Sample Poems by Nancy Jentsch

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Untamed Sweetness

Black raspberries ripen wild at creek's edge
my eyes close, lips tingle
to memories of brimming backyard bushes.

These untended berry-gems hide tiny
behind stickers beyond reach.
I bend the canes to mine the ready flesh

lest deer or songbirds steal
the pear-fed coyote plunder.
At day's end, red-lipped,

I leave a fruit or two of untamed sweetness
like words that stray from verses
and still are pearls.

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Harbingers

The first spring birdsong
cuts diamond sharp
through morning's misty start
reflects Onkel Martin's
memory: how the first whistled
tune since war's end
rose above jagged rubble
woke from smoke-gray dreams

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All Brains and Thumbs

an arched branch fell
with the first winter storm,
now anchored by inch
after inch of snow'a cardinal's
perch where he awaits
a place at the feeder,
keeps clenched claws dry

if only I, with my brain-stuffed skull
and opposable thumbs could
grasp at chance as
firmly as he

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Late Afternoon Cypress

Just now the sun
caught the crown
of the cypress.
Branches wear
bronze coins bold
against untroubled
bluet sky,
glint and lilt
with the breeze,
taunt my eyes
like a lost memory
mocks my mind.

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Her Flight or Mine?

I stand in awe
of the shell-bound gosling
whose feathers might fly
her ungainly shape
over peak-trimmed lakes
that await her call
or stuff a comforter
with enough loft
to incubate my dreams
in a fifty-degree room
so I can trek mountains
or spin in pirouette

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On a Country Road in Spring

songbird's urgent search for love
airy dance step
atop grounded pole
riff reiterates
eyes and ears rivet
on lust-filled trills

unmuffled motorcycle passes