Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back poet D.R. James from Michigan with two poems. “Early Morning Love Song” recalls the possibility and expectation of a new morning, as “my old sorrows roll over/ in their fetching gray failure,/ sigh, “It’s morning,”/ and all the silly feelings believe them.” As we age and experience many mornings, there is something about the magic of sunrise that does not diminish. The title of the second poem, “Whose Life is it, Anyway,” is a subtle nod to the television show “Whose Line is it Anyway,” which was about improvisation. This poem is also about improvisation, but not in the theatrical sense. D.R. observes a ladybug climbing a stalk of grass, taking flight at the top to find a new stalk. He envies the ladybug’s courage as he writes another poem, retracing his steps rather than making any grand leaps: “and it will seem I’ve decided/ to head down that one long blade,/ then, to no applause, up another.” Humility and vulnerability are hallmarks of his style and draw the reader close in observation of the natural beauty that is so near and yet often overlooked. D.R. has a talent for occupying those ambivalent, ambiguous places and finding the joy there. His writing is musical in form and cadence, full of alliteration and wry humor.
Read D.R.’s gentle poetry in our September 1st issue, “Broken,” available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Recently retired from nearly 45 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, D.R. James lives, writes, vegges, and cycles with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020), and his prose and poems have appeared in a wide variety of print and online anthologies and journals.