POULSBO — Bob Royce will read from a new book of poems by his late wife, Millie, on April 8 at the Poulsbohemian Coffeehouse, 19003 Front St. NE, Poulsbo.
The monthly poetry reading begins at 7 p.m. and is open to the public. The evening will also feature poets Jan Prichard-Cohen and Kathy Langhorn.
Royce, 93, served for eight years in the Merchant Marine, became a librarian, and moved with his artist-writer wife, Millie, to Puerto Rico for 27 years. There they sailed, opened an artists’ commune and an art shop. In 1987, they moved back to Seattle, where Bob worked in the public library system for eight years before retiring. Meanwhile, they helped found Si a la Vida to benefit street kids in Nicaragua; the organization is now in its 25th year.
The Royces later moved to Bainbridge Island. In 2007, Millie suffered a recurrence of breast cancer and died two months later. They had been married 55 years. Bob has honored Millie by publishing “For My Waiting Hands,” a book of her poems and artworks with all proceeds after expenses going to Si a la Vida. Graphic design was done by Kathryn Keve, and editing by Nancy Rekow and Beverley West. This year, poems by Millie will appear in Poetry Corners and Ars Poetica.
Prichard-Cohen describes herself this way: “Easily bored, with a two-year attention span, I have spent my life ever-learning new skills, which play partner in my walk through time. The fire of working with clay, encaustics, metals and fabric burns within me. Sailing alone around uninhabited islands, through seas and sounds, I found myself drawn to how words, as well, can express the ineffable, the unknown, the beyond of thought or imagination. And I discovered how words can burn as well.”
Langhorn is a Northwest native, born seven miles from where she currently lives. She’s been a business owner since the age of 22, making her living as a hairstylist. Poetry, painting and gardening have been lifelong interests that provide a creative balance for expression. She has participated in past Poetry Corners events and in Ars Poetica.
BY MILLIE ROYCE (to be read by Bob Royce)
“Egrets Passing”
Brief, silent in their going, swift and light,
white birds ride seaward upon the fringe of night.
Blue-misted folds of mountain far behind,
now sunless, serve
to render clear-defined
these spaced and slender forms.
Near motionless
they float above the fields.
“Nocturne Tropical”
Silently, this ball of flames, the sun,
falls quenched in the purple sea, his fury done.
Now the quick stain of twilight crosses the sky,
graying the silvered shape as you and I
mark the first brightening star beyond one palm.
Night breeze and bird call blend,
and that muted psalm
drifts on the merging dark of their single immensity.
* * *
BY KATHY LANGHORN
“Morning”
Willow leaf drifts
down to dew-draped web
scattering
crystal beads
in bending threads of grass.
“Waking to Spring”
A slow drizzle pads the roof
as mist folds in on the garden.
The birdbath still cradles a bronze collage
from the Japanese maple overhead.
A pussy willow trembles
With chestnut-backed chickadees
As I hear the doves haunting call then
hollow coo in the Cedar of Lebanon.
Untitled
That nest
in the fir has fallen
loose with non-use.
Fantasia of fruit gum wrapper
bits of tinsel and red plastic twine
wiry hairs of the horse’s tail
sprung out and around—
prime real estate
for a flying student of feng shui.
* * *
BY JAN PRICHARD-COHEN
Untitled
Bees this morning
search out flowers on my dashboard
look for sweetness of foxglove.
Nearby, daisies stretch tall
for sun that never came.
It didn’t keep two Rufous hummingbirds,
dancing through reddened limbs of osier,
from coming together for an inflight embrace
of a piercing millisecond
not missing a beat
as I turn my key.
Untitled
Across Netarts Bay
I
surf into a shell.
Whiskey Creek pulls sky & mud
into a field of trapezoids,
while silent heron picks through tidespoils.
At my feet goose tongues clump
among the pickle weed.
Beyond the spit’s end, fog scarfs the headlands,
pushing Cape Meares upward.
The sea returns.
I move back into my skin
& feel the warmth of my faded blue Cowichan.
