The lady of the lake might be waiting here…
Winters clouds part ways
Lake maidens sparkling dream pools
Split open our souls
Who are You?
I prefer tea.
I prefer rain to drought.
I prefer quiet to parties.
I prefer gardens in the centers of cities
where I can lay on my back and imagine flying with birds.
I prefer to feel than to be numb.
I prefer grief to forgetting.
I prefer dragon to draggin’ and phoenix to flames.
I prefer the golden rule.
I prefer chocolate to anything else
except passion and a lover’s approval.
I prefer to worship love than hate.
I prefer wildflower meadows
to gardens sliced by boxwood canyons.
I prefer to build rather than tear down.
I prefer the rhetoric of peace but cannot abide genocide.
I prefer mystery to someone’s else certainty.
I prefer to go unnoticed by Murphy’s Law.
I prefer happy to perfect and joyful to tidy.
I prefer to melt in the rain
than to send out flying monkeys.
I prefer books to movies except the Lord of Rings.
I prefer walking to gyms.
I prefer children laughing to silence.
I prefer silence to rage.
I prefer rage to despair.
I prefer to share despair than to turn away.
I prefer to look for magic rather than
ranting about its absence.
I prefer poetry to newspapers.
I prefer humble to Trump-eting.
Who are you?
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: I was inspired to write this list poem by The Drift Record post celebrating Possibilities, a poem by Nobel-prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska. When I understood who she was, I better understood myself.
I also put this up in honor of Women’s History Month and World Poetry Day (Monday). Please feel free to write your own preferences and link up here, there or everywhere. Or put yours in the comments. Have a magical weekend!
Puddle Heaven
Stamp, stomp,
puddle heaven,
fountains everywhere
when you’re seven.
Laugh and howl,
wet socks,
drippy drops everywhere,
forget clocks.
Arrive speckled
with muddy blots,
not welcome everywhere,
stomach in knots.
Will mom see past hems
dripping dark dots?
Rather than dirt everywhere,
she sees cheetah spots!
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes: Poets find joy in puddles:
“The world is mud-luscious…
[and] puddle-wonderful”
— e.e. cummings
Since writing a haibun on puddles, I’ve wondered how cumming’s mother viewed him, arriving home. My poem’s been in its chrysalis, but finally that wondering took shape and spread wings.
Another fun poem about puddles is Puddle Splash by Roann Mendriq:
What is it about rain puddles,
that make one want to splash?
That turns us into children,
in a quick and happy flash?
Read the rest here.
Big thanks to Robyn Hood Black, a wonderful poet and author, for hosting this week’s Kidlitospere Poetry Friday extravaganza.
Three Limerick Tale of Leprechaun and Kitten
Tiny O’Toole loved a kitten.
He felt himself hard bitten.
“Ouch!” he cried.
“Open wide!”
He stuffed her in his mitten.
“Now, that’s not fitting’,”
complained the kitten.
“Let me out
or I’ll shout.
After all, I’m no Briton!”
O’Toole sipped mead,
and then he agreed:
“Come out!
No doubt
you mistook me for tweed.”
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The art work is a stained glass plate I made with my daughter. A limerick is a light-hearted poem with the rhyming pattern AABBA. A lines are shorter than B lines. My all-time most viewed post is Leprechaun Limerick. I also wrote a set of three limericks on being Irish.
Love Stays
Love never fully goes away;
it lingers, like a vine white with winter,
remembering its heyday.
Its memory can sting like a splinter.
Best to give the vine sunshine;
don’t let it grow stiff and cold.
Green leaves unfold on mine
because new love grows from old.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: I’ve joined Twitter, and my what a fun free-for-all party it is: a cocktail party with air kisses, heady drinks and no one pigeon-holing me with long stories. If you’re on Twitter and want to friend me, I’m @BrendaDHarsham. Eventually, I’ll figure out how to put that somewhere useful on my sidebar.
I’m not sure I like how WP publishes to Twitter, though. I wasn’t fond of the way it publishes to FB (no line breaks in text), but that’s better than how it publishes to Twitter. It just publishes the title then a link. None of the text of the post appears, just one photo. No matter how engaging your first line or two, no one on Twitter will see it unless they click the link. Now I understand why so many people put hashtags in post titles — because otherwise, they never show up in your tweet, and won’t pop into anyone’s search on that tag without them.
And you can’t edit a tweet. You have to delete and redo if you post in the middle of the night in a state of advanced exhaustion (and grammar has departed for the day).
All that said, the people on Twitter have been welcoming and lovely. Hugs all around.
Reindeer Games in #Finland
Air snaps at the Finland
Winter Festival.
Carnival fragrances
of coffee and sweet dough
mingle with the muskier
scent of reindeer.
Reindeer racers hail
from Finland without fail,
but also Spain, Germany,
France, Australia and Italy!
