This is a poem based on my childhood memories of Christmases in Michigan.

The Prettiest Christmas Tree




Blankets of snow covered branches in white
As we walked three abreast, mittened hands holding tight.
You swung me between you and Daddy that day,
On a Christmas that seems long ago, far away.

But still, I remember the smell of the pines,
And how they appeared in their uniform lines.
It was my year to choose, so I ran round with glee,
Searching the woods for the best Christmas tree.

The tree that I chose wasn’t full, wasn’t tall,
But crooked, and lonely, and really quite small.
Daddy and you gave a questioning stare,
And I just explained that our tree needed care.

We brought home our tree in a sheet, wrapped up tight,
And dressed it in ornaments, tinsel, and light.
When all work was done, we sat round in awe
Of the prettiest Christmas tree we ever saw!

~Brienne Adams~

This is a poem I wrote for my husband a few years ago. We have been married about 4 years, and we met in 8th grade. I love him as much and more, than when we first fell in love when I was 13 years old :)

You are…. (to my husband Brian)



This ring says you’re my husband,
This ring says I’m your wife.
Your words say you’re my soother,
That you’ll take away my strife.

Your hands say you’re my lover,
Your eyes say you’re my man.
Your fists are my protector,
Your praise my greatest fan.

Your friendship is my comfort,
Your presence is my light,
Your watchfulness my virtue,
And your honesty my sight.

Your love is mine forever,
Your passion wakes my soul.
Your mind says you’re a challenge.
You truly make me whole.

~Brienne Adams~

I wrote this poem after a particularly nasty fight with my father during highschool. Ahhhh...the teenage days... It must not have been a truly important issue, or I would remember what the fight was about! As you can see, it is a little long winded, but so are dramatic teenaged girls!!! Anyway, I love you Dad, and hope that I have become a woman who makes you proud! :)

Daddy’s Poem

What is a love eternal?
What is a love that’s kind?
What is a love elusive,
a love within the mind?

What kind of love is sacred,
so deep inside your soul?
What kind of love is healing?
What kind of love is whole?

Which love is often sought for,
bursts tears forth when you’re mad?
That love that’s all consuming
is love defining Dad.

All little girls need laughter,
all little girls shed tears.
All little girls have nightmares
and bring Daddy all their fears.

Their Daddy is protector,
a strength and silent light.
No matter what befalls them
their Daddy is their knight.

And as the girls grow older,
they still grasp their fathers’ hands,
and yearn to hold to Daddy
as life slips through time’s quick sands.

They may feel sad, uncertain,
fear that Daddy’s love will change
or wane as blooming women
feel their lives just rearrange.

Will Daddy love my changes?
Will our love still strive to be?
Through the fights and understandings
will he still see baby me?

A daughter’s greatest fear
is to lose her father’s love,
to mar the girlish image
that home movies whisper of.

But all little girls grow older,
all little girls will change.
The love they share with Daddy
will just grow and rearrange.

And women still need laughter,
and women still shed tears.
When women still have nightmares,
they’ll bring Daddy all their fears.

For daddies love their daughters
and they deep down know it’s true.
This woman’s still a little girl,
and she knows you love her too.

I love you daddy.
Love, Breezy

Inspiration

This poem appeared in Dorothy Garlock's 1986 novel, Wayward Wind. She cited her mother, Nan Carroll Phillips as the probable author. I first read this book in the mid 1990's, while still in middle school, and this poem served as an inspirational springboard for my own writing. I loved the poem so much, that as a child I created a melody for it that I still find myself humming or singing today. I hope you enjoy these words as much as I have :)

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Will You Love Me When I'm Old?

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When my hair has turned to silver,

and my eyes shall dimmer grow,

I will lean upon some loved one

through my twilight years I go.

I will ask you of a promise,

worth to me a world of gold;

It is only this, my darling:

that you'll love me when I'm old.

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Through the stream of life together,

we are sailing side by side,

hoping some bright day to anchor,

safe beyond the surging tide.

Today our sky is cloudless,

but the night may clouds unfold;

though clouds may gather 'round us,

will you love me when I'm old?

A Poem For October

This is a poem I wrote several years ago. It is based on my memories of fall in Michigan as a child.
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October


October is the time of year
When frost may start to coat the hills.
It’s bad news for the ice cream shops,
And good news for the cider mills.

If snow’s not fallen, leaves have changed,
Brown and orange in colored hue.
Waiting for the coming snow,
The trees will sleep, then bloom anew.

And in October, families sit
Around the fire’s brilliant light,
To laugh and talk the time away
In snug abandon though the night.

