L.R. Harvey Poetry

Freeing the Mysterious I cannot find the words for what I know is Real: the way I feel when watching twilight fireflies in August, or what a giggling toddler’s laughter does to my heart, or how a piece of poetry or art brings unexpected tears without an explanation -- or even how I feel right now, marveling at the mysterious complexities of Life I know exist but struggle to express with any determination. But maybe I should learn to put down my pen, to simply watch and feel and be    and then to rest in knowing that there are times when Life is not meant to be pinned down with words or images but is to be Alive, a pulsing organism that cannot be confined within the margins of a poem or stuck inside a wooden frame, but must have the freedom to fly to the forests and flower-fields of the mind without the weight of words.  

A World of Boys and Girls Not much can shock a little mind  that only thinks of romp and play, as when it first begins to find that girls play a different way.  When Warren asked the neighbor gals  to join his nightly search for toads,  poor Warren felt he’d lost his pals  when Kate and friends all chorused, “NO!”  As Johnny wrestled Sharon down  (a game he knew she loved, at first,)  and Sharon donned a tearful frown, it altered Johnny’s universe.  Todd’s lunchroom burp that always found  a faithful laugh from every friend,  now met with “ew’s” from dainty mouths -- the trusty burp had met its end.  But when in high school Warren asked  if Kait would pin his boutonniere,  and Johnny tossed a touchdown pass while Sharon led the girls’ cheer,  the world was right ‘tween boy and lass --  it all made sense, the air was cleared. But Todd, poor lad, is st...

Lament I hate this bottom sip of milk. Dear God  I hate this bottom sip. Dear God  I know I shouldn’t hate,  but man this sip — so warm.

Reflections from the perspective of another white teacher Due solely to a pair of chromosomes and invisible functions I do not understand, I’m white and male; and for justifiable reasons beyond my control, this makes me many things: I am a high-wire act, striding atop a shaky rope between the gaping pit of ancestral ownership and the airy expanse of individual innocence. I am a greenhouse gardener, tending the diverse plants surrounding me the best I know how, yet knowingly blind to what is going on beneath the surface, unable to fully understand the roots. I am a choral singer, a unique voice so often feeling lost amidst the swell of a choir that looks but does not sound like me, lost within a swaying mass of white.    And yet I know I am an influencer, whose single voice can change the choir’s song for better or for worse; whose tending hand can nurture or suppress a fledgling plant; whose high-wire a...

An Eternal Being Takes a Bath “He has also set eternity in the human heart.” -Ecclesiastes 3:11 We quickly realized that the no-tear soap was nothing but a bubbly bottle of false hopes when you snapped the plastic mast off of your bathtub ship. I hastily said that it’s okay and it is natural sometimes that things will break, but soaking wet and miserable you asked the newly-talking toddler question, “why?” “Some things weren’t made To last forever,” I said, and passed it off as if it really were that simple. But you were not appeased, and backing me into a corner with another “why,” I groped to conjure up an answer good enough to satisfy your searching mind: “It’s hard to make a thing that will not break” I explained,    and secretly pleased with my buzzer-beater explanation, I pulled the drain and watched the soapy water swirl away, hoping that with it would go the endless questions, yet somehow knowing that thi...

To the unknown student whose book I bought at McKay's For fifty cents I saw your broken heart; it was underlined in red on the fifteenth page, and since the spot was warped and wrinkled (from being marked with an angry hand, I guessed) the book fell open there as if it wanted to share your pain.             I’ve read it since again and again, trying to picture you sitting in your room after school, your checkered uniform still on, the boy-band posters smiling down while all around you sense the world has lost its color and nothing matters -- and soon you’ll have to see him walking to class or in Mr. Meadow's room, and you’re contemplating whether your heart will even continue to beat when you pass him in the hall, and crying you take your ballpoint pen to underline “I’ll never love again.”

The Pursuit "Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates I'm ever wondering away from where I am and where I've been, and who can say exactly when (or rather "if") I'll ever rest again.