End Of The Road
This road through the woods
I’ve traveled for many years.
I know its speed bumps,
its ruts, narrowings,
its curves and hills.
On breezy spring days
I’ve been thrilled
as pink and white blossoms
floated through the air
to land on my windshield.
Pulling off the road,
I let the blossoms fall into my hair.
Many times on a lonely afternoon
I slowed for a doe crossing the road
with her new fawn.
But only once in all these years
did I see a mountain lion
slip into the brush and disappear.
During summers, I’ve parked
and walked to my favorite watery respite
for a casual swim -
the herons and egrets
wary and watching.
Lazily following this familiar road
into the woods during the autumn months,
through the windows
I would see a kaleidoscope of color,
my senses filled
with nature’s generous gift of beauty -
brilliantly colored leaves set against a deep blue sky
filled with shape-shifting clouds and
flocks of migrating geese.
And when the snow falls,
as it is now,
the road becomes icy and treacherous,
a reminder that winter is upon me.
The beauty of the woods has
morphed into a white wooded wonderland
inviting me to leave the car behind.
I walk slowly,
find my 400-year-old friend,
lay my aging body in the snow
under the oak’s leafless branches.
The familiar sounds
of woodpeckers and crows
comfort me
before I fall into an everlasting sleep.
The Presidential Election, 2024
Pundits are analyzing
justifying
hoping, trying
to find a logic
that could produce
a result so terrifying.
A highly qualified woman
bent on unifying
we, the people,
could not find support
in the adoring crowd
who cheered on
the racist rapist
vengeful vulgar
self-adoring man.
Pundits conducted poll after inconclusive poll
to try to discern
why we, the people,
would choose
an oft-convicted felon,
a divider over a uniter,
but the most important question,
the obvious, the unspoken,
they did not ask –
Would you support a woman to be president
of our once-great country?
Nanci Woody wrote the novel, Tears and Trombones, and the accompanying pilot for a streaming series.
Her work has been published in, among other places, The California Writers Club Literary Review, a CWC Anthology, the October Hill Magazine, The Fault Zone, the Sacramento Poetry Society’s Tule Review, Your Daily Poem, The Monterey Poetry Review, and the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal.
Nanci is also a photographer and an artist. Her photo, “Supermoon,” won the Juror’s Award at the CA State Fair and the Curator’s Award at the KVIE Annual Art Auction.
To read samples of Nanci’s work and learn about her other passion, art, go to http://www.nancileewoody.com or http://www.bookcompanion.com
This road through the woods
I’ve traveled for many years.
I know its speed bumps,
its ruts, narrowings,
its curves and hills.
On breezy spring days
I’ve been thrilled
as pink and white blossoms
floated through the air
to land on my windshield.
Pulling off the road,
I let the blossoms fall into my hair.
Many times on a lonely afternoon
I slowed for a doe crossing the road
with her new fawn.
But only once in all these years
did I see a mountain lion
slip into the brush and disappear.
During summers, I’ve parked
and walked to my favorite watery respite
for a casual swim -
the herons and egrets
wary and watching.
Lazily following this familiar road
into the woods during the autumn months,
through the windows
I would see a kaleidoscope of color,
my senses filled
with nature’s generous gift of beauty -
brilliantly colored leaves set against a deep blue sky
filled with shape-shifting clouds and
flocks of migrating geese.
And when the snow falls,
as it is now,
the road becomes icy and treacherous,
a reminder that winter is upon me.
The beauty of the woods has
morphed into a white wooded wonderland
inviting me to leave the car behind.
I walk slowly,
find my 400-year-old friend,
lay my aging body in the snow
under the oak’s leafless branches.
The familiar sounds
of woodpeckers and crows
comfort me
before I fall into an everlasting sleep.
The Presidential Election, 2024
Pundits are analyzing
justifying
hoping, trying
to find a logic
that could produce
a result so terrifying.
A highly qualified woman
bent on unifying
we, the people,
could not find support
in the adoring crowd
who cheered on
the racist rapist
vengeful vulgar
self-adoring man.
Pundits conducted poll after inconclusive poll
to try to discern
why we, the people,
would choose
an oft-convicted felon,
a divider over a uniter,
but the most important question,
the obvious, the unspoken,
they did not ask –
Would you support a woman to be president
of our once-great country?
Nanci Woody wrote the novel, Tears and Trombones, and the accompanying pilot for a streaming series.
Her work has been published in, among other places, The California Writers Club Literary Review, a CWC Anthology, the October Hill Magazine, The Fault Zone, the Sacramento Poetry Society’s Tule Review, Your Daily Poem, The Monterey Poetry Review, and the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal.
Nanci is also a photographer and an artist. Her photo, “Supermoon,” won the Juror’s Award at the CA State Fair and the Curator’s Award at the KVIE Annual Art Auction.
To read samples of Nanci’s work and learn about her other passion, art, go to http://www.nancileewoody.com or http://www.bookcompanion.com
