Flying Island

      Sidewalk Cracks The boy who didn’t want to step on cracks in the sidewalk played a brilliant organ and the big company in the small town hired him to show how beautiful their organs could sound. His fingers had the touch to make those organs sing but the sidewalks had so many cracks he could not keep up with his job of stepping over all of them. He had nightmares about what would happen if he stepped on a crack. In his recurring dreams he saw so many cracks coming at him that eventually his fingers stiffened and he could no longer make the organ sing. Sadness froze across his face. He lost  his job with the company and one day he disappeared             into a crack that opened so wide he could not step over it. Nobody knows where he is.     Norbert Krapf, a former Indiana Poet Laureate, has published fourteen collections, the latest being Indiana Hill Country Poems and Southwest by Midwest . His collecti...

Light Follows Me Light follows me everywhere inside this house and outside, comes in through windows, bounces off white walls, lies down on pine floors. When I drink water I swallow light, which passes through me into water. It turns me into a shadow that lies down. It wakes me in the morning as I open my eyes to the east and feel it on my face. I open the door and step into it on a wooden balcony facing mountains that surround me and hear prayers streaming from my mouth for those I love who are my light. May I one day transform into light that shines on others from above and also within when they read my poems. Norbert Krapf , former Indiana Poet Laureate, is the author of thirteen collections, the most recent being "Indiana Hill Country Poems" from Dos Madres Press, which will also bring out "Southwest by Midwest," which includes this poem.

Morning Mountain Prayer         by Norbert Krapf Morning mountain air calls me to sit outside and let it caress  my knees and calves. Just after I settle in a chair the sun rises above a small divide in the mountain and warm light slants onto this yellow paper across which the black ink of a German pen walks leaving word tracks that knew all along that in the end  near the bottom of this page they would become the thanksgiving prayer I send to the universe. Norbert Krapf , former Indiana Poet Laureate, is the author of thirteen collections, the most recent being "Indiana Hill Country Poems" from Dos Madres Press, which will also bring out "Southwest by Midwest," which includes this poem.

On Learning in New Mexico that Seamus Heaney Died              by Norbert Krapf A poet who dug in the earth with his father to plant potatoes and bring them later to light has died. His poems too dig down into bog and peat and past and present and bring up the smell of many layers of lives lived in a place and a language that rose up in him and always stayed connected to his native place. His words live on like roots of history going down and coming back up conducting the water pooled below the surface he walked in a steady rhythm like a creature whose legs and lungs are strong from having worked and written what he discovered he knew because the pen in his hand never stopped digging. This son could handle a pen the way his father did a spade, with an elemental art that revealed its quality by how deep he dug in ways that never stopped being new no matter how old they were Norbert Krapf , a former Indiana Poet Laurea...

What the Body Does to Us in Time by Norbert Krapf Where does all the pain come from? Those knobs at the base of the thumbs that pulse and make it hard to open anything screwed tight. And those noises the shoulder joints make when we lift our arms? The dimming of our eyes and the disappearance of moisture in them that once lubricated vision? Those rude noises that more easily escape the apertures we’d rather not name? And what about those names that escape us so easily now? I mean even of people we still know we like. Oh and those appointments we are obliged to keep, who wrote them down in such illegible script on the wrong days or not at all anywhere? And the sweet flowers we have loved so long, why can’t they be polite enough to whisper their euphonious names in our wide-open ears? And love, why do we so seldom understand what the other is saying and become irritated by the irascible and too-loud word What ? Why d...

Blanket Welcome at Kennedy Airport                                                         — for Peyton, my grandson by Norbert Krapf  There was a small pink, blue and green blanket we sent to Bogotá for your mother to be wrapped in when she came to us in New York. When her plane arrived at the gate at Kennedy Airport a beautiful young Colombian woman with long black hair stepped off the plane smiling. When we walked up to her she placed baby Elizabeth Maria in that blanket in my arms. I held, beheld, kissed her and said, “Welcome, Love!” There was no wall whatsoever. No insults on any tough lips. We wrapped and held her in love. Which is what we give you also, her beautiful Colombian and German son with dark light-filled eyes. Norbert Krapf' s latest collections are T he Retur...

