Shimmering
leaf-ruffled skirts of red and gold.
Nature’s can-can dancer,
autumn kicks up her heels.
Dance With Me
Nature
Looking Up, I Wonder . . .
Does the sun, obscured by gray clouds,
feel like she’s brushing clammy cobwebs
from her perspiring face?
Do stars sputter when meteorites flash by,
hogging their solar spotlight?
As the moon waxes,
does she feel guilty about her expanding curves?
Does the sky feel belittled
when her brilliant blues blend with ocean hues,
blurring her celestial hemline
with saltwater slurps in a hazy horizon?
Are clouds frustrated
when winds blow them off course?
Do tides falter
when lunar rhythms lose their beat,
as if the maestro’s baton
has developed a score of its own?
Looking up, I wonder . . .
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today Bjorn asks us to write a poem that consists only of questions. And indeed, we are looking to the skies as Cape Cod is under a tropical storm watch tonight and tomorrow, expecting residuals of Hurricane Jose.
Provincetown Morning
Quiet resounds here.
Time reined in, schedules disappear.
Low tide reveals sand swirls,
lazy etchings from past eddies.
Once afloat in deep water
languid sailboats rest askew,
moorings draped in dripping sea grass.
Plover chatter creates far-off natural hum
occasionally interrupted by a raucous gull.
Sipping coffee in a slight ocean breeze
my mind wanders,
savoring the serenity of this place.
I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets. Prompt word/s: rain, rein, and/or reign. Folks are invited to use one, two, or all three of these words. The one caveat is the poem must have a positive bent. Come join poets from across the globe — we’re a friendly bunch so would love to have you participate! Pub opens at 3PM Boston time. And yes, I’m in our beloved Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Two glorious weeks in this beautiful place. Photos from our deck. Feet are from a few years back…but others are from yesterday and today. It’s a special place in the off-season.
shhhhh . . .
dried dandelion
puff-wisher for dreams come true
nature’s magic wand
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where it’s Tuesday’s Poetics . Paul is hosting and asks us to write a poem that includes the word “magic.” Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come enjoy! Photo by dear friend, Alison Hofer.
Ode to Texas
Helios banished
usurped by Thor.
Relentless temper rains
ruinous torrential tomorrows,
inundates the land.
Cloud-sieves drain seemingly forever.
Altruism birthed midst missing sun.
Notable acts of kindness shine,
emerge, kindled by catastrophe.
Frank hosts dVerse today, the virtual pub for poets, asking us to write an Acrostic. An acrostic includes a word or phrase hidden within the first letter of each line. You find the word by reading vertically down the left side of the poem. Image in public domain at pixabay.com
Hope
new day tints the sky
possibilities abound
spirits soar in pinks
Perhaps today, we all need to see beauty on this earth and hope that love will prevail.
Metaphoric Journey
She remembers hot spots,
hands thrown up in disgust.
Exploded resentment
spewed words laced in spittle.
She walks this Icelandic landscape alone
breathing sulfuric stench.
Eyes sting, nostrils flare.
She feels and sees and hears
the earth stew, bubble,
seethe and steam.
Flumes sputter, gain strength,
spray vitriolic anger.
Shielding her eyes,
she searches for some shade of green,
some sign of hope
beyond this godforsaken land.
If she stands still
she understands now,
she will be consumed.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Our host is Kim and she’s talking about “flexing your verbs” in a poem about a landscape. Photos were taken outside Reykjavik, Iceland on our recent trip. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come imbibe some verbs with us!
Garden Scene
sunflowers
instinctively gaze toward warmth
nature’s weather vanes
Transient Beauty
It was the first summer after we bought our Iowa farm house. City transplants, we planted a huge garden. Tomatos, sweet corn, carrots, beets, cucumbers, radishes, green and yellow beans, peas, zucchini, squash and pumpkin, all kinds of peppers, and oak leaf and ruby red lettuce. I planned to can and freeze vegetables. Enjoy our harvest through the winter.
On this particular hot and humid day, I was seven months pregnant and exhausted, but very proud of my first attempt at canning stewed tomatoes. I’d picked and washed the tomatoes. Dipped them in boiling water to loosen the skins. Chopped them with celery and peppers. Cooked the mixture and poured them into sterilized glass jars. And finally processed them in the pressure canner. Deliciously, gloriously red, the mixture was now displayed in mason jars, standing tall on my cupboard.
And then I heard our German Shepherd barking — a lot. I took two steps into the back yard and stopped dead in my tracks. The smell was unbelievable. Skunk. And all those beautiful stewed tomatoes, gone in a flash. Rubbed into the coat of Toby. At least he had the grace to lick his chops.
nature thunders rain
magnolia blooms fall to ground
magnificence gone
It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Grace asks us to write a haibun related to summer. This summer memory is from many many years ago. Haibun: prose (cannot be fiction) followed by a haiku (should be related to nature). Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come on over and join the fun! Photo in public domain – from Pixabay.
Twiglet #26
Plants green
bloom beautiful
dry themselves to seed.
Inside-out they sow themselves
to green and bloom again.
Written for Misky’s Twiglets. Two word prompt given this week, “inside” and “out” to spark a thought, a phrase, a poem. The shorter the better, hence the name twiglet. Photo: taken last year on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.
lillian the home poet 