Tag Archives: summer

Hope

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IMG_2586

Hope. acrylic and ink on watercolor paper, Lex Leonard

Sky opened to cede its tiny mandalas of ice blessing all below

Beet and cabbage paused, tomato and corn stilled

Is this the most remarkable thing you have ever seen

Laden morsels alight melting in summer’s heat
Most of them drying under sun’s guidance
intense in their purpose to bring relief
from season’s hymn

Vegetables sigh, give thanks, and resume

 

Author’s Note:

Our writing group was to bring a prompt, a line from a book.  I found this line from Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume the perfect one for me to use. It was not my prompt, but now I will read the book.

The beet is the most intense of vegetables.
from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

The time given to write was twenty minutes. I took the line and wrote it down the page. I then wrote my poem beginning each line with the word from the prompt. Of course, through editing, things get changed around a bit. moved around, deleted and refined. You can still see remnants of the prompt. Thank you, Tom Robbins, for the inspiration.

And my painting, Hope, sprung from the poem.

Two Balloons

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2balloons

 

Here come round balloons
Lift away, unsecured,
Tiny hands reach,
not fast enough in rescue

Here come round balloons
Red and yellow hues of summer
Winter skin unaware, flaring
Skyrocketing sunflowers
Petaled fingers sway in hot day breeze

Here come round balloons
Dots of color celebration
Laughter and candles
Presents and cake

Here come round balloons
Gondola swing over cow observers
Silent ascent beond fields of green

Here come round balloons
One for you
One for me
That makes two
String entanglement
Above summer kisses.

Here come round balloons
Losing sight of home,
Sting the average heart
Yearning for travels far away

Here come round balloons
Falling to final sleep
Onto hot tar roads
Tires rolling over and
Over and over again.

 

Author’s Note:

Our writing group met and I brought the prompt. A special thanks to Valerie A. Szarek, poet, energy healer, musician, artist, for the idea. I attended a poetry workshop and revisioned the prompt for my group.

We began with a sentence from a summer poem by Robert Frost, Fireflies In The Garden:

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies…

In a round, we then filled in new words with no connection passing papers on and each person filling in only one blank box with adjectives, nouns, verbs. We ended up with one new sentence, each person’s unique. Mine was:

Here come round balloons to sting the average tires.

We were then to use this sentence as a prompt however it suited us. As always, we could do as we wish. But everyone took the challenge in some way.  What fun! And we laughed heartily, and sighed, and shed a tear. What a wonder and blessing I have in this group.

 

Pluvia

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leafand raindrop.jpg

 

There’s something
about the first rain of fall
when it comes, finally, to fill
in the cracked earth of
summer’s heat

A mollifying, reminding one
that change will come,
regardless, and without
our doing, or undoing

As we circle and spin,
we transform
by our living, re-shape by
what passes over and
around and through us

There is no control, none
really needed, just patience
and some stillness
to sanction the interval
until drops upon the roof
announce their arrival

Arise, a haibun

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bunny

 

She hid under lush leaves of summer hoping to be lost to the gatherer’s touch. Deep inside she watched as gentle fingers lifted pieces to be housed in safety over winter’s time. And snow came. Cold endured by only the strongest. Rain to quench when dry days lingered too long. Finally, she let herself be noticed as sun grew long and earth made way for new growth. Her journey complete, a jubilant wink greeted her summer friend.

rain feeds earth
spirit grows within
life ascends

 

 

 

napo2017button2

 

 

Author’s Note:

Today is a preview, an Early-Bird Prompt for NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month.

This is a haibun.

What a wonderful start!

Terminus

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An overnight dusting
on frontier peaks notified
summer to ready itself for
abdication to a new hemisphere.
And still, a fan whirrs its caution,
fall is not yet willing to settle in.

Cicada tymbal and cricket choir
rise behind a prop plane spurring
toward its terminus.

Finally, softness resolves the day
under dowager locust’s lacy arms
gently brushing away irrelevancy.

I absolve myself at this day’s end
without contrition, tomorrow’s worry
dormant as halftone lines and curves
meld into the shadow sky of bedtime.