May 12, 2026

May Poem by Lisa J. Starr

May Poem

With that sort of breathless

where do I begin again,

I begin again with this—

breathless

and bursting

with bird-song and

hammer-song,

and thinking that it has its way,

it really does, May—

a way of making everything a painting of itself—

the meadow’s weave of silk and straw,

swans dreamy, mist misty, everyone lovely.

Every thing, lovelier.

May’s poem is baby ducks—

they really do cross the road

one drunken waddle, their tiny webbed feet

really do make those diamonds

which float toward me

like patterns in a kaleidoscope

while I sit on a dock,

and grow dizzy with watching,

dreaming a dream

perfumed with song,

the shy hint of lilac

and the loveliest business

of those small, webbed feet.

Like everyone else

they are mad with industry,

the way they are working

their quacking, new bodies

through this cove

is like all those hammers hammering

and again,

May has me

breathless.

―Lisa J. Starr, featured in her book of poetry, Mad With Yellow

Retrieved from eremos newsletter LINKED May 6 2026

Invitation: “What has you breathless?”

Photo by CJ sent on May 3rd

Lisa Starr is an inn-keeper, a mother, a basketball coach and a teacher, and Rhode Islands Poet Laureate. She divides her time among a variety of interests, her children, and her passion for poetry. She is a two-time recipient of the R.I. Fellowship for Poetry. In her capacity as Poet Laureate, Starr is generating a statewide poetry pen-pal system which creates and then partners writing circles among student and elderly communities around the state. She has also established poetry circles in hospitals, homeless shelters, the state prison, and agencies for children and adults with severe mental and physical disabilities. In April of 2009 Starr assembled more than a dozen US State Poets Laureate in Rhode Island for Poetry for Hope, a series of readings, workshops, and public forums featuring the visiting poets and emerging and established Rhode Island poets and musicians at schools, libraries and cultural attractions around the state. The poets worked with more than 7500 Rhode Islanders during the 5-day poetry sweep. Starr s third collection of poems, Mad With Yellow, was published in September, 2008. She is the author of two other books: This Place Here (2001) and Days of Dogs and Driftwood (1993). Starr is the founder and director of the Block Island Poetry Project, a nationally acclaimed celebration of the arts and humanity, now in its 6th year. A poet by choice and an innkeeper by necessity, Starr owns and operates the Hygeia House, a 10-room inn on Block Island. The brightest lights of her life are her two children, Orrin (12) and Millie(11) and her dog, Brother. When time permits, she writes her heart out.

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May Courageous Citizen

Doris “Granny D” Haddock

“Just as an unbalanced mind can accumulate mental stresses that can grow and take on a life of their own, so little decisions of our modern life can accumulate to the point where our society finds itself bombing other people for their oil, or supporting dictators who torture whole populations—all so that our unbalanced interests might be served.”