This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is “as summer fades.”
I’ve got nothing for a poem this evening (even though this is usually the time of week when I share a Sijo), but I don’t want to force it. The theme for this week’s Sijo is persistence, though, so maybe….
Nothing coming, ideas stuck like a truck broken down,
Carrying precious cargo; fix the engine and let it go
Break through barriers, and with persistence reach the destination
For this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge, “A summer walk in the sunshine,” I took a couple of pictures in my backyard. I’ve shared the most interesting one. 🙂 There were also a lot of sunflowers still, so I’m including an older photo of our sunflowers. It wasn’t much of a walk, but I did explore my backyard. It some spots it is a little like a jungle.
The photo above inspired a poem: Create: Poetry trees, Surfeit of ideas Branching out and reaching others -- Brainstorm
This week’s sijo is inspired by summer. I also thought about Fandango’s word for today, “scorch.” I could probably write something better, but I’m decently happy with this, and at least it’s something. 🙂 Pretty true to my summer experience.
As temperatures outside climb past 90, become scorching,
Intensity of my family’s love of air-conditioning,
Makes this one of the coldest seasons, when experienced.
Edit: I just wrote a second sijo.
“Summer Produces”
Strawberries ripening, almost more quickly than we can eat,
Peaches colored like sunrise, days starting early due to much light,
And memories, of other reasons to love this season.
For example, swimming, or in my case, playing in the water. I don’t do that anymore.
For DVerse’s Haibun Monday, for which the theme is the summer or winter (depending on which side of the equator you live on) solstice. I’m happy to write for this. 🙂
Will the sun stand still? I'm not ready for the days to start shortening, gradual as is may be. It's scary because I want to stay happy. This past week has been a medical miracle, a blessing, and/or a stroke of luck; but like the solstice it may only be brief. Mood, like time, moves like the waves at the beaches -- which I might like to visit soon. scorching heat walking -- grains of sand salt water
Brian’s prompt for this week, which I didn’t even look at until this morning, is “Fleeting Beauty,” as you could guess from the title. 🙂 He suggests the haiku form for this topic (which works in my favor because I was short on time). I do agree that a brief, often nature-based form like the haiku is effective for this theme.
I took it in a different direction, though, since I’ve been at work a lot and am getting inspiration from the lovely, delicious, ephemeral, consumable works of Italian-ice-and-frozen-custard art! Without any further ado, here is:
“Fleeting Yummy”
Chocolate custard tops
Birthday cake ice, with sprinkles
Melts soon in the sun
If I want to look deeper into this poem, I could say that the “birthday cake ice” represents the passage of time, years going by as someone gets older. Although I probably am about to have another mid-life crisis, all it really “represents” is what I ate this afternoon. XD
For DVerse’s Haibun Monday today, we are considering summer. I have been thinking lately that the summer season really should start before the summer solstice, maybe on June 1st. 🙂
I remember the excitement of mid-June: class parties, signing yearbooks, summer break coming soon. Family vacations we used to take, big birthday parties with cake and other celebrations, Fourth-of-July fireworks. Completely carefree days. And then, the dread of another August ending.
remember those days,
summertime the pinnacle
of kids' existence
With today’s MVB prompt being “marshmallow,” I was inspired (I guess) to write this, for DVerse Poetics.
The best marshmallow Is the kind lit on fire, Golden-brown is overrated Patience not needed for The most delicious s'more: Sandwiched 'twixt two Graham crackers with rich Chocolate, its sugar melts into A gooey mess, highlight Of a happy summer's night.
As a response to this week’s “Throwback Thursday” about learning to swim, I wrote a sevenling. NaPoWriMo day 15.
The little girl loved the water,
But only where she could touch the bottom —
Splashing and “head-bobbing” were summer fun.
It took her years to learn to actually
Swim, the only classes she failed more than
Once, and the ocean is more or less off-limits.
The waves are much more enthusiastic than she is.
This is for DVerse Poetics’s prompt, “Always in Season.” It turns out that, a few months ago, I wrote a different poem about an orange, which is interesting because I don’t like oranges that much. Nevertheless, they are evidently full of juicy inspiration!
I peeled an orange and found
Joy, inside that rough exterior peel,
Bordering on obnoxious with that summery citrus scent,
Joy in the juice which covered my fingers,
In the pulp which found its way
Under each one of my fingernails —
I peeled an orange and grabbed
Happiness, full of ripeness, because I wasn’t
Looking overly intently for it.
For FOWC: Sustain and the prompt at My Vivid Blog, “tops.” I am also sharing with DVerse’s open-link night.
Hard to sustain this August heat:
I hope the temperature will not beat
100 degrees, wish it would stop
At 90 tops — but thankfully
The air-conditioning runs breezily,
A saving grace from summer sun,
It’s glorious and helpful hum.
revivedwriter 