Deep into the woods, therein lies peace. Surrounded, enveloped in green, lush emeralds lull my spirit birdsong’s lilt soothes my mind. I crave thy beauty. I bathe in your dappled jades, in your calm.
Written for NAPOWRIMO Day 9. Today we’re asked to write a nonet: first line has 9 syllables, second line has 8 syllables, third line has 7 syllables, etc.
Photo from our time in Ireland a number of years ago.
They leave the body. Bloody pile of corpuscles dragged to Lake Manyara’s shore. Young zebra, quiet since teeth first gouged neck. Decimated.
Jowls dripping, appetite sated, his eyes bid her follow. Series of slow guttural growls signal acquiescence. Lioness follows beside. Slowly they retreat into maze of acacia trees. Unseen by approaching safari truck.
High power rifles catch glaring sun. Two men peer quietly into distance. Cheetah carcass, day’s first kill, hangs over vehicle’s hood. Not enough, they seek more.
NAPOWRIMO 2022: and so it begins with a prompt to write a prose poem that is somehow about a body, includes dialogue and at least one vivid image. Here, the dialogue is implied in the second paragraph/stanza. Image from Pixabay.com
Serenity, I walk in bliss. Trees breeze-whisper, nothing amiss. Soft ferns hushed, shimmer velvetly. Moist, fresh forest scent, nature’s kiss. Your lips come to mind. Ecstasy. I walk in bliss. Serenity.
Shinrin-Yoku is Japanese for forest bathing: bathing in the forest atmosphere, taking in the forest through our senses.
Grace is hosting Meet-The-Bar Thursday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She’s asked us to write a Sparrowlet, a poetry form invented by Kathrine Sparrow. Here’s the elements of a Sparrowlet: 1. stanzaic, written in any number of sixtains (6 line stanzas) I wrote 1 sixtain. 2. syllabic: each line must be 8 syllables each (Often written in iambic tetrameter – I didn’t!) 3. Line 1 and Line 6 of the stanza is written in 2 himistichs (I had to look this word up) 4. Rhymed, rhyme scheme is BbabaA. 5. The 2 halves of Line 1 are inverted and repeated as a refrain in Line 6. The lst line MUST be the EXACT SAME as line 1, just switched around. You cannot change any of the words. (Punctuation may be changed to accommodate the meaning.) RRA, RRB xxxxxxxxb xxxxxxxxa xxxxxxxxb xxxxxxxxa RRB, RRA
Luckily Grace included an example of a poem written in this form within her prompt. The example for me, was much easier to follow than the definition itself! Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us to try this form — or just to see how others wrote with it!
Photo from a trip to see my niece in Ohio a number of years ago.
Looking at the ancient eucalyptus tree’s gnarled and peeling bark in the midst of verdant greenery, I see beauty in its maturity and feel content in my skin.
Photo taken yesterday from the patio of our San Diego rental, which overlooks a canyon. This stately aging eucalyptus tree fascinates me.
Ancient eucalyptus tree. Pock marked bark-skin, peeling, barren in places, adds beauty to greening canyon.
Elderly man in thick glasses, blue-veined hands hanging limply, shuffles across street. Driver sits, hand poised over horn.
Musing, I ponder our value system. We should learn from nature.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse where the word to use (or a form of the word) in our exactly 144 word poem sans title is “muse.”
Photos taken yesterday from our patio, which opens to a beautiful canyon. We’re in an apartment rental in sunny San Diego until early March, escaping Boston’s winter (as in 11.2 inches of snow on Friday!).
I mellow in my Provincetown days. I watch and listen to the ocean tides, their fidelity to lunar rhythms. My body rests in this place.
Skies often pastel my respite. Blushing dawns. Tinted sunsets. Sherbet orange melts into lemon yellow. Pinks blur into shades of grey and soft orchid.
I’m struck by how colors blend here. As if the palette is tipped just ever so slightly and delineations disappear.
For two weeks every year, I leave the world behind. I do not come to recharge; quite the opposite. I simply come to be.
Written from Boston, having recently returned from our annual two weeks in Provincetown. Posted for OLN at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
Apologies for those who have been reading a lot of my poetry about Provincetown the past two weeks….this is the last one for this year. I promise!
This photo was taken on one of my last mornings there this year. Somehow Provincetown IS an artist’s palette. The challenge is to recreate it in words. No photoshopping here….it really looked like this. Mother Nature a la the impressionist painter? Until next year…..
This is my place, Provincetown’s quiet eastside coast. Let my distant auk relatives claim the boring inlands.
Each dawn I take my perch, lone tall rock on submerged jetty. Preen patiently, wait for morning sun.
Dawn tints the sky, glistens ocean path. My rock is center stage, lone gull in nature’s spotlight.
I dipfish in shallows when schools swim by. Clams succumb to my drop and crack maneuver. I pick and peck lobsters asunder. Swallow as is. Melted butter a human absurdity.
You are not alone, you know, bragging on your mythology. Gull lore says that generations ago, pilgrims landed in Provincetown.
My ancestors met them, an entire colony of gulls. Squawked so loud those humans left, sailed on to Plymouth Rock, obnoxiously omitting us from history.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sarah has provided an interesting prompt entitled Creepies and Crawlies. She introduces us to the idea of writing in the first person, as a spider, a cockroach, a butterfly, a dragonfly, or, I may be taking poetic license here, an animal of our choice. Since we are in Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod, I’m writing from the perspective of the gull pictured in the photo I took this morning as I watched a new day dawn in this amazing place. And, it is true. The pilgrims first landed in Provincetown but for some reason, they sailed on to Plymouth and thus the famous Plymouth Rock and the overlooked history of America’s beginning.
To read a short poem about the same photo, from the human perspective, click here.
Gull claims its spot, lone protruding rock on submerged jetty. Preens itself then waits expectantly. Sliver sun peeks out from low slung cloud, turns near darkness into luminescence. Bathed in rouging blush, water glistens in dawn’s appearance. Gull preens again, swathed in nature’s spotlight. My contented sigh, applause enough as curtain rises on a new day.
Photo taken this morning in Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod.
In the night of day Luna lights the path over oceans deep. Vast sea of glistening caps ever gleaming, beckoning me. Your visage when last we met, only that has kept me safely undone by storms and cloudy skies.
There is no fear, no dread, nothing vague. No questioning of time. Row on, row on, this cursed ship. My dreams, my thoughts aswirl, I shall reach you, my everlasting joy.
An Acrostic Plus, written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
I’m hosting and ask folks to either write a poem related to something that puzzles them, use the word “puzzle” in their poem . . . or extra points for writing an Acrostic Plus, a form I created: Read down the first letters in the lines of the first stanza and see what they spell; then read down the last letters of the lines in the second stanza and see what they spell. You should then have a message related to the poem!
lillian the home poet 