National Poetry Month 2020 Day 2: “Love’s Story” & "Their Voice"

It’s day two of National Poetry Month! Are you playing along yet? What are your favorite poems

and how do you best enjoy them? Did you memorize your beloved lines? Do you listen to them

spoken or sung? Do you prefer to create your own original works? Rhyming or not? Please share

with me your poetic story. And for today, here are my two poems, one by another author and one I

wrote myself.

I was first introduced to David Horowitz, the author “Love’s Story,” at the awesome literary festival/book

fair called Wordstock that I attended while living in Portland, Oregon. I was interested in some new,

current, local poetry and found a couple authors whose work I really enjoy! Portland is such a great

reading and writing city, with a lot of poetry happening, including slams. It was so cool to meet the authors

at Wordstock at the same time I was learning of their work, and a lot of this author’s poems resonate with me.

Love’s Story

By David D. Horowitz

I’m made of low desire;

I’m made of noble aim.

I’m like a spreading fire; 

I’m like a steady flame.

I’m made of stark obsession; 

I’m made of calming plan.

I cherish indiscretion

Yet weigh taboo and ban.

I burst past bonds of reason;

I advocate restraint.

My bones feel like they’re freezing 

In fire, devil in a saint.

My seeming contradiction

Evolves each lustful day.

My love’s complex, not fiction;

Dusk’s scarlet, gold, and gray.

The poem of my own that I’m sharing today is very near to my heart, as I wrote it when one of
my best friends passed four years ago. I am so fortunate to have gotten to know Bryony Nesbitt,
an authentic, creative, even magical soul. They were there for me during a particularly difficult
time in my life, and helped in tangible ways as well as providing emotional and spiritual support.
Their loss left a gaping hole, but cannot take away cherished memories and a huge impact on our
community. Bryony loved poetry, reading it, writing it, and hearing it!

Their Voice (for Bryony, 1983-2016) 

by Blythe Stephens

Was the passage long?

How did it feel?

Are you rocking too,

as we reel?

Will you wiggle and giggle,

like you always did?

Kitty cuddle

and play like a kid?

How will your words sound?

When you inspire and cheer?

A bastion of strength,

courage through the fear.

I’ll always love you,

Now at one with your home,

Your light shining,

as it has always done.