To Oulu from
far and near,
they race and laugh
with joyful reindeer.
Kids of all ages watch and ride.
My inner kid wants to finish
the Finnish challenge
one day, wrapped in my parka
and wearing a rainbow cap.
Maybe I’ll even see the
Northern lights.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Photographs used by permission of Sartenada. If you wonder what it looks like beyond the Arctic Circle in summer, she has another great post with reindeer. I learned many names for reindeer in other languages, rennes (French), renos (Spanish), poro (Finnish), renna (Italian), rentier (German), ren (Romanian) and 驯鹿 (Chinese).
Gamine Grin
Gray rain, icy day,
can’t take my grin away.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: It rained all day, and I have the flu, but I can’t let it get me down. Have a magical week.
Pining for Finland
Brown bear, brown bear,
what do you see?
Reindeer herds or
Santa in Rovaniemi?
May to August,
the midnight sun lights Lapland.
Under that luminous sky,
the Sámi teach that all
beings and objects have souls.
Paintings, pottery,
dolls and blankets have stories.
A Sámi kota is a circular tent,
a place for visions and healing.
Brown bear, brown bear,
what do you see?
A Lake Saimaa seal,
cut off from the sea?
Long winer nights are
lit by aurora borealis,
heaven’s fireworks,
the celestial dragon.
If we listen,
what will we hear?
Notes: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a classic children’s book written by Bill Martin, Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle. I pay homage here to a book my kids love, and I reread so many times it feels part of my DNA.
I’ve seen a rise in visitors from Finland, and I wanted to learn more about it. Finland’s cities of light are dwarfed by its vast wilderness near the arctic circle. In between Sweden and Russia, Finland flies its cross-of-blue flag over lakes, mountains, forests, rocky inlets, migrating birds and northern lights. It’s a place of magic, with trees frozen like trolls, glass igloos and brown bear roaming free.
The painting is a watercolor of mine from twenty years ago, tweaked by iPhoto.
Pee-U, A Clerihew!
The American Frank Lloyd Wright
changed architecture with his love of line and light,
incorporating nature, glass and intersecting planes,
but I wonder what he thought about the drains.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A Clerihew is a humorous 4-line rhyming poem, aabb, about a famous person who’s introduced in the first line. I wrote another here as well as listing some famous ones.
Littles Dance
Form a circle like a tree grove,
lean to the right, lean to the left,
and wake to spring’s song!
Zip and zoom around the room;
feel your spirits bloom!
Back to where you started and
wiggle, push away old leaves,
and stretch like new trees.
Turn toward the center,
tilt your face up to the sun.
Shake, bounce, have some fun.
Climb hands up high
like green shoots growing.
Bend forward and
droop like snowbells,
cup your hands into petals.
Now, pop up like crocuses,
hold hands closed high,
then drop hands outwards,
like petals unfurling.
Spin three times and
form arms into a circle,
sway like daffodils —
doing the littles dance.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes: Here’s a spring dance to do with tiny friends to get your spring juices flowing. It’s a celebration of small things just starting to poke up colorful heads. I was delighted to find the first flowers already blooming this week, a month earlier than last year.
Thanks to Irene Latham at Live Your Poem for hosting this week’s Poetry Friday, a highlight of my week.
I was inspired to write this poem by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s challenge to write a poem about Little Things on Today’s Little Ditty. Michelle Heidenrich Barnes has trained her Ditty spotlight on Amy in celebration of Amy’s new book, Every Day Birds, which is everything a young bird lover could want.
Peace Crane Mantra
cares folded
their power is transformed
peace grows
Note: A mantra is a word, phrase or sound used to focus the mind during meditation or prayer. I wrote the first draft of this mantra when I read a poem by Advocatemmmohan. My family loves origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. We folded the cranes after enjoying leftover birthday cake. Happy International Women’s Day! I’m celebrating by meditating on peace, an important women’s issue.
Spring is Green
Leaves grow on the trees –
the leaves are green!
I see green everywhere.
I like the color green.
The sun is glowing.
Children are looking at the sun –
some children lay down in the sunlight.
Sunlight,
sun bright.
by A. Harsham, age 5
Note: This post is by and for my daughter, Happy 7th Birthday! Long may she weave herself into spring like yarn art on monkey bars.
Also, help me celebrate my daughter’s special Friday with poetry for kids, courtesy of Poetry Friday. Thanks to Teacher Dance for hosting this week!
Here’s what it will seem like to me:
Birthday cake!
Birthday cake!
Bring it now
or I’ll have a cow!
I need it fast —
I might not last!
Once it’s gone,
I’m woebegone.
Presents are fun
until they’re done.
What comes next?
Now I’m vexed.
A whole ‘nother year?
I can’t wait, I fear.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
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