Neither shy nor shrinking,
vibrant orange blooms
jostling with neighbors for territory.
First to show in a bed not yet
reclaimed from winter’s neglect;
last to go, refusing extinguishment
by autumn’s bluster.
Wallflower, who ever thought to name an
awkward, peripheral introvert after you?
dVerse quadrille prompt: bloom: write a poem of exactly 44 words and include the word “bloom.”
On a wall near my kitchen hangs a whiteboard, a space for grandkids to draw or write or doodle. It also bears a list of household expectations in the form of an acrostic that spells RESPECT.
In response to this week’s dVerse Poetics prompt on The Seven Grandfather teachings, I have expanded the acrostic, adding haiku (or haiku adjacent 5-7-5’s) to reflect on each point. Herewith: RESPECT.
Respond when spoken to.
nocturnal creatures
turn skyward their plaintive calls
answered by the night
Exhale, don’t explode.
fire breathes hot and harsh
wind goads it into fury
water stills the breath
Share
sun shines and rain falls
life-sustaining to us all
flowers do not hoard
Politeness
Wildlife etiquette?
Was the lion ever told
“Chew with your mouth closed?”
Expect good things
each spring life unfolds
hibernators search out food
seedlings seek the sun
Contribute
fast dive, talons splayed
the prey snagged and now airborne
there are mouths to feed
Tell the truth
“Who?” asks the barred owl.
“Me, me, me,” says the catbird.
Northern flicker laughs.
Mother, forgive me
for taking you for granted
my only home, earth
In my garden, wild and free,
Achilles roams with dignity.
Feathered leaves and upright stems,
Achillea millefolium.
Native to where I oversee
this plot of land that humors me
as owner and conservator,
may yarrow bloom forevermore.
The Queen is not so dear to me,
invasive spreader deemed a weed.
Our native plants cannot keep pace.
Daucus carota, Queen Anne’s lace.
The two have similarities
flat clustered blooms; light, airy leaves.
It’s clear, though, to identify
which one I love, which one despise.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Nineteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: pick a flower or two (or a whole bouquet, if you like) from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers. Now, write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings.
The two plants I chose were not listed in the Greenaway’s book. Apparently I speak a different flower language. Otherwise, on prompt.
What is in a name?
Why, red flowering currant,
are your blossoms white?
It blusters, it billows,
the rain comes in droves.
It's typical winter
on the north Oregon coast.
No point in umbrellas,
The wind is a beast;
shreds the cloth with its talons,
snaps the ribs in its teeth.
The rain hits you sideways
soaking deep to the skin,
but springtime comes swiftly
to atone winter's sins.
Now the rain’s slightly warmer
when it slaps at your face.
Umbrellas still useless
as the winds keep their pace.
You can spot season’s changes:
birds perched high lest they drown,
and the newly sprung flowers
soon blown flat to the ground.
It blusters, it billows,
the rain comes in droves.
It's a typical spring day
on the north Oregon coast.
It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!
Day Four prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: craft [a] short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.
“Your yard gets a lot of attention from my visitors!” my neighbor calls from the edge of her manicured lawn. I survey my property, a burgeoning habitat for native plants and the native critters that feed upon them.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Someone recently asked me if I was letting the yard go wild to reduce my property taxes.”
My neighbor laughs, and then admits the nature of the “attention” to which she had alluded.
“My visitors ask, ‘Does she mean for her yard to look that way?’ ‘She’s planting all that brush intentionally?’”
bear grass and buckbrush,
coyote bush and deer fern…
and skunk cabbage? Please!
I wonder if those are the thoughts of visitors or of my neighbor, or maybe of all who see my native landscaping. So be it. I settle into the rocking chair on my back porch and watch bees – legs plump with pollen – buzz through the California poppies. Ladybugs dine on aphids among the large-leaved lupines, and a pair of mourning doves peck for seeds beneath a clump of prairie june grass.
summer solstice nears
farewell-to-spring’s pink petals
blossoming on cue
While walking through the park, my dog Chules and I pause at an apple tree. I am drawn to the white-pink blossoms and the bees that float among them. Chules is more intrigued by the base of the trunk, and the invisible messages left there by other dogs. He lifts his leg and adds his own note to the trunk.
cherry blossoms wane
pink petals carpet the ground
apple tree looks on
Day 29 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). In response to dVerse prompt: Haibun Monday: late cherry blossoms.
Day 26 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) .
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sonnet. The strict rules of sonnets:
- 14 lines
- 10 syllables per line
- Those syllables are divided into five iambic feet. (An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).
- Rhyme schemes vary, but the Shakespearian sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg (three quatrains followed by a concluding couplet).
- Sonnets are often thought of as not just little songs, but little essays, with the first six-to-eight or so lines building up a problem, the next four-to-six discussing it, and the last two-to-four coming to a conclusion.
The “rules” are somewhat bendable, but I tried stay relatively true to the strict format. Herewith:
The sign says No Solicitors. You knock.
Beware the Dog that lunges at my door.
“The rats and piss ants this year run amok.”
You’ll slay them all. They’ll bother me no more.
A spider egg sac hangs upon the wall.
“A hundred spiderlings your home will fill.”
More likely to my garden they will crawl
to feast upon the bugs you wish to kill.
No rodents, bugs or crawlies bother me.
The poison’s “safe for pets,” you persevere.
My Wildlife Habitat sign plain to see;
No chemicals have touched my yard in years.
Your sales pitch failed, now please just go away.
My “pests” will live to see another day.
Day 23 of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that focuses on birdsong. I wrote about birds, but not songbirds. Oh, well. Here ’tis:
Scrub-jay squawks accusingly at me
from atop my backyard fence.
What offence I may have committed,
I do not know, but he’s got that
“you know what you did” tone.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you.”
Always a tricky situation. Do you
try to guess, and risk confessing to something
they didn’t even know you'd done? Do you
ask forgiveness, even though you don’t know for what?
Am I overthinking the meaning of this jay’s
strident vocalizations?
My dog Chules joins me on the deck, and the scrub jay
aims his admonishments at the pup.
Now I know he’s just making stuff up.
Chules is a good boy, and – while he’s been known to
chase some wildlife now and again –
he always gives them a good head start
lest he actually catch something.
Rather abruptly, scrub jay zips his beak, and
flits up into the canopy of the black walnut tree.
A large black crow swoops over my rooftop
and lands on the fence, inches from where the
jay had been holding court moments ago.
With one loud caw, he announces: there’s
a new corvid in town. I don’t see a badge,
but I won’t argue.
Chules and I are forgiven our sins, so long as
we don’t try to pull any of that crap on the crow.
Mind you, crow has no better idea of
our transgressions than Chules and I do.
We agree to his terms nonetheless.
Chules is tempted to run at the crow and scare him off the fence,
but thinks better of it when he remembers being previously
dive-bombed by said bird for just such behavior.
I go back to pulling weeds, and the scrub jay… well,
we likely won’t hear much from him for a while.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 