Relationships

Shinrin-Yoku

lillian18 Comments

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.

Journey Gone Askew

lillian35 Comments

She picked one of the two.
Not her roots in rural life,
golden brick road more tempting.
Drove it to wealth,
fancy home in fancy heights
prestige, black tie events.

Ignored the signs.
Exit ramps,
detours available,
this way outs.
Drove and drove,
hard and harder.

Too late she realized,
the road she picked?
Sadly a dead-end street.

I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. I’m asking folks to choose one adage/proverb from a list I provide, and use it as their inspiration for their poem today. The list includes adages from Aesop’s Fables, Adagia, Poor Richard’s Almanack, the Bible. I also provide one line from a movie, which is the line this poem is inspired by: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Forrest Gump, the movie.

Join us at 3 PM Boston time to see the full list. Then write your poem and post it so we can enjoy together! Image from Pixabay.com

Juxtapositioning

lillian20 Comments

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!).

Sunburst

lillian18 Comments

She becomes the sun in his world.
Dazed, stunned, smitten. Emotions whirled.
Fierce sunbeam.

Parhelion in mocking sky,
her beauty shines to mystify.
Burned. Sunstruck.

Moist tempting lips smile to ensnare.
Hips beckon, sway in daylight’s glare.
Felled. Sunstroke.

Obsessed he beds her day and night
primal, neurotic appetite.
Sunscalded.

His money spent, he’d been cajoled.
Drugged. Job over, she leaves him cold.
Done. Sunset.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Grace hosts today and introduces us to the Compound Word Verse:

This complex form was created by Margaret R. Smith:
Five 3-line stanzas. Fifteen lines total.
Last line of each stanza must be a compound word.
The compound words must share a common stem: IE sun, sunbeam, sunstruck, sunstroke, sunbathing, sunset.
Rhyme scheme must be aab.
Syllable count must be 8, 8, 3.

Parhelion: a sun dog or mock sun called a parhelion in meteorology, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the sun.

Photo from Pixabay.com

Luna

lillian33 Comments

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!

In this poem, the message is “I love you deeply.”

Romantic Tryst

lillian17 Comments

Come walk with me, my dearest love,
through verdant fields, blue skies above.
Your hand in mine, without its glove,
I lust there of. I lust there of.

We stop to rest midst blooms divine,
wild flowers witness as we recline.
My lips seek yours, as if fine wine,
wouldst thou be mine? Wouldst thou be mine?

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Grace asks us to write a monotetra. This is a form developed by Michael Walker consisting of 1 or more quatrains. Each of the 4 lines in the quatrain must have 8 syllables. The four lines all carry the same end rhyme but the fourth line repeats the first four exact syllables twice and in both cases, the 4th syllable must have the end rhyme. So the rhyme scheme/poem’s structure looks like this:
First or only Quatrain
Line 1: 8 syllables, A1 (in my poem above “love)
Line 2: 8 syllables, A2 (in my poem above “above”)
Line 3: 8 syllables, A3 (in my poem above “glove”)
Line 4: 4 syllables A4 (“I lust there of”), 4 syllables A4

Second Quatrain
Line 1: 8 syllables, B1 (divine)
Line 2: 8 syllables, B2 (recline)
Line 3: 8 syllables, B3 (wine)
Line 4: 4 syllables B4 (wouldst thou be mine?), 4 syllables B4

Photo is from our trip to Ireland some years ago.

The Gathering

lillian11 Comments

Love and laughter abound
from youngest to oldest, three generations.
Memories shared, stories told, memories made.
The circle of love goes around and round . . .
. . . we are blessed to still be aboard.
Thankful for every day.

Brother and sister together again after 18 months.
Traditional cousins’ bench shot. In the top one, youngest is 2 and on the bottom, she’s almost 10!
Fifty-one years…..thankful for every day.
Hail hail, the gang’s all here….
Our much loved children and grandchildren.

All photos from last weekend….and what a joyful time we had at a marvelous VRBO farmhouse in Virginia!