For Linda Kruschke’s paint-chip poetry prompt, I have written this poem. I’m not sure if it counts as an idyll, but I did use a lot of imagery of nature, and it certainly counts as a paint-chip poem. 🙂
Spring
Awaiting Spring
I almost forgot to post a décima for this week’s challenge (“spring” in the A rhyme line). I’ve written two of them this week, and this is the one that I think is better. 🙂
Expectantly, we wait for spring,
We await the rivers’ flowing
And sapling greenery growing,
As meadows with sparrow-song ring.
Now winter still is felt. Its sting
Admittedly not so severe
In northern places, over here
In California, still is felt.
There are distinct ices to melt:
One which most needs to go is fear.
That brings me to what I am loving today: the weather in California. Even a cold and grayish day such as today is not actually cold.
Change of Hearts
This was inspired by this prompt about judgment, as well as the current Weekly Scribblings. Click the link to read more. 🙂
April
Here is another installment of Linda’s paint-chip poetry. I tried to also write in quatrains with an “abab” rhyme scheme. This is also shared with DVerse OLN. Our prompt words are below.
“April showers bring May flowers,”
So goes a well-known adage.
A heartbeat blooms and overpowers
Sky-waterfalls; hope makes a hedge.
Pumpkins planted in the spring
Are simply seeds, but by October,
They’re ripe for jack-o-lantern carving,
So parts of April are not over.
One April morning we are all fools,
Many pranks people like to test:
Teaching that when time seems cruel,
To keep new hope in a cedar chest.
Equinox
For Frank J. Tassone’s current haikai challenge, autumn / spring equinox. I wrote a haibun.
We may have had all summer to enjoy the sun, and now night and day are even. Yet as autumn begins to descend, I can’t help feeling it’s not a fair fight. I keep waiting for the last leaf to fall — for the other shoe to drop.
Flaming, leaves are red —
In a world that’s upside-down
Somewhere it is Spring
Flight
For DVerse Poetics “Flights of Fancy” and inspired by something I saw in my family’s garden yesterday.
The finch perches
On the back of a sunflower,
As she awaits her turn
At the filled feeder:
She finds her chance
And when she flies
The flower dances springily back,
In true sunflower fashion;
The finch uses the free
Surplus of birdseed
To fuel more of her
Flight and avian dreams.
Décima: Dreaming of Music
I combined two prompts for this poem, Linda’s paint-chip poetry for the week and also Ronovan’s Décima challenge using “dream.” I hope this is good because I wrote 4 or 5 décimas in the past few days but didn’t feel confident sharing any of them.
Saxophone solo, smooth as dreams,
Piano keys accompany —
Both ebony and ivory —
Talent rare as saffron, it seems.
Courage in a lion heart gleams:
New life imbued into spirit,
Rocking the boat but fine with it,
The boat was sinking anyway.
A living spring will gush today:
Music shall play, songs not tacet.
The May Full Moon
This is for Frank’s haikai challenge about the Flower Moon, which happens to be tonight. Also, May is the month when Catholics honor Mary in a special way, and one of the traditional activities is called a May Crowning. Here is a picture from one that I participated in last year.
Soon a May crowning:
In many-starred night-sky cloak
Flower supermoon
Picking Blueberries
This poem is a true story. Here is a picture that I took this morning of the bounty!Â
How beautiful, the fruity blue
Clusters in the sun, the sweetness
Of the berries bursting among leaves —
I underestimated the potentiality
Of their spring fruit-bearing,
Filling entirely a purple bowl,
With ripe orbs so quickly full.
Lilies are not only white
This haibun is written in response to Frank J. Tassone’s prompt about Easter lilies. Easter is celebrated for 8 days on the Catholic liturgical calendar, and the Easter season lasts for several more weeks. I am grateful for each of my friends, especially for those who have stayed in contact with me during this crisis, but I still am having such a hard time not being able to see anyone in person!
I would give white Easter lilies to my friends, to say, “Pleased to have made your acquaintance.” Then I may bestow, on a certain someone, lilies of yellow, to urge us to “live for the moment.”
though love is patient
fights against separation
from the Beloved
