nature – Page 15 – lillian the home poet

Alaska’s Crown

March 19, 2017March 18, 2017lillian2 Comments

Traveling across the tundra, prayers of thanksgiving hover on my lips. You tower above glacial streams, fiddle heads, cranberry bogs, and mountain peaks. Athabaskans understand. You are the High One. Within your gaze, grizzlies roam. Caribou, Dall sheep, moose and marmots too. Gleaming sun and star scrim skies light your view. Oh Denali, you stand tall. Guardian of this hallowed land.

Written for Day 1 of a 21 day challenge online course with my poetry mentor, Holly Wren Spaulding. Prompt: write a prose poem that includes an animal. Photo from our trip to Alaska that included the Denali National Park’s 12 hour Kantishna tour. At the time, this was officially Mount McKinley, but was always called Denali by Alaskans. One month after we returned home, by executive order, President Obama officially renamed Mount McKinley, Denali.

Iowa Winter Scene

March 18, 2017March 18, 2017lillian2 Comments

Cornstalk remnant icy spikes
pierce snow crusted land.
Rare snowy owl, alert
watches for prey.

Written for day 15 of Holly Wren Spaulding’s online 21-day Vernal Equinox course. A four line poem that includes snow.

Forest Room

March 15, 2017March 15, 2017lillian2 Comments

moss, lichen and fiddle ferns
padded damp silent floor

cool moisture clings
leaves shiver in residual rain

stubborn clouds persist
dawn struggles to lift the shade

Post written in response to Day 12 of 21 day challenge online course led by Holly Wren Spaulding. Write about a room.

Spring Haiku Times Three

March 4, 2017March 4, 2017lillian3 Comments

I.
sprigs of green peek out
crocus, tulips, daffodils
ready to spring forth

II.
shedding winter coats
pregnant bellies everywhere
spring phenomenon

III.
lily pad squatter
spring-like legs tense, eyes take aim
SPLAT, misjudged its mark

A Sharp Little Ditty

February 27, 2017February 27, 2017lillian61 Comments

Harrison Hedgehog
all a dither
in a quiver,
over Patty Porcupine.

How to propose?
The poetic one,
undone,
by a prickly giggly gal.

A note, inside a balloon,
a quadrille.
Then with her own quill,
Patty will pop the question!

It’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. De is tending bar and asks us to giggle today 😊. Forty-four words, not including the title, that include the word “giggle.” I figure in our crazy world, it’s a good day for a silly little ditty! Photo is of Harrison Hedgehog, in public domain.

Seascape

February 22, 2017February 22, 2017lillian5 Comments

Rocky shoals
carved by wind and sea,
lessons in patience
to the passage of time.

Photos from a recent walk to Tobacco Bay near St George’s, Bermuda. No photoshopping. It truly is this beautiful.

Sea Life

February 18, 2017February 18, 2017lillian5 Comments

She lives her life as a barnacle would,
clinging tenaciously to faith
in an eroding world.

Flight

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017lillian29 Comments

Surrounding reality melts as I seek the comfort of sleep. In that half-aura, lying with eyes closed, weight of quilt on chest, I work to release tense shoulders, facial muscles. Within my mind’s eye, weightless arms rise, outstretched. I float above my body, cares released, and soar into the night.

heron, tense, alert
dives hungry into dark sea
soars with silver fish

Björn hosts haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Photo credit: Bird Sirin by artist Sergey Solomko. We’re asked today to find artwork that does not illustrate our haibun, rather compliments its meaning. Haibun: short prose, not fiction, followed by haiku. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time.