Special Gifts

Laurie and Michael Byro

 
Sunflowers

By Sharon Waller Knutson

As our first Christmas present to our readers this December, Laurie Byro, prize winning poet and author of nine poetry collections, and her  award winning artist husband Michael Byro, who has illustrated all of her books, kick off our Special Gifts series with their poetry and paintings showing there are many ways to tell a story.

Laurie says:

“My mother was a raging alcoholic, so I escaped by reading books. The family in Little House on the Prairie became my new family.  

“Michael and I married on my 21st birthday on Cinco de Mayo in 1979.  I didn’t start writing poetry until I took a community college creative writing course when I was 32. I was writing a cross between short stories and poetry and wanted to quit but the professor encouraged me to keep writing by saying I was that good.

"I had just started writing poetry when I found out my brother, Butch, my only sibling, was dying of colon cancer. Poetry saved my sanity.  I wrote a poem for him.  He would take a pain pill and say lay it on me and I read my poem, Voyager Gold, to him and he loved it. It gave us a way to communicate.”

Butch and his wild squirrel

Voyager Gold

Marigolds dry on the windowsill.
I wait.
When you find me,
we will hold each other
Sway to summer’s music.
Mosquitos, frogs, peepers and rainfall.
I’m in no hurry.
I have waited slow months.
Emptied my vases
then filled them.
Scattered the floor with yellow.
Money cannot bring you back.
But these gold peso petals
will buy us a moment.
I sit on the porch
and watch for you.
In the company
Of sweet marigold murmurings
When you appear,
I hold out by hand.
Then we dance.
 

In Mexico, people believe you see gold when you die, so they plant marigolds on graves to lure them back to earth.

Laurie continues:

“Because poetry brought Butch and I closer during those dark days, I felt I wanted to share my love of poetry with the community. After Butch died at the age of 47, I started a poetry circle based on Molly Peacock's book and I’ve been paid to facilitate Circle of Voices for 25 years. At one point in between libraries, I even started Poetry on the Porch with members of my group.”

Michael says:

“I didn’t start painting until after Laurie’s mother died and her father moved in with us in 2013. Laurie expresses her feelings by creating imagery with words and my emotional outlet is painting pictures on canvas. Hopefully our work touches the heart of others.

“I wouldn’t say Laurie is my muse. But she is my critic and agent. She helps me promote and sell my paintings and I help her by illustrating her poems and books. I have sold artwork for 12 years in Puerto Rico and all over the United States from California, Texas to Maine.

“Our greatest joy is helping people. We sold my sunflower painting for $500 and sent the proceeds to help the Ukraine residents.”

More paintings by Michael paired with poems by Laurie.

Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry’s lover who painted his casket

A Casket for Roger Fry

Art is significant deformity.  Roger Fry.

I will not forget her hands
when she traced her love-words onto my shoulders,
so suitably now my life is over,
that I am quietly hers.

When she traced her love-words onto my shoulders,
I saw an honest man pass before my eyes.
That I am quietly hers;
I tried to tell her there and then.

I saw an honest man pass before my eyes.
My kingdom, all my paintings for this touch.
I tried to tell her there and then.
She brought me garlands, rain and snowy kisses.

My kingdom, all my paintings for this touch.
The days and nights dissolved upon our tongue.
She brought me garlands, rain and snowy kisses.
I filled the night with us and all our wishes.

The days and nights dissolved upon our tongue.
She painted sunny days that we had seen.
I filled the nights with us and all our wishes,
a kind of daring, a perpetual daydream.

She painted sunny days that we had seen.
Her brush was her magic, she painted me holy.
A kind of daring, a perpetual daydream,
so suitably now my life is over; I will not forget her hands.

 
Evening Walk

The Girl from the North Country Speaks
                               After Bob Dylan

The north country woods
where I come from are gone,
A highway passes from end to end
I am older now but I get along,
with no fires left to tend.
The storms that raged were deep and wild
The snows made my season a memory
Regret became a restless child
that ran in my blood and poisoned me.
I wonder if he remembers how
we prayed at night while the forest wept.
I wonder if he thinks of me now
and all his words that I have kept.
I’ve kept my hair both long and fine,
it misses his hands when I take it down.
For he once was a love of mine
For he still is, though not around.
And if you see him give him this,
with a lock of my hair still soft and warm
I think of him with every kiss.
I think of him through every storm.

 
Crows

Send Forth a Raven

Others had gone before me; I didn’t give you the attention you deserved.  I tried to lie perfectly
still: in my imagination, I became my imagination.
You are a mountain waiting for me to appear.

I practice dying by sleeping in the bottom of an ark.
While I stayed still— oh so still in my blue flight— a field filled with black angels where lonely brothers write.  You say I am a dove or a snow storm

making the world below seem more complete.
If you lift my dark tributary of braid, you’ll see my roots are dark. I write notes to you on the dull

back of silver foil. I wanted to bring riches to our nest.
After all this waiting for land and not sky, I bring back to you an olive branch, a sweet plant growing in my mouth.


Voyager Gold and The Girl From the North County are from “Hopeless Romance,” Vanessa Bell from "Bloomsberries & Other Curiousities" and Send forth a Raven from "Luna"

All of her books are available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Laurie-Byro/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ALaurie+Byro

Read more on Laurie:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/search?q=Laurie+Byro

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-of-week.html

To see more of Michael’s art: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063478895049