October is a month of change,
In nature, and within us all,
For as the heat of summer fades,
We greet the vibrance of the Fall.

~Brienne Adams~

Remembering a Pre-Raphaelite Poet

This is a favorite poem written by Dante Gabriel Rosetti. I think that it was published in 1870, and that he wrote it sometime between 1860 and 1869. He is considered to be one of five leading Pre-Raphaelite period poets, along with Christina Georgina Rosetti, William Morris, George Meredith, and Algernon Charles Swineburne.

The Song of the Bower

Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower,

Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?

Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis love's hour,

Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free.

Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber,

Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:

Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember,

Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.

Nay, but my heart when it flies to thy bower,

What does it find there that knows it again?

There it must droop like a shower-beaten flower,

Red at the rent core and dark with the rain.

Ah! yet what shelter is still shed above it,-

What waters still image its leaves torn apart?

Thy soul is the shade that clings round to love it,

And tears are its mirror deep down in thy heart.

What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,

This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?

Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower,

Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn.

Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's kiss is colder!)

Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day;

My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder,

My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away.

What is it keeps me afar from thy bower,-

My spirit, my body, so fain to be there?

Waters engulfing or fires that devour?-

Earth heaped against me, or death in the air?

Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity,

The trees wave their heads with an omen to tell;

Nay, but in night-dreams, throughout the dark city,

The hours, clashed together, lose count in the bell.

Shall I not one day remember thy bower,

One day when all days are one day to me?

Thinking, "I stirred not, and yet had the power!"

Yearning, "Ah God, if again it might be!"

Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway,

So dimly, so few steps in front of my feet,-

Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way.....

Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal my we meet?

Beyond Centauri

http://samsdotpublishing.com/contents.htm


This poem of mine was published in the July 2009, 7th Anniversary Issue of Beyond Centauri.

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The Boy Who Plays the Wooden Flute



The boy who plays the wooden flute,
That lad with golden hair
The color of the rising sun,
Can blow a note so fair.

His music floats like softened mist,
Almost smells like autumns’ cold,
Yet it holds the warmth of a fever kissed,
Tells a story new, yet old.

It tells of mountain snows and woods,
Of shining waters clear,
Of clans and wars and wizened hands
Of those he held so dear.

It tells of gains and losses great,
Of battles lost and won.
It sings of death, and pain, and fate,
Of life that’s just begun.

The boy who plays the wooden flute
Breathes life into his tunes,
That wrap all listeners inside
His music filled cocoons.

~Brienne Adams

http://samsdotpublishing.com/contents.htm

" A Single Lily Rose," was published in the April, 2009 issue of Beyond Centauri.

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A Single Lily Rose


The evening sun sank low, afar
in a sky of blackened dreams.
She bowed before each lovely star,
amongst the death and screams.

The burning ball, a princess fair,
had ruled throughout the years,
spreading beams of golden hair,
and hiding when in tears.

But then, her brilliant golden light
had taken dampened hue,
with age and sad soaked loneliness
for those with which she grew.

Her dying breaths echoed o’er the hills,
as she fell beyond their crest,
toward the black where all life stills
in night so manifest.

With final movements from each ray
she burned with all her strength,
and kisses on the water lay,
filled with passion’s length.

The whitecaps churned with hot desire,
as sunbeams pierced the blue,
in a passion of water and fire,
starting life anew.

In a climax sweet and bright,
thus sun and water froze,
and from beneath the water’s light
a single lily rose.

~Brienne Adams

http://www.wwquarterly.com/


"The River's Song," was published in the Spring 2009 issue of WestWard Quarterly.

The River’s Song


Serenade me, oh river, with your calmness and ease,
As you mirror the heavens and envy the seas.
Please squelch raging fires within my lost soul.
With your cool loving water just help me feel whole!

I’ve witnessed you sooth the barren dry land,
Cause flowers to bloom like a gardener’s hand,
And beneath this cracked surface, I know you can see
The nation of life that lies hidden in me.

As I wade in your shallows, I hear your soft song,
Feel a peace in my heart that I’ve missed for so long,
And as happiness blooms to a forest inside,
Your water renews every inch that was dried.

Serenade me, oh river, with your soft song of ease,
As your cool loving water caresses my knees.
You squelch raging fires and find my lost soul,
Your life giving waters again make me whole.

~Brienne Adams

The Innisfree Poetry Journal

http://www.authorme.com/innisfreepoetry9.htm

"Art," was published in the 8th volume of The Innisfree Poetry Journal. You can probably guess at the inspiration for this poem. I wove it in my head during a quiet and tender moment.

