Poetry by Jurell Cloward
MoonLit welcomes you back from a nice, long holiday break with the first of what we hope will be many Guest Stars. One of the principles MoonLit Press was founded on is service to the writing community. We are very happy to welcome the poet Jurell Cloward to the MoonLit family, and are proud to introduce you to his work.
We fell in love with his Little Bird, Secret Place, and The Soul of Her and hope you will too.
Little Bird
And for a brief moment, in absolute amazement, I understood that little bird in plain English...
With verve, confidence, and a pinch of frustration he said:
Are only the most beautiful creatures the most blind?
Iʼm not sure how else can I explain this to you, but the sun itself envies the warmth of your smile.
The brightest flowers long to be as vivid as you are...
The most skilled of silk spiders use your skin as a template.
In case you havenʼt noticed, the autumn leaves themselves are teased to be carried by your tender wake.
The birds of morning follow your voice, intrigued solely by its sweetness and the tallest of trees stand taller still when youʼre there, proud to shield your delicate femininity.
How havenʼt you noticed any of this yet?
Even the fireflies dance delirious after taking in the light from your peridot green eyes!
I once heard that shooting stars are the universe’s most beautiful souls, looking for a planet that needs them. Thatʼs why they continue to streak across the sky, passing us by. We donʼt need them with you here!
The truth is you are the embodiment and contrast of light to dark, beauty to ugliness, warmth to cold... poetry and art. Thereʼs always a silver lining in the darkness if you will, except you
ARE THE SILVER LINING!
Secret Place
On ledges of the highest peaks
Within the forest’s hidden eyes
Roaming through the winding valleys
In nature’s hands, I need no disguise
Back into the splash of ponds
Where streams of revelation sound
Back into my perfect place
Where civilization is not found
Deep ocean’s music beckons me
Back to deepened skies of blue
Back into that pleasant peace of thought
Where silence lets me think of you
In fields of gold I fathom this
Atop the peaks of windy grace
This song of silence is my escape
Into my silent secret place
The Soul of Her
How luminous her glowing hair
Vivid like the pigments of spring
How radiant gleams her emerald eyes
With depth only the oceans can bring.
How rich & tenderly her voice it sails
Straight into the chambers of the heart
How dreamily & splendid it catches you
Like an exquisite form of art.
How adoringly cultivated her garden is
To catch her essence as she ambles by
Every flower, plant, stem & grass
Fed by her spirit, reaching to the sky.
How sound & snug the critters are
To reside within her grace
For thereʼs no welfare more fond than hers
Or her nurturing embrace.
How sugared is the displaced breeze
On every patch of earth she roams
Caramelized like candy delights
Eternally flirting with your nose.
How born again, the sinning fool
Would be to meet her lips
Stirred with heroic strength and gumption
More than all of Troy’s warships.
How dignified a victor you’d be
To evoke from her a laugh
For the sun can’t shine with warmer rays
Than the passion offered from her smile’s behalf.
How earnestly all things must yield
Captivated by her dainty hands
Captured, transfixed, with verve and thrill
Blissfully into enchanted lands.
How lucky yet you’d be the man
Through her to see life’s deepest meaning
She may have the body of a woman
But she has the soul of a divine being.
Jurell Cloward, Guest Star:
I grew up in a small town in central Utah and had an idyllic childhood roaming the streets with my friends on pedal bikes. We explored every square inch of town, got into mischief, and I, at least, developed a deep sense of wonder, curiosity, and adventure.
Iʼm a handyman and jack of all trades. I love learning anything new. This love has given me a broad and diverse set of pursuits such as: creative endeavors like poetry, writing, and photography; and intellectual pursuits into psychology, the paranormal, and technology. I like antiques and collectibles; and my athletic pursuits include mountain biking and weightlifting.
I have two boys, 13 and 10. I give everything I am to them. Iʼm 39 years old as I write this. I moved to Arizona ten years ago give or take. I lived in the Florence area for some years and decided the city life wasnʼt for me, so I moved back to a small town like the one I grew up in. Williams Arizona is my current small town of choice and my dream is to buy land, homestead it, and earn full independence off the grid so I can spend my retirement in utter complete freedom and the pursuit of my varied interests.
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| Graphic design by AJ Brown | https://mastodon.sdf.org/@mral |
Some images are through Creative Commons License and we would thank all of those creators if we could find their names.
MoonLit is grateful to and for those most powerful of writers, poets. And especially to the poet Jurell Cloward, for entrusting us with his work. We hope you enjoy it. We certainly do.
Terryl and Al and Jurell are all deeply thankful to the people who read our work. There would be little point in any of this without you You make it worth doing. We love hearing back from you, and are ever so grateful to you for sharing our efforts with your friends and family.
Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.
Terryl is the author of:The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 : 978-0-9894698-5-2
AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.
A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.
Together, we are MoonLit Press.