Nature

Summer Solstice

lillian55 Comments

Who made this day?
This longest day in the journey.
Scarf thrown off, head tilted back,
away from ticking hands.
No clocks in sight.
More time to revel in the sun.
And she shall do a walk about.
About the bird who places one more
blade of new mown grass upon her nest
and then another and another still.
About time that cannot stop,
but will elongate,
prolong the light on this day,
a broader spectrum in which to heal.
She sees you seeing her.
Watch longer. Hold tighter.
Her body whole, a holy place,
where prayers of so many reside
and battles will be won.
Walk about this longest day,
savor life and love.

sunrise

Dedicated to my friend, Louise.
Walter is hosting Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse and asks us to consider the Summer Solstice, perhaps beginning with the idea of another poet. I looked to Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day which begins, “Who made the world?”  Photo from Cape Cod — sun rise — 

Shinotsukame, Iowa Tornado in Japanese Style

lillian48 Comments

Cornfields, stalks of silk-tasselled green planted in marching rows, wave in hot humid breeze. Then slowly stop. Stand tall. Sensing. Waiting. Sky shifts from grey to sickly yellow. As if the early morning sun has returned to sulk and leave its stain. A rushing sound begins to fill the air. Decibels increase as dark clouds coalesce. Meld into a funnel shape and roar across the field. Dust swirls up from roads, their surface shocked as rain explodes from sky.

Field mice hide
‘neath towering stalks of grain and corn
as sky erupts in fury.

c5d7883a4ede1d7cd611dab47a759aec

Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Toni tending bar talks about the Japanese culture – in particular, fifty shades of rain. There are 50+ words for rain. She asks us to use one of these words in the title or the body of the haibun (prose followed by a haiku). The Japanese haiku: 3 lines, short, long, short;  always about nature. The Americanization of the haiku has shifted to a strict three line, 5-7-5 syllabic form, about any subject. Shinotsukame means intense rain.

After the rains

lillian10 Comments

Spring storm dissipates
leaves slow misting veil.
Ants scurry back to work
beneath uncurled ferns.

Trillium carpets damp earth.
White three-petal clusters
speckled by raindrops,
sit atop shiny green leaves.

Whitening clouds skirt the sky,
grey gives way to light.
Star-shaped pink laurels
turn faces to the dappled sun.

 

Believe

lillian57 Comments

Oh ye of jaded belief,
walk these greening woods
and you shall see the signs.
Mushroom thrones beside
fiddlehead playground slides.
Muhly grass, pink pillow puffs
placed ‘neath frills of ferns.
Look with open heart
and you shall find,
the fairy sprites of yore.

A quadrille (44 words) written for dVerse Poet’s Pub where Grace asks us to use the word “green” within our poem. Photos from various hikes we’ve taken.

Ode to Dandelions written in american sentences

lillian15 Comments

Nature loves the despised, unwanted dandelions, blessing them yellow.

Come dance in refreshing rain, make mudpies and weave wreaths of dandelions.

Summer’s birthday candles: dandelion seed wisps float across wish strewn air.

dandelions-1341698    dandelion-38-1387988

The American Sentence as a poetic form was created by Allen Ginsberg. It was his attempt to make an American haiku. As the Japanese haiku is 17 syllables going down in Japanese text, the American Sentence is 17 syllables going across, linear, like just about everything else in America.

 In a 1991 interview with Thomas Gladysz, Allen Ginsberg was asked about the sacramental nature of life as an aesthetic for his photography. Allen replied: “I think the notion is a Native American art aesthetic and life aesthetic, but my formulation of it is reinforced by a lot of Buddhist training. The notion is basically that the first noble truth most all of us acknowledge, especially senior citizens, is that existence is transitory – life is transitory. We are born and we die. And so this is it! It gives life both a melancholy and a sweet and joyful flavor…Any gesture we make consciously, be it artwork, a love affair, any food we cook, can be done with a kind of awareness of eternity, truthfulness…In portraiture, you have the fleeting moment to capture the image as it passes and before it dissolves…It captures the shadow of the moment.” Italicized is quoted from Paul E. Nelson: About Form: What Are American Sentences.

 

Water Nymphs

lillian1 Comment

They carried purple sateen ribbons
furling and unfurling them into rays of sun,
dancing their way to the shimmering river.

Rivulets gurgled and tamed themselves
lily pads with pale green tendrils appeared,
pillows afloat in soothing cool waters.

Twirling through an iridescent aura,
stars dipped from darkening sky
entwined and crowned their flowing hair.