Art


Floating above myself,
I watch you love me:
Languid and slow,
Savoring each stroke
Like an artist with his brush,
Painting the canvas of my body
With layer upon layer of pleasure,
Until nothing exists
But brilliant color,
And the exhilaration
Of becoming lost with you
In the art of our making.

~Brienne Adams

Spaceports & Spidersilk

http://samsdotpublishing.com/spacesilk/cover.htm

"The Mer-People," one of my children's poems, is published in the March 2008 issue of Spaceports and Spidersilk (formerly KIDVISIONS).

The Mer-people


In shimmering seas the mer-people dance,
As subsurface life floats around in its trance,
And sailors, with luck, on the waters can see
Their quick silver tails as they twirl slick and free.
But only few people, on hot sunny days,
Have witnessed the mer-people bask in its rays,
The females just floating with breasts facing sky,
The males swimming round and watching close by.
For as we as humans enjoy the warm sun,
Mer-people rejoice when the summer’s begun,
And may take the chance to soak up its heat
With their long shiny fins where you’d think to see feet.
If ever you find your boat drifting along,
As you quietly listen to nature’s rich song,
Keep watch for mer-people who don’t notice you,
You may be quite lucky and see just a few!

~Brienne Adams

The Shepherd Magazine

My poem, "Renewal," is published in the March, 2009 issue of The Shepherd Magazine.

~Renewal~

You speak through moonlit water
Of midnight’s ocean.
I hear your commands
Through roaring, silver crested waves,
Gravitate to you,
As the tides seek the moon,
To smooth my troubles,
Like pebbles on the beach.

~Brienne Adams

The Storyteller Magazine

I am published in the October/November/December issue of The Storyteller Magazine. My poem, "Great-Grandma's Music Box," was based upon memories of my Great Grandmother Agnes, who died when I was in 2nd grade. She gave me a beautiful old-fashioned jewelry chest/music box, that had an upholstered top with the scene that inspired this poem.


You can visit The Storyteller's Website to order copies at http://www.freewebs.com/fossilcreek/storyteller.html

Great Grandma’s Music Box

The soft ancient wood, trimmed with elegant lace,
shows a girl on her toes with short golden locks,
dancing to tunes from her mothers gold harp,
an image engraved into great grandma’s box.

The tune makes me think of my not so long past,
brings with it the memories of youth’s many dreams,
of princesses, singing, and long frilly dresses,
of reading, and friends, and of childhood schemes.

The notes float so close that I seem taken back
to a yard filled with lilac and tall hollyhocks,
where I ran and I laughed through the long summer days
to the hum and the tick of great grandmother’s box.

I remember her voice so aged and so low
while running her hand down the length of my hair,
as the music of life still played in her heart
and the song reassured it would always be there.

The tune is still with me along with her voice.
I imagine her kissing my unruly locks,
and although she is gone and won’t see me grow up,
her essence still sings in her magical box

~Brienne Adams

Rocky Mountain Rider Magazine

http://www.rockymountainrider.com/


My poem, "Two Loners in Nature," was published in the November 2008 issue of Rocky Mountain Rider Magazine.

I wrote this poem about my Grandfather who recently moved to Montana. My Grandmother and he decided to separate in their older years, so now I really only have my memories of him, as he lives far away. As my poem relays, he truly is a loner, so I rarely hear from him.

Anyway...This is for you Grandpa...

Two Loners in Nature


They called my grandfather a loner,
A quiet and hardened old man,
With the dirt from the range on his clothing,
And a face worn and weathered with tan.

My grandfather was born in the mountains.
He worshipped the Rockies’ cold mist,
And he seemed most at home on his Pinto,
With the reigns dangling down from his fist.

We’d ride out at sunrise together,
With the sky still tinged purple with night,
Until landscapes consumed all our senses,
And the day bathed the treetops in light.

To this day, I remember the aspen,
How they shimmered and danced in the breeze,
And the leathery smell of the saddle,
As it softly creaked under my knees.

We were loners together in nature,
My cowboy grandfather and I.
Two people bound tightly by wonders
Of mountains, and valleys, and sky.

~Brienne Adams

What This Blog Is About

Hello Everyone!
I decided to start this blog, because I wanted to share some of the poetry I have published, and it seemed a cheaper option than creating a website. On this blog, I will post poems I have had published, and information about the publications they will appear in. I also will post any exciting new events or poetry readings that have to do with my work, or work of other poets I am interested in. I hope that you enjoy reading my poetry. I certainly enjoy writing it! :)