Small Book of Heart Songs on the Shelf by Norbert Krapf  There was a small handsome hardcover book on the shelf near the bed in which I slept that I could not resist reading at night, a collection of poems by Native high school students. I don’t remember the title, but it could have easily been Heart Songs , so pure, natural, and sincere were the beautiful musings of these young thinkers expressing and sharing their vision of the world they were exploring, navigating, coming to terms with. Nothing concocted, not a word puffed up, no images strained to impress. The rhythms were like the beat of a heart and the pulse of blood that flowed from the center of each young life I was touching and becoming one with. I can still feel the texture of the cover of that little book and how happy my hands were to hold it, how much I loved opening those pages and being inspired each night as I savored a fe...

Song of the Radio Bees by Norbert Krapf Back then when Indy was a world away to the north I was a teenager in Kentuckiana washing and waxing cars and drinking beer with chums when the engines sounded on the radio like wild bees in the woods swarming nearer and nearer as a loud hum turned deafening and they roared closer. When I first sat in the grandstand decades later as a man circling into his seventies I heard a female voice say, “Ladies and gentlemen start your engines” and those bees roared again, louder than ever before. The low-slung cars roared off, big bumps raised on my arms and legs, and my lips smacked with the taste of honey and malt as this late song brewed. Norbert Krapf, former Indiana poet laureate, has recently published his 12th poetry collection, The Return of Sunshine , about his Colombian-German-American grandson. He is completing a collection of poems for children and a prose memoir about his writ...

City Coyotes by Norbert Krapf They say coyotes slink all the way downtown in this Midwestern city and sleep curled up in doorways of shops. I wouldn’t mind seeing one as we have no dogs or cats, inside or out, but so far it’s been only rabbits and peregrine falcons, one of which our cigarette-inhaling son saw take out a plump pigeon, feathers settling on pink roses. Maybe at night when no moon shines they trot past our door, not satisfied with tiny chipmunks, and take their sly unending hunt elsewhere up and down dim streets sniffing for larger, more appetizing live meat padding in the dark. Norbert Krapf, former Indiana poet laureate, has recently published his 12th poetry collection, The Return of Sunshine , about his Colombian-German-American grandson. He is completing a collection of poems for children and a prose memoir about his writing life, Homecomings .

Editor's Note: Today, March 1, is Read Across America Day. The Reading Owl Kingdom by Norbert Krapf Once there was an owl who after cataract surgery instead of going on the prowl would read books in his tree. This reading owl would sit on high and read and devour book after book and believe you me this is no lie – they called his corner The Book Nook. Other critters who didn’t sleep at night would crawl, scamper, or fly on over to see a reading owl so very bright he would read books cover to cover. Pretty soon all the denizens of those woods came to be known for the legendary wisdom that brought others into their neighborhood to witness the wise old reading owl’s kingdom. Norbert Krapf, former Indiana Poet Laureate, has recently published his 12th poetry collection, The Return of Sunshine, about his Colombian-German-American grandson. He is completing a collection of poems for children and a prose memoir about his writing ...

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day 2018 by Norbert Krapf Not long after we received ashes on our foreheads, I learned from my brother that our sister Mary passed into spirit in her sleep last night. No more sister suffering, no more blood sister left in this world of flesh, but a beautiful spirit remains always a spirit beautiful in any and every world. I was to see you in less than a week, but now Mary I will see you always alive, giving others hope and courage, wanting always to lift them toward the best they can become, believing in what they would give to us. You gave us eyes to see gifts hiding in ourselves. To Come Knockin’ at Your Door? by Norbert Krapf Sister, every year you wrote to your brother who cut off from all of us and our children thirteen years ago without telling us where he went or why. You wanted to stay in touch. Your husband dug up his address. Sister, somebody hurt brother bad. I know...

Three poems by Norbert Krapf: Meeting My Grandson in Regensburg A whole Popo cupped in a hand a tiny heart beating against my chest and puffs of breath kissing my neck, I look down upon an innocence asleep and would live long enough to love and protect and sing it forever. Cheerios in Bed in Berlin You are in bed in Berlin and smiling brightly as you hold a yellow box of American Cheerios your Colombian mother bought you as special treat. In the next frame your head is tilted and thrown back, mouth wide open, as you salivate your circles of O oats! Little things delight you the most. Little man who savors what is small and not always easy or cheap to find, you readily give yourself to showing how deeply you appreciate what comes your way. Your smile is your expression of gratitude, your thanks come out baked half German, half English, and your Love is expressed Wuff-oooh! You don't want to be anywhere else. Your favorite munchies are in ...