I Change Not

As a leopard cannot change it’s spots
I cannot change, no matter what
I am that I am and was
only hoping could there
be bigger changes
we might see: two
in love turn
into
three.

Text: Linked to Jilly’s Casting Bricks October Collaboration Challenge.  This is a collaboration with Vivian Zems who provided the title and the first half of this nonet poem. Her part is in bold red.  A nonet poem has nine lines each line having one syllable less than the one above it with the first line having nine syllables.

Photo: “Life Changes the Brick Wall” by the author.

Park Shade

You grew in what became a picnic grove
Providing shade to what is now a park
While dying you were cut and when I drove
One morning past your place expecting dark
I found the stump, your tombstone, your new mark
And knew eventually that so will I
Look up with new perspective on the sky.

Text: Linked to dVerse Open Link Night hosted by Kim.  The form is called Chaucerian stanza or rime royal (or, for those who can spell better, rhyme royal).  I may use this form next week as a prompt.
I am linking this to Jilly’s October Casting Bricks Collaboration Challenge as the first half of a two stanza poem. The form is iambic pentameter with rhyme pattern ababbcc.

Photos: “Oak Stump”, above, and “Hour Walk Through Somme Woods”, below, by the author.  I am linking these to Frank Jansen’s Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme of “hour”.  I took these during an hour walk in Somme Woods yesterday.

Hour Walk Through Somme Woods

First Frost’s Voice

The first frost tells us that the trend will change. More will come until more doesn’t come anymore. It is corrective whether one learns a lesson from it or not, perhaps how to better stay warm. We do not circle back into last year’s frost. We spiral into this fresh, new one.

WARM THEN COOLER AIR
RIVERS NEED NOT OVERFLOW
TREES DROP DULL, DRY LEAVES

Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Victoria C. Slotto is hosting with the theme of first frost’s voice.

Photo: “Autumn Purple Yellow Flowers” by the author. I took this at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Autumn: Cosmic and Mundane

I want the cosmic and mundane
To merge into a truer view,
To turn into a new terrain
That wakes when autumn’s light shines through.

Photos: “Autumn Sunset”, above, and “Early Autumn”, below, by the author and linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge and trablogger’s Mundane Monday.

Early Autumn

Autumn Awakens

Summer needs to get some rest.
Fall, it’s time to rise!
Have you any dreams to share
Through cool autumn skies?

Text: Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar.  I am hosting.  The theme is sleep.  There are no other constraints.

Photos: “RIP Summer ’17”, above that I am linking to Frank Jansen’s Tuesday Photo Challenge with the theme “signs”, and “Changing Maple Leaves”, below.   I took both along the Chipilly Woods Trail.

Changing Maple Leaves

Turquoise

It’s a funny kind of blue or green
That seems to match my oddly changing eyes.
Turquoise is a stone I recognize
More than that hidden self that stays unseen.

Text: Linked to dVerse Poetics. Lillian is hosting with the theme of birthstones. Mine is turquoise.

Photo: “Birds and Table at the Park” by the author taken at Navy Pier in Chicago.  The people left and the birds arrived for the crumbs.

Remarkable Forgotten Dreams

Dreams I can’t remember–
I wonder–were they nice?
When I wake I understand
They enhance like spice.
Who was busy through the night?
I can not recall.
Who then turned the morning on?
Who put color in the dawn?
That one did it all.

Text: Linked to dVerse Quadrille Monday. Mish hosts today with the prompt word “spice”.

Photo: “Water Garden” by the author taken at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Pink Guardians of the Entrance

Some say that they are in the way
But I am glad they’re there.
They’re still and bright and love the light
Projecting pink through day and night
To scare away despair.

Photo: “Pink Guardians of the Entrance”. I am linking this to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme of “the stillness and the light” and to trablogger’s Mundane Monday.