Bodies sprouted translucent wings
where once streams of violet furled
and their spirits soared.

waterhouse-nymphs-hylas-560979-o

Written for the final day of NaPoWriMo 2016. April is national poetry month.
Photo is in public domain.

Bermudiana Morn

lillian48 Comments

I awake at dawn to sit outside,
watch darkness turn to light,
listen to the fantasia
composed by friends of flight.

Gulls screech, black birds caw,
blend in loud cacophony.
Yellow kiskadees sing their name
kiss-kah-dee atop palmetto tree.

Whistle woo, ee-ooh ee-oohs,
stutter sounds that stop and start.
Nature’s composition,
her ode to sunrise joy.

Sparrows peep and chirp beside me,
ruffle flutter wings then flee
startled by my scratching pen
scoring sounds of brightness in the morn.

Sun warms as notes begin to simmer
overture slowly ends.
Curtain rises on blue skies,
a new Bermuda day.

Thrilled to be guest-hosting dVerse Poetics today! Loving all things fantastical, my poem today uses “fantasia” as it relates to a musical free flow composition. Video from our deck in Bermuda, listening to the dawn. You’ll hear the Kiskadee (yellow bird) quite plainly. And this is one of my many feathered friends who came often to sit with me. Also applying to  NaPoWriMo Day 12.

How Long Can We Ignore?

lillian30 Comments

Alaska weeps daily. Generations of ice, layer upon layer, receding.
Our hush, accompanied by the incessant slow drip of her melting tears.
Like a primal scream from self-inflicted wound, the crack of calving
sends shock waves through our cold.

We turn gingerly, hiking sticks in hand, clamp-ons strapped to boots.
Our quiet retreat is nudged by descending mist. A veil to cover her shards.

Earth dies every day.
We stand on the precipice
blind to her needs.

Glacier melting.

Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse. Prompt is to reach out, write somehow about a silence among us.  Photos from our 2015 trip to Alaska. Chunks of ice as the cruise ship approaches Hubbard Glacier; its shelf looks so small here — in reality it is hugely tall and in the sun, appears as this beautiful color. Other two photos from our 5 mile hike to the toe of Laughton Glacier. The close-up is on the toe, rock debris carried as the glacier slowly moves.  Look closely, about in the middle of the photo, you’ll see the melting. Incessant melting creating glacier streams. We are all too silent, watching the effects of global warming.

 

 

April Cruelty

lillian38 Comments

Crocus seduce, daffodils beam,
we walk lighter, brighter.
Young women shed coats,
bellies concealed in down
bloom pregnant joy.

Temptress Spring,
hips swaying in soft breezes,
sashays to bed budding green.
Wakes at dawn,
cold white kisses shimmer,
laughs flurry at our foolish trust.

crocus-1345997 IMG_4265

Photo Credits: That’s me, this morning, April 4. On the porch in my bathrobe appalled at this cruel April snow! Crocus  photo by Swirls 71.
Written as a quadrille (44 words) for dVerse using the word “shimmer” and for NaPoWriMo Day 4‘s prompt to write about the cruelest month.

Mountain Gifts

lillian30 Comments

Back permanently bent from years at task,
large calloused hands firm to grasp,
gently assess tendrils amongst the greens.

Red kerchief upon her head, basket nearby
knapsack slung on hunched shoulders
eyes to ground, the healer gathers.

Moon watcher, earth cycles familiar
as her own once were. Old woman
wise in the land, one of generations.

Young girl, the next, hovers quietly
beside rivers, through brambles,
seeks to learn mountain’s gifts.

Veined hands reach, crack dogwood bark
fingers roll to crumble butterfly weed.
Touch, not eye, decides to take or not.

Blue cohash, huckleberry, lady slippers.
Sun fades. Moccasin flower roots,
tomorrow’s liquid for aching throat.

She walks the mountainside pharmacopeia
long Joe-pye-weed from the shores,
reishi mushrooms tucked below trees.

Purple fox glove for Pauni’s heart,
bee balm and peppermint leaves,
hawthorne twigs for ceremonial wreaths.

Harvest complete, they slowly return,
woman healer and one to be.
Stars orbit, complete the cycle
whilst moon waxes and wanes.

melissa-plants-lemon-balm-1165802
Late for Tuesday Poetics when guest prompter Lynn asked us to write something related to mountains; so posting now at dVerse Open Links Night.  Photo Credit:  Michael and Christa Richert.