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3 eco-poems by

Barbara F. Hoffman: At Captree Bay, Confluence, Lilies

Barbara Fragoletti Hoffman’s poems have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Margie, Minnesota Review, Italian Americana, and other journals. Her latest chapbook is The Life & Hard Times of... She was a First Runner-up for the 2008 Bordighera Press Annual Poetry Contest for her manuscript, The Heat of Burnt Stubble. Hoffman's short fiction has appeared in Catholic Girls, published by Penguin and her articles have been published in The New York Times and Newsday. She was the subject of a WLIW channel 21 show “Originals” an “Arts on Long Island” series

AT CAPTREE BAY

silent today
but for the calling
of the gulls
the water calm glistening
currents running
underneath

the sky layered
gray blue
rain is coming
walking the beach

a flock of small birds
flies up, banks and curves
over beach grass
disappears into dunes

bare trees
black skeletons
against the sky

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CONFLUENCE -- Cold Spring Bay and Sebonac Inlet

a heron wades at shoreline
stalky legs
and graceful dip of beak

a fisherman casts
the line whips, threads out
flicks into the bay

I walk along the beach
hear the crunch of rocks and shells
pushing into sand

small shimmery bluepurple shells
parchment thin, cluster in pockets
black skate cases are wrapped in sea grape

I gather pink and salmon-colored rocks
fat white and gray clouds
laze across the horizon

a poke of blue sky shows itself
birds fly silently
swooping for their supper

the smell of salt water and air
imprints
quiet embraces me

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LILIES

pink and pearl water lilies in Paris at L’Orangerie
aqua and rose water lilies floating
under the bridge in Giverny

mauve and moss green
water lilies in a curve of wall
at the Modern in New York

if water is redemption
we are baptized in celadon green
if life begins in the ocean

we are enfolded in glaze of dapple blue
if we come from water
we are steeped in color

of honeysuckle, floating in an amniotic sea
if an almighty has dotted
the earth with beauty

we are the most beautiful
water lilies shimmering
floating over the earth
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