Tag Archives: dVerse

Beauty in the Eye of the Eyesore

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“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

dVerse Haibun Monday: Summer or Winter

restoration

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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

dVerse haibun Monday: New beginnings

Blue B’s

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blue1

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.

blue2

dVerse Quadrille #107: Blue

Room to Think

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cedar bench

“Welcome to my house!” The little boy pulls aside a low hanging branch and gestures into the shadow of an old growth cedar tree.

“What a lovely home!” I look around the imaginary room: the evergreen walls, the mossy drapes, the soft carpet of aromatic brown needles. The boy grins.

“And that’s your house over there!” He points to another tree, and then to a fallen limb. “And this is your thinking bench.”

“My thinking bench?”

“Yes. When you want to think about things, you can come out here and sit on this bench.” I sit on the limb and marvel at this three-year-old’s creativity, and it occurs to me that every home could likely benefit from a thinking bench. See? It’s got me thinking already.

roughhewn cedar bench
space to breathe unfinished thoughts
warm breeze stirs the mind

dVerse open link night #267

Found!

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The poetry challenge today on the dVerse site is to write a “found” poem using the words on book spines.

Bjorn asks us to:

Go through your collection on books, and note the titles.
Sort them so the titles form a poem.
Take a photo of the books.
Write down the poem.

And so, my found poem — a haiku of sorts —  with its found title:

Finding Your Way

found poem

wherever you go
roads of destiny — options —
some answered questions

dVerse ~ Poets Pub: Finding poems in bookshelves

Please Fasten Your Seat Belts

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15

jet1

Today it is cold, wet and windy outside. From my living room, I watch jets coming in low as they approach PDX three miles to the south of my home. Usually they are high up and flying due south when they pass overhead, but with high winds, they must change their approach to an alternate runway, and so they pass across the view from my front window in a westerly direction, appearing almost as low as the trees.

It is January. A new year, a new decade no less. And with my birthday falling within the first week of the month, I face a triple mile post of time marked, and the reckoning that elicits. Have I spent the past year well? Wisely? And what will I do with this blank slate of 2020?

I will fly high, I vow, when conditions allow. I will be open to alternate approaches when circumstances turn dicey. And even through turbulence, I’ll take full advantage of the journey. because that’s the way of the determined traveler. I’m buckling up for 2020!

winter winds bluster
branches swing on steadfast trees
holding through the storm

jet2

For dVerse Challenge: Beginning (again) ~ Haibun

Corvid

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9

crow

You perch in silhouette on overhead power lines,
a black bird cutout from the gray-mottled clouds.
I’ve read that you recognize faces, and can
distinguish the friendly from the ill-willed.
I’ve read that you can even pass that specific discernment
down to your offspring.

And so, when you begin scolding me in raucous cawing,
I face you square on and remind you that I’m one of the good guys.
You laugh (or so it seems) and swoop down to the garden wall
where you observe (or so it seems) my every move.
When I return to the house, you will drop to the ground
and inspect the results of my comings and goings.
Perhaps I have turned up a tasty morsel from the garden.

You’ll return to your high wire and pose again,
black-on-black in silhouette against the sky.
And somehow, I take comfort in imagining
I have gained your approval and won’t fall victim
to a murder of crows.

dVerse Poetics: On Shades of Black