Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Food As Art

Pumpkin piles rising high
Pointing to the blue fall sky.
Going up perhaps a mile
Or just enough to make me smile.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “food as art”. I hope those pumpkins or squash taste as good as they look. They are from two different fall displays at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. One unexpected thing happened this past week. I realized I have now re-seen all of the Pink Panther movies including the not so great ones. There’s nothing left to watch. That made me realize that I will have to crawl out of my comfort zone, take a breath of fresh air, and find something else to risk watching. And that made me smile.

Bookends

         Mystery of being
Further along the road less traveled
   Where the conflict really lies
            I and thou

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar where Bjorn offers the challenge to use the titles of books organized appropriately as found poems.

Symmetrical

There's symmetry as night greets day
And day greets evening’s light.
The virus flushed our breaths away.
It’s time to win that fight.
If I’m around when years go by
Remembering this time,
I’ll inhale breathing if I may
And offer one more rhyme.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt “symmetrical”.

This past week I also read Kim M. Russell’s Joe and Nelly and wrote an Amazon review. I highly recommend this story about two children and their families during World War Two in London.

Also linked to dVerse Quadrille. Mish is hosting with the word “flush”.

I am also linking to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. Below are two more or less symmetrical versions of me wearing a T-shirt mask. These masks don’t take a lot of skill or materials to make (even I can do it). The broccoli sprouts that failed last week now sprout without molding. And so with two successful projects to brag about I have no reason not to smile.

Friendship

There is so much I do not know
And more that I won’t ever do.
Repent. Stop grabbing. Let things flow
Away if need be when they’re through.

See which odd ones stick around
Old friends I didn’t know, then found.

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night where Lillian is hosting.

I took these photos some years ago at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. I don’t think I will ever visit that park again since it is far away and we no longer have family living there, but these photos like old friends stick around in my memory.

Order

There’s order somewhere in this garden space.
I tuck the sheets and toss the blanket tight.
I wash the dishes daily, wipe my face
To carry with me courage for the night.

Dreams help order what I ought to do 
Summarizing stuff with morning light.
Today there may be some I shall get through!
I’ll plant them. Watch them grow and check their height.

This all depends on trust. That’s hard to find.
I know that if I did this on my own 
I’d often go astray or fall behind.

Who is that hoeing offering his aid?
I tend to think I’m on this walk alone,
But we’re both planting dreams though some may fade.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Laura Bloomsbury offers the theme of “order” featuring Elizabeth Jennings. My poem is based on thinking about Jennings’ sonnet The Garden. I took the photos some time ago with different seasonal views of the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Birds, Bugs and Bees

There go the birds and busy bees
As I disturb them walking by,
Stalking sometimes on my knees.
They rightly feel the urge to fly.
They know I’m there and don’t care why.
Mosquitoes on the other hand
Come closer and with gusto land.

Linked to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt, “the birds and the bees” with “all the varieties of our feathered friends and with all bees, bugs and creepy crawlies allowed”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I am trying to sprout broccoli seeds, but they seem to mold in the mason jars. Solution: keep trying! One thing did work. I was able to make a mask (of sorts) out of a t-shirt. I put the t-shirt over my head and then raised it up over my face. I use the sleeves to tie it in place behind my head. And that success, even if the broccoli sprouts so far haven’t worked, made me smile. Thankfully I don’t have to go out much.

Also linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar in the last hour for the prompt for seven-line poems.

They're Not Dumb They Know I'm Watching — They’re Not Dumb They Know I’m Watching

Morning Thoughts

One hundred years like one have wiped away
The former present from this ancient past.
There’s haunting mixed with fragile peace today
That spreads with some wild wind and travels fast.
We wonder how long all of this will last.
May somewhere, fresh with time, there be a place
Where I can pause concern to kiss your face.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where Bjorn is hosting with the theme of “plague, pestilence, and pandemic”.

On Thursday I will feature poems with seven lines. They don’t have to be Chaucerian stanzas as this one is. The only constraint will be that the poems have seven lines.

I found the following link to Barbara Steisand singing Somewhere on the KATiE MiA FredericK!iI blog. It lifted my spirits and so I am passing it on.

Through an Opening

Those rocks weren’t strong enough to close the hole.
Light kept helping plants not go astray.
Hope refocusing renews its goal
Pursuing evermore without delay.
Arise and praise. Celebrate and stay.
Though nighttime blindness closes sleepy eyes
Truth lifts morning with a fresh surprise.

Linked to the Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the prompt “Through an Opening”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. There has been nothing special or unexpected this past considering all of the news of the virus. That there is no new reason to fear is my reason to smile.

Linked to dVerse Quadrille where De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) is hosting with the word “close”.

The poem is a Chaucerian stanza. I will be featuring seven-line poems this Thursday on dVerse Poets Pub for Meeting the Bar. The only constraint is that they have seven lines. They don’t have to be Chaucerian stanzas.

Storm

Storms start silently. I watch the west.
Indiana farmland’s prairie flat.
Living here is peaceful. But the best
Is spring in spite of storms and things like that.
The west grows dark and I am looking at
Those clouds above. I want them to explain
Should they bring more than welcomed springtime rain.

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night. Grace is hosting. The form of the poem is a Chaucerian stanza. It has seven lines with rhyme scheme ABABBCC.

Red

When I do things my own way
My deeds stain red like blood.
Watchful mercy passes by
Avoiding me when I ask why
Justice flushes with a flood.

Repentance is another choice.
Is that what I see?
By giving up, by giving in,
By turning sharply from within
Mercy left a raft for me.

Linked to dVerse Poetics where SarahSouthWest is hosting with the theme of “red”.