I am very privilege to share a friend’s poetry!  She is from my home town Seminole, Oklahoma.
Introducing Norma Gillespie’s poetry! A wonderful poem in response to T.S. Eliot’s “waste land”.
I hope you enjoy as much as I did!! Thank you Norma for sharing your writing with us!

 

My “Waste Land”
By Norma Gillespie
My “waste land” contrasts deeply to T.S. Eliot’s:
His “Waste Land” poetically
Explores varied psychic
Stages of despairing souls
Struggling for redemption.
Mine consists of a tangible environment—
A canyon sprawled on most of ten acres.
It’s become a haven
For people trapped in a
“World too much with us,”
As Wordsworth would say.
Yes, my worthless paltry pit,
Split by meandering spring-fed streams
Hardly pulls a tax dollar,
But the thick scattering
Of leafy blankets
Over huge and small, smooth
And rugged rocks;
The floral dogwood, stately cedar,
Knurled oak, and
Sprawling hickory continually
Renew the Circle of Life.
From sprouts to thirty-feet
Marvels toward Heaven.
This woody wonderland
Hosts public literary events
In several greenish
Mossy “auditoriums”
‘Mid Fall’s gorgeous
Changing scene, as well as
Spring’s gown of sylvan
Buds and wildflowers.
Heaven forbid, if ever I sever
My attentions to this
Seasonal display Nature boasts.
If I do, then it could truly
Become my own despairing “waste land.”