I love the trees in winter. My eyes are drawn to them, to their still winter silhouettes against the changing tapestry of the skies. There’s something so clean and clear about them. Undiluted dendritic elegance.
Driving home recently, I had the sudden realization that I will miss the stark winter trees come spring. While I’ll certainly enjoy the delicate emergence of greenery, something within me cleaves to the clarity of winter tree lines. Their shapes and shadows collaborate with sky and water and snow-covered land. They resonate with me on a fundamental level. I felt an odd sense of grief at their impending transformation and a deep appreciation for their presence.
A Tree in Winter
Plant a tree above my grave Not one to bloom in rubied exuberance nor an evergreen unchanging season after season
Instead, plant a tree with winter in mind a tree that is stalwart and true one that stretches upward into the lingering shadows of long, cold days quilting the skies at dawn and dusk, its limbs a tracery a testament to endurance and a reassurance Solace and stark beauty in the dark, dark days
I hope my poem doesn’t come across as too dark. I really am just feeling thankful for the beauty of trees in a still somber landscape. In Maine, winter is still firmly entrenched, though every day the sun rises a touch earlier and sets a touch later. And those beautiful, beautiful trees rise above it all. Wishing you winter or early spring beauty wherever you may be.
Please share your link below. My comments may be delayed due to tentative travel plans this weekend, but I’ll definitely be visiting all your posts sooner or later. Thanks for sharing!
I’m participating in Laura Shovan’s February Challenge this year. I must confess that I haven’t been as consistent as usual in my participation. I think right now I’m at a 50% response rate. I’m trying to look at that as half success, rather than as half failure. At any rate, I’m hoping to rectify that moving forward. (Yay for weekends!)
Our first prompt was essentially to deconstruct or mess around with a narrative or its structure. While initially this felt a bit brain-twisty, eventually I found it fascinating. I loved reading all the amazingly creative takes on it, too. I shared one response with the group, but was inspired to write another one as well.
(Photo credit to : markmatucciphoto)
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The other version
That Dog laid still, played dead. He wasn’t lazy not at all
And that Fox wasn’t quite as quick as he claimed. Though he was brown. Then.
That Fox did jump or try to jump over that still seemingly lazy Dog.
But that wily Dog stood up with a Woof shake Woof catching that Fox in a brief mid-air limbtangle.
Then that Dog untangled himself, and shrugged off Fox and trotted away with a lazy grin.
That Fox dusted off his chagrin, blushing red from tip to tail, and limped away…
Catherine Flynn had our Inklings challenge this month. She took her prompt from the book How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. Here was the invitation she shared: “Can you remember a time when you felt so consumed with the act of making something that you lost all sense of time and your mind seemed to clear? What allowed you to enter this mindful creative space?” When we talked about the prompt, there was some discussion of flow and losing oneself in the flow.
To be honest, there’s a little bit too much flow going on around here, because apparently January flowed right into February without my paying too much attention. Bottom line: I did not remember that our Inkling challenge was due until last night when I was in bed. Oops. And then I had a full day of PD today.
I came home determined to write something. I thought about times I’d felt immersed in creativity, lost to the ticking of the clock, and almost always I remembered mornings outside with my camera in hand. These are such magical moments for me. My mind wandered, recalling vivid sunrises, spiraling sea smoke, soaring birds and dazzling explosions of hoarfrost…the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my chair. It really has been a long, long week.
I finally cobbled together a nonet, expanding from a couple of lines I’d written in my notebook.
Dawn tendrils into full blossoming day. Watch the world wake and shake off nighttime shadows Follow its invitation from one hidden gem to the next Lose yourself in winter’s enchantment
The Poetry Princesses invited others to join in the fun this month and tackle cascade poems. I was immediately drawn by the name of the form and then intrigued by the mix of structure and freedom within it. Robert Lee Brewer succinctly describes it thus: “For the cascade poem, a poet takes each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes those the final lines of each stanza afterward. Beyond that, there are no additional rules for rhyming, meter, etc.” Here’s my cascade poem:
As Fall Turns to Winter
Outside the snow keeps falling but our fire burns bright even as the world disappears
We stand by the windows joined by our pale reflections Outside the snow keeps falling
We’re quieter these days tender and bruised, a bit sadder but our fire burns bright
We watch as our reflections reach out, hold hands, hold on even as the world disappears.
