WESTMINSTER ART FESTIVAL
2025 Poetry
FIRST PRIZE
On Hope by Theresa Coty O'Neil
This is the same planet on which I took
my first steps on Lilac Street and was knocked
flat by a neighbor's big lab who lumbered
over to say hello. His name was Bear.
How could he know I was new to walking?
Today when I'm leaving the house to walk
our dog, I feel a brace in my knees
and to steady, glance down: snow-laden
crocuses, tulip leaves, those brave spears,
and dwarf irises bending their heads
like congregants awaiting a blessing. i am
the priestess who bleses as I'm blessed.
This is the same planet on which I fell
flat on my back after tricks on the swing,
looked to the clouds for some answering,
and there, a butterfly in wing clap showed
I could get up again, though the breath
had left my lungs and I felt pinned
to the earth like an insect to Styrofoam,
an exhibit for whomever passed by.
But no one did. Sometimes we are alone
in our suffering but the earth says I will
hold you till you catch your breath, till
you rise, till you clap your wings again.
This is the same planet on which I buried
a child, just two days old, in a cemetary
called Hope. The message was not lost
on me. For a year, his spirit visited me:
a startled bat on the mantle, a hairles
squirrel on the windowsill, a fawn
lost in the yard without his mother. All
I could think is how we would be
reunited again, even if it meant
in death. Burial made me think differently
about the way the earth reclaims us,
in all our fledgling guilt, in all our innocence.
ARTISTS and POETS were invited
to submit work on the theme:
"One Planet"
SECOND PRIZE
A Villanelle for the Earth by Renee Szostek
The earth's our home; we have no "Planet B."
Pollution here affects life far away.
On conservation first we must agree.
Deforestation harms diversity.
Climatic change, eroding soils and clay.
The earth's our home; we have no "Planet B."
With greenhouses gases growing, can we see?
Our water cycle changes, towns decay.
On conservation first we must agree.
Yet people suffer, too. Alone are we.
Pariah is a role we each could play.
The earth's our home; we have no "Planet B."
A life in isolation limits me,
and you. We struggle, keeping tears at bay.
On conservation first we must agree.
Recycling dreams, ideas, too, we see
a life apart from others cannot stay.
The earth's our home; we have no "Planet B."
On conservation first we must agre.
MANY THANKS
to our 2025 poetry juror Phillip Sterling
and to all the participating poets!
THIRD PRIZE
Tiger Claws Are Longer than House Keys by Gail Martin
For a while, breweries
and credit unions proliferated.
Then, roundabouts.
This was long after the time
of leaving a spare key beneath
a phony stone, emotions more
nuanced, less outraged.
*
And long, long after the time
in childhood when we slept with our hands
curled as fiddleheads in the woods
and when we woke, our unfurled wrists
did not hurt.
*
When it started, I was unloading
the dishwasher, my husband sorting
his pills. I could have been walking back
to my car carrying wine and sunflowers,
their yellow heads glowing
in my reusable grocery bag.
*
There are infinite ways to respond
to the same thing. Silence is one.
*
Each aspen leaf I've seen in the high desert
had a full lifetime to turn yellow.
The Statue of Liberty took 30 years
to become green.
I can't make this evil
small enough to write about.
How to breathe through
the breach between
what's within me
and what comes out.
*
Gaza has nothing left
for its ghosts to return to
still carrying their house keys.
*
When it started, I could have been
ripping open a pepper's red cathedral,
chunking cukes into the processor for gazpacho.
Removing every seed.
*
Normal's a construct we adjust
to. Ten years ago if my husband
slept until nine, I judged him
idle, now I'm afraid he's dead.
*
Today, I refuse to call it complicated.
Don't kill children. Don't write their names
on their skinny shins.
*
I could have been plopping an olive
into a dirty martini.
It was an ordinary day I did nothing
to earn. A day delivered
with my name on it,
its clean white envelope.
HONORABLE MENTION
Reincarnation by Christine L. Parks
HONORABLE MENTION
In the Air by Ruth Moerdyk
HONORABLE MENTION
Best Laid Plans by Elizabeth Rae Bullmer