Stone Soup Croutons, 1-10-19, Those Who Never Walked Their Cats by the Shore Like Lynne Sticklor

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked up from poems overheard from Stone Soup's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

Last night was our tribute to the late Lynne Sticklor.This is the first poem I've completely written the morning after Stone Soup, not even taking any notes during the show. I was in the moment completely last night, filming, photographing and interacting. As a result, I was completely reliant on copies of the poems, which I either recorded through the night or photographed after we were finished.

And I had every intention to make this about Lynne in some way.

There are those that do the homework, and then there are those that ask for extra homework.

At least I finished. It helped that even if people didn't write specifically for Lynne, they at least chose thematically appropriate work.

An extra nod to James Van Looy for the poem he read by Mary Oliver and Jan Rowe for the quote from Mary Oliver she chose to recite, unaware that Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" was Lynne's favorite poem.

Thanks for reading.

Those Who Never Walked Their Cats 
by the Shore Like Lynne Sticklor

They should remember her
as girl on blonde fire
who walked slowly, choosing
where to cool her feet,

who picked a puddle over
a reservoir, found abundance
in deserted sands, a playable hand
in drawing the death card.  

Where nothing seemed
cyclical, she drew her
own circles into maps
her trail a wand's wave,

confident even crab apples
tossed into the ocean
find their way down river
into a unicorn's mouth,

that a tune on her lips
from a band's closing set
would reach the ears of those
she waited for by the beach,

that poets are otters,
able to sweet-talk swim
through any body, waiting
for a hand to hold in water.

The crowd gathers.

Deb Priestly with her unicorn painting brought in memory of Lynne.

Good Company.

Special thanks to Gordon Marshall, April Penn, Suzanne O'Toole, Deb Priestly, Bil Lewis, Jan Rowe, Yvonne Marty, Deta Galloway, Jacques Fleury, Martha Boss and James Van Looy.