I can’t remember when we last had a snow day. What a gift! I have all sorts of noble intentions, but keep finding myself drawn outside to take photographs, to watch the birds, to tilt my head back and watch the flakes appear as if by magic from the grey sky.
The gift of time as surely as snowflakes falling transforms the day
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Marcie Flinchum Atkins at her blog. Be sure to stop by and check out her post, which shares her book, some companion books, and a new haiku. The Poetry Friday community is always a gift!
I’ve been dabbling in cinquains lately. Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest describes a cinquain as a “nifty 5-line poetic form.” From start to finish, the syllable line count is 2,4,6,8,2. There’s some flexibility, as the poet can add or remove a syllable from each line. Recently, I discovered a daily cinquain prompt on Twitter (@AlexPriceWriter) and it’s been a fun, no stress way to start my day. Here are two from this past week:
prompt: crowd
My head: a mad slippery crowd of teeming thoughts struggling to make their way upstream to spawn.
As tends to happen, once you start thinking about a form, it takes up residence in your head. So, driving to work this week, I continued dabbling with cinquains, even without a prompt!
Commute Eastern blush ignites the coming day Everything seems possible at sunrise
This month Heidi challenged us to write in response to the theme of change. She wrote, “Write a poem that weighs the pros and cons of change… For extra fun, use any form, but consider starting in one form and gradually transitioning in the course of the poem to a quite different form.”
When we met for our biweekly meeting, we all confessed that none of us had created much poetry over the holidays. Mary Lee suggested that we try creating an exquisite corpse poem and then work from that to create our challenge poems. You can read a full explanation of the form here, but the long and the short of it is that one person sends a line of poetry privately to another person, who responds by creating their own line and sending it (and not the preceding line) on to the next person. This continues until everyone has added a line to the poem, seeing only the line that comes immediately before theirs. Our only guidance for this was the theme “Change.” I maybe whined a little before we started, but it was “fun”! (Thanks, Mary Lee!)
After each of us had contributed a line, here’s what we had:
Leaves on the forest floor understand and submit Submit without challenging the direction of the wind to wander and wind along our way the wind unwinds us day by day, shifting clouds, shining light or casting shadows Where steps and stones still lie.
Pretty cool, right?
We agreed that we could alter these lines in any way shape or form as we created our poems. I decided to bold the original words so you can see how they contributed to my effort.
Change
Leaves on the forest floor acquiesce lift and subside, rustlesigh tornado-up toward blasting skies always at one with the wind
Meanwhile, flapping map clasped in hand we march onward focused on forecasting, predicting altering and resisting weather eye to the sky unaware of how much we’re missing
Still the wind unwinds us day by day, changeling breeze and blustery gale shifting clouds, shining light or casting shadows The only certainty that unknown steps and stones still lie ahead
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Catherine Flynn. You can go to her blog, Reading to the Core, to see how she responded to this challenge and other poetic offerings. You can check out the other Inkling responses by clicking below:
Some of my favorite holiday moments are times when I’m off to the side, watching or hearing loved ones. My heart warms to hear my children laughing together, the gentle hubbub of cousins’ catching-up conversations, a piano playing, or, on this past Thanksgiving, two voices raised in song.
In Thanksgiving
In the living room my brother-in-law strums his guitar My daughter’s soprano rises, mingles with his voice
As they sing John Denver’s “Country Roads,” I close my eyes to cradle each sound each nuance of this moment precious and pure
In that instant I know I’m already exactly where I belong
Wishing you all warm and wonderful memory-making during this holiday season.
The Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted today by Irene Latham at her blog, Live Your Poem. Be sure to stop by and check out what’s on offer there. It’s a rich repast indeed!
If you’re a regular reader, you may know that the last few years have been particularly difficult for me. After a brutal battle with pancreatic cancer, my father died on Thanksgiving Day in 2021. Then, last spring one of my dearest friends received a dire diagnosis. She died in June. This past October my stepmother unexpectedly died. With one personal loss after another, on top of so much going on in our world at large, it’s been hard to regain any sort of balance and retain it.
