Monthly Archives: January 2023

A ReVerse – 8 January 2023

It seemed a good time to assess the past several weeks of verse by crafting a ReVerse. I had every intention of doing a sevenling daily in the new year for January…then work, duty, and caregiving got in the way. Still, it is a good start to a new year, one of which I am optimistically hopeful. 

Even though 2023 promises to be a shitshow on the world’s stage. The inmates truly in charge of and running the place here in the US now, and elsewhere insanity is raging unchecked…unprovoked aggression and cruelty, war crimes, nuclear saber rattling by unhinged egomaniacs, lingering COVID. It’s a mess. But we are a resilient lot, we humans. And there is still, there is always a reason to be grateful for each second of breath, of life.

Take care of yourselves, be kind, don’t lose hope, embrace the moment. Peace to you.


A ReVerse - 8 January 2023

the trees will show me
a wise soul will surrender
in our hearts we know
the winds come
the sum of a life
wisdom to ponder
beauty in simplicity
anything but bleak
singed with loss, happy milestones, grief…
for all these beautiful years…decades
there's something in the air, conjuring the dawn in afterglow
was it barbarians at the gate caused Rome to fall, or complicity?

~kat

A ReVerse poem (a practice I started many years ago) is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. 

sevenling (empire)

sevenling (empire)

how pitiful to watch soulless politicians
clamor for power, grovel
for endorsements, beg for votes

we the people left wanting it would seem
for compassion, liberty, justice
trading trust for lies, vote by vote

was it barbarians at the gate caused Rome to fall, or complicity?

~kat

sevenling (the dawn)

sevenling (the dawn)

Eos rises, cloak of saffron, glowing
roses blush beneath the mist from her wet kisses
her fiery passion breaks the darkest dark of night

i rise warmed by the glow of this new day
oblivious to this celestial passion play
grateful for the tomorrow promised yesterday

there's something in the air, conjuring the dawn in afterglow

~kat

sevenling (the caregiver)

sevenling (the caregiver)

because i do, and have loved you
for all these beautiful years…decades
through the best and worst, in health, in sickness…til death

vows i didn’t take lightly then
or now, as the piper comes to collect his due
i am a better person for it, because of you

exhausted, not from service, but from watching you suffer

-kat 2023 day two

Another Sevenling on this second day of 2023. 

sevenling (a new year)

sevenling (a new year)

on the first day the sun shone bright,
clouds streamed swiftly on the azure plane
the breeze was unseasonably warm

we closed another chapter, pages
singed with loss, happy milestones, grief…
what a daunting year it was

past midnight, heartache lingers, still, there is hope

~kat 2023 day one

Why a Sevenling? Because 2023, numerologically speaking, is a Universal Year 7. And what is a sevenling? 

the sevenling…
A three line stanza containing three things
A three line stanza containing three (contrasting) things
A one-line stanza that resolves or heightens the contrast

the title includes the word “sevenling” with the given title in parenthesis.