Greg Tonian

General

Ravenwood

Greg Tonian, Class of 2017 – Springtime has come to Ravenhood.
Crane flies have been swarming for weeks,
Carcasses strewn throughout the house.
They seem to arrive in a frenzy, then vanish,
Arising from winter’s grasp,
Why in such haste,
Peer pressure to be the first to emerge,
To procreate?

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If I were

Greg Tonian, Class of 2017 – If I were… Poem – A reflection on a Labor Day Weekend Backpacking Adventure on the 29-mile Eagle Rock Loop In Arkansas in The Ouachita National Forest.

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Buckeye Pilgrimage

Greg Tonian, 2017 –
The Trinity River Valley of North Texas drew us all here,
Though we did not realize it.
We may not know how or why,
Perhaps it was for a glimpse of a Buckeye?

John Neely Bryan built a cabin on a Trinity River bluff
He founded Dallas in the 1840’s.
Dreams were grand, but times were tough.
When I drove out in ‘85, I asked myself,
Where are all the trees?

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Reflections on Sara Dykman’s Bicycling with Butterflies Book

Greg Tonian, 2017 –
Ideas are like Fireflies,
Brief flashes in the dark,
blinking.
Talk is cheap,
Life’s opportunities fleeting.

Dreams evaporate.
Yet Sara put mettle to pedal,
She set out on her quest,
Before it was too late.

Her goal was simple yet mad.
It would require lots of planning,
Lots of charts,
Though she wanted to be spontaneous,
A journey of this type,
Had many moving parts.

Courage and persistence she did not lack
She simply bicycled with the Monarchs,
From Mexico to Canada and back.
10,201 miles, 232 days,
Travelling countless byways.

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August in Cicadia

Greg Tonian, 2017
The neighborhood is abuzz.
A hot, sultry breeze,
Envelops the trees.
Brown, papier mache creatures climb out of the loam,
Clinging to brick and branch with tiny hooks,
Soon to cleave asunder,
Extruding,
winged phantasms.
I find these abandoned climbing nymph husks,
And the fanciful flying creatures that they set free
Scattered on the concrete byways of Cicadia.
“Sweet dreams and” Flying “machines in pieces on the ground” (James Taylor),
I think to myself.

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The Call of The Chattahoochee

Greg Tonian, 2017 The Chattahoochee flows from Blue Ridge Mountain
To Apalachicola Delta,
Past Helen and Suburban Atlanta.
These two places I visited,
The possibilities to explore, unlimited.

All was swell in Roswell.
Mostly Merry in Marietta.
Dallas Georgia family, also near,
Was mostly in the clear.
But like the river,
Clouded by ocassional rain,
Like the area roads,
Never without curves and dips,
Ups and downs.

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The Last Cougar

By Greg Tonian
On a December morning, soon before your demise,
I journeyed to the Grasslands again.
Enroute, warm in my metallic hovercraft,
I drove in the dark, listening to news of vaccines.
Only arriving at Black Creek Lake as the sun began to reveal a vaporous, hoarfrosted tangled landscape,
With hues of copper, silver, golden straw, ghostly gray charcoal turning to brown.
Delicate oak leaf puzzle pieces were scattered in slight depressions in the parking lot,
Birdsong echoed intermittently through the chilly air.