I have many, many blessings in my life and much joy, but one of the greatest of them all is my husband, Kurt. Throughout all of this, he has been an incredible support. He’s been loyal, loving, steadfast and true. Our marriage (almost 34 years now!) has had its ups and downs, but overall, his presence in my life has enriched it and has made me a better person. I am beyond thankful for him.
Groundwater
I depend upon your constant presence your steady, vital flow like earth’s pulse percolating through permeable rock immeasurable invaluable sustaining, free-flowing you.
Wishing you all the best of the season. May you have someone in your life who cherishes and supports you. Who makes you laugh. Who holds you when you cry. And who walks beside you in the sunlight and in the darker hours.
The Poetry Friday Roundup this week is hosted by Karen Edmisten. Be sure to stop by and read the poem she’s sharing there: “Be Kind” by Michael Blumenthal..
We spent several days over the Thanksgiving holiday in Rye, NY with my sister and her family. On our first morning there I was delighted to accompany my brother-in-law to the dog park with their adorable dog, Maisy. I’ve heard a LOT about the dog park and was looking forward to it. Going to the park with Maisy has become part of my brother-in-law’s daily routine. He describes his daily time at the park as “like a cocktail hour, only quieter and with coffee.” He enjoys the time with the dogs, their interactions, and the complex social dynamics at play amongst both canines and humans. I enjoy hearing about them.
I’d been to Rye Town Park long ago, before my sister and her family were dog owners and part of the early morning dog set. It’s lovely, beautifully landscaped and abutting Long Island Sound. I was curious to see what the “dog park” part was all about, even though I am NOT a dog person. So, I eagerly set out, expecting the people interactions and the dog interactions, but little did I know that I would find a Poetry Friday post!
As we entered the park and walked by a small pond, I noticed this:
Then, right around the corner was this:
Forget about the dogs, there was poetry here! (I warned you that I’m not a dog person.)
It turns out that the town of Rye has a Poetry Path and the park is part of it. It’s liberally sprinkled with poetry in all sorts of creative installations. These were just two of many. Each one has a plaque that tells the name of the poem and the author. If you click on their site, you can read the poem and there’s a link to learn more about the author. According to the site, the poems are “a collaborative public art installation designed to spark reflection and conversation around themes of community, conservation, and social justice.” Rye Town Park provides a home for 39 of these poems in out of an 82-poem installation. The two above by Rebecca Kai Dotlich (here) and Lillian Moore (here) are just two of many that captivated me.
Then, before leaving on Friday, we took some time to walk at the nearby Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary before getting in the car for our long ride home. It had been raining all day, and initially mist and clouds prevailed. Still, it was a lovely place to visit and as we walked, the skies cleared and the sun came out. We weren’t the only ones out and about enjoying the brightening day.
Here, too, much to my delight, there was poetry. We passed multiple installations and each one struck a chord. Apparently, the Rye Poetry Path has installed 16 poems here. They were perfectly situated and again, it was clear that the effort “to honor the spirit of the poem and the space it’s in” had been fully achieved.
On some future day perhaps the water will rise over the trail and no one will stand where I stand now. No death to all this just some life becoming other life.
As water, cleared of the reflection of a bird That has lately flown across it, Yet trembles with the beating of its wings, So my soul . . . emptied of the known you . . . utterly . . . Is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song Lola Ridge
…so we are here in this plant-created oxygen, drinking this sweet rain, consuming this green A.R. Ammons
… The long, sleek, and pointed call that rose, as if in response, out of the estuary of night and storm, said it knew well what the given world gave, and wanted more.
If I’d had more time, I would have enjoyed wandering through all the locations in Rye to find and savor each poem. As it is, the poems I did find, some familiar, some new-to-me, added a rich layer to my visit. What a wonderful initiative to bring poetry out into a community!
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Michelle Kogan at her blog. She’s sharing a lovely poem and quotes and links from a recent NYT article about the ongoing work of artists from Ukraine.
Nix the comfort zone 