Wordless Wednesday (on Thursday)
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Category Archives: nature
AtoZ: G ~ Sunset
gliding shadows grow
gilded globe has gone to ground
golden glows the glade
G is for Golden
#AtoZChallenge: 26 posts in April, topics to proceed alphabetically. Creating a theme for one’s blog challenge is optional. My theme for 2021: a three line alliteration each day (5-7-5, haiku-ish) with the first letter of each line the same as the letter of the day.
Fleeting Flowers
They are blooming now, the cherry blossoms. I see them on FaceBook and Istagram. I know they are across the river in city parks, and up the road six or seven miles in the neighborhood where I used to live.
But here in COVID times, I do not find myself across the river or up the road much. Not to worry, though. In my own back yard, however briefly they can withstand the March rains and wind, my flowering quince regale me with their fleeting blossoms.
Don’t blink! They fade fast.
yesterday’s blossoms become
today’s confetti
Wordless Wednesday: daffodil
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Wordless Wednesday: Flowering Quince
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restoration
The idea of the new landscape undertaking was to plant only native species and ultimately do away with all conventional lawn surrounding my house. I began with my side yard, covering the grass and weeds with cardboard and spreading layers of wood chips over that. The scrawny “twigs” of bare root shrub and tree plantings I obtained from the soil and water conservation district barely looked alive. By the time I finished prepping and planting, my side yard resembled a miniature clear cut logging site. Not auspicious.
As the year progressed, some plants grew and blossomed, some appeared to die down and later surprised me with renewed growth, and some just flat out died. A work in progress, for sure, but it’s always fascinating to step around the corner of my house and see how my project is unfolding.
Can nature restore what my predecessors spent centuries grooming to our vain human whims? And will my tenth of an acre make a difference in the grand scheme of wildlife preservation? I don’t know, but… it’s a beginning.
bare root crab apple first autumn foliage drops mere inches to ground
Blue B’s
Beautiful blooming bluefields bounce, bob, bow.
Balmy breezes brush by,
blowing… bending.
Blue blossoms balance
atop tall, slender green stalks.
Buzzing, boisterous bees; bumbling busy bugs
bombard bevies of burgeoning blue bouquets.
Bad-ass bayoneted bottoms belie
beneficial blending
of pollen dust on golden legs.
spring reckoning
Planted last winter,
I watched for your blush of life.
You remained dormant,
or dead – Now I’m left to choose:
wait and hope, or dig you out.
dVerse Meet the Bar challenge: 5-line Japanese Poetic Forms. My first attempt at a tanka.
Harbinger
Day Eleven of NaPoWriMo.*
Today’s prompt:
“write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings. “
And so:
Harbinger
You push through winter-hardened earth;
herald of spring, though
late winter snow lingers.
A peek of green, soon a finger,
then – when next I think to look –
the golden trumpet atop a slender stem.
Whipped by feisty winds,
assailed by torrent rains,
flattened by a boisterous spring, and I
speculate that you lost your gamble
in being first to show. But
you rise again, regal as ever…
defiant, daring daffodil!
Day Six: Ekphrasis
Day Six of NaPoWriMo.*
Today’s prompt asks us to
“write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.”
I used a different painting, Franz Marc’s “The Fox” for my poem, but with the same concept of using the subject’s point of view.
Here goes:
Outfoxed
As cities crumbled in disrepair,
we watched from forest shadows,
not understanding what forces cause
a species to implode.
As flora died in poisoned air,
we retreated into denser woods,
left to fathom such machinations
that place greed above survival.
With no place left to seek reprieve,
we huddled amidst brambles,
hiding from blind ignorance
that sought to take our lives.
And then the whole world shattered
into a million pieces.
We raised our heads to face our death,
and instead were met with
blue skies free from factory smoke,
waters clear as young fawns’ eyes,
fish emerging from the depths.
plants burgeoning in replenished soil.
We snuggled in comforted embrace
as nature reassembled,
as order rose from chaos
under Gaia’s healing eyes.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 