In response to the prompt from Poets & Storytellers to write a personal message to the rest of humanity, the thing you'd most like to communicate, this collaborative poem does as good a job as any I could relay on my own.
THE BURNT HAND
smoke shrouded Quebec
singing sparrow doesn't sense (yvonne)
her demise is near
burgers hissing on iron
dad wipes his watering eyes (david)
sleeves rolled elbows bowed
she reclaims her patch of green (yvonne)
from desert's burnt hand
cracks in the sidewalks
dandelions pushing through (david)
before getting sprayed
cut logs piled precision high
stumps remember touching sky (yvonne)
Amazon clearing
gaps widen in canopy (david)
wingbeats fade away
The rengay is a form of linked verse consisting of six thematic verses collaborated by two or three poets with alternating 3 and 2-sentence stanzas. For The Burnt Hand I collaborated with David Bogomolny at The Skeptic's Kaddish. It was his suggestion and encouragement that birthed this poem. See more, explanation and history behind the form Here!