“…seek the resonance that enters a poem only when it is touched by the stillness of nature.”
~ Margarita Engle ~

Spring has finally arrived in my corner of Connecticut! The forsythia have been ablaze for the last two weeks, and greening lawns are dotted with dandelions. Everywhere you look, the world is abloom. For this final week of National Poetry Month, I decided to revisit Margarita Engle’s tanka challenge for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s Today’s Little Ditty Challenge. Even though there is nothing still about spring, the beauty of the season resonates deep within me.

Lithe limbs arch and bend
trimmed with a thousand blossoms,
ballerinas,
graced in frilly pink tutus,
chasséing on a spring breeze.

On a southern slope,
columns of bright daffodils
raise their trumpets high
and play a rousing…

I dreamabout being in a bluebell woodland,

Morning’s dampness on my hands.

I find a torn seam in elemental’s veil;

Ask to enter the precious trail.

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Bare toes tickling on grassy moss,

Nose wrinkling as plumes of bluebells waft;

Lost in a deep purple blue lake,

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Looking at the shapes the old oak makes,

Their wizened branches seeking light,

Orange tip butterflies flee with all their might!

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Woodland’s serenade fades gently like a breeze;

I take a sip of Titania’s tea,

Finding myself mixing a pool of morning dew

With soothing dainty hues from the bluebell wood

on my watercolour palette ready for a new painting to emerge.