyes
are smaller sized
than the house flies
from yesterday, which
were smaller sized
still than the crows
from the day before.
*
Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella, Moon Tide Press, 2025. Work has appeared in journals and broadcasts including Eclectica, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Cholla Needles, TSPoetry, VerseDaily, Vox Populi, The Writer’s Almanac, anthologies including Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, The Poetry of Presence I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Love Is For All Of Us, What the House Knows, Poetry Goes The Movies. She writes and leads workshops from her home base in Long Beach, California.
In “Morning at the Jetty,” I love the iambic rhythm in “I pause to praise the blue.” And I love how the poem suggests we need such pause–many such pauses–because “the worst may yet appear.” I think of our political undertow of darkness. Thank you Donna for your art.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Profound duo here. Thanks
Thank you! I am a big Ellen Rowland fan.
I’m afraid I share your fear about the worst and want to share the clever poem Progress with my opthalmologist before my cataract surgeries. He explained to me that the nearsighted (him and my husband) live in a completely different world than the farsighted (me, who once had 20/15 vision). This must explain something profound about the world I haven’t figured out yet. Pausing to praise is good in all cases.
Hard not to be fearful! Thanks goodness for the company of poets.
Absolutely fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic poems. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks so much!
I love both of these – you know how badly (and how often I need the reminder to pause) – such an elegant poem. And the Progress poem made me laugh and almost regret I had to birds in my eyes post-surgery! Glad the creatures have gone, though, for your sake.