Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2026
Small Poem, poems by Peter A Witt.
Small Poem
My poem is so small
it would be comfortable
sitting on the tip of a pen,
a secret passenger riding the ink
like a lone sailor on a vast, blue ocean.
It is so tiny it doesn’t appear
on google earth, slipping past
the unblinking eyes of satellites
that map every mountain and street.
It is so minute it goes unnoticed,
fainter than the dust motes dancing
in a single, slanted shaft of light,
or a whisper lost in a crowded hall.
It breathes in the margins of silence,
waiting for a quiet moment to bloom,
an invisible seed tucked deep
within the heavy soil of the page.
Equations in the Snow
The storm shut the road, blurred the fence line,
and the barn drifted off in a tide of white.
The fields turned to ledger paper,
each flake a faint number falling
into the margin of silence.
Inside, the stove murmurs to itself,
iron expanding like breath in a chest,
a kettle hums, steady as thought.
I sit with a pencil,
snowbound with arithmetic,
counting the shapes that winter hides,
mailbox buried,
gate swallowed,
sound of the creek gone still.
The figures won’t hold,
they scatter like dry oats
spilled from a feed scoop.
Memory seems cleaner,
your scarf smelling of cedar,
voice rising through frost
as sure as smoke from the chimney.
Outside, the wind starts over,
scrubbing the fields again,
like a fox circling back
to cover its tracks.
To the Emperor Penguin
You know the weight of winter,
in a land of silence where nothing grows.
Now, the sky softens and light returns.
The landscape is a vast expanse of white.
This is not a pale or empty white;
it is an aggressive, shimmering white,
brighter than a thousand polished mirrors.
Your presence is a testament to survival,
a reflection of the fierce tenacity
needed to endure the long night.
You waddle toward the breaking ice
where the sea surges, as the warmth
returns like a slow, deep breath.
You dive, leaving the frozen shore behind,
resolute emperor penguin.
© Peter A Witt
Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet, with poems appearing online and in print publications such as Bluebird Word, Verse-Virtual, Live Encounters. He is a former university professor who now devotes his time to researching and writing family history and poetry. He’s twice been nominated for Best of the Net. He is also an avid birder.