We are trading spring for winter and back again here. This resonates with me. And it ends on a truth that echoed like a bell. I hope you like it as well.
Scattered amongst stone
This prose poem will challenge you and make you feel its sharp edges. Words have power and magic to break, reform and transcend. This does all of that in one lovely package. Makes me want to get out of my armchair. Hope you are enjoying World Poetry Day. I’m off to play.
”With swords raised in battle. A glimpse of self reflected in the blade.”
I’m scattered here in a million pieces, maybe, but I’ve lost count.
This rock has shred me. Held my emotions when I could no longer bare them.
This rock has forced me to face the ”flight mode” of fear and change my relationship to it. A mode of flight on a rock and in life also, this slab has balanced that.
This rocks formation has spoken of life’s balances. Life’s reflective nature and the beauty found in chaos.
I’m shattered among many slabs and countless hours of working to let go and to hold on. No longer relying on another to salvage me, but rather to rely on myself.
With swords raised in battle, a glimpse of self reflected in the blade, and had shown the enemy I had become to myself. Salvation was near and Revelation…
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Caught In The Middle
Some Minnesota spring truth courtesy of Down To Earth Digs, where garden magic grows. Happy World Poetry Day!
The time of year when we have Spring one day,
Winter the next.
We are all caught in the middle.
Grassroots effort
Welcome Tyler to the FFT World Poetry party! He is a constant inspiration. I wrote this after reading part of his poem.
Sing to me
in the spiraling
breeze
of the four
winds,
carrying the dust
of us all.
I hope your words take wing today, my magical friends.
Speak
to me
in the
cool tongue
of a clear
mountain
stream.
Absorbing
the morning sun
through every pore —
a solar flare of
daffodils dances
in an open field.
Inch by inch
worms measure
the earth’s waist.
Deep in thought
uprooting memories
& transplanting poetrees.
Poultry DJs
mixing up the dirt
chicken scratch.
Green straws
syphoning
the morning dew —
photosynthetic
pipettes plumbing
the soils’ depths —
grassroots effort.
Down on all fours
in a field of clover
luck is beneath me.
Clothing mountains
in motley garments —
wildflower fashion
statement.
Nested
in the grass —
upturned
canary-colored
petals —
begging
like newborn
beaks
for sunlight.
“What a World, What a World,” cried the Wicked Witch~
Visit Oz on the wings of a Starry Night Cracker. Cindy Knoke just gets more magical with every post. Have a wonderful World Poetry Day.
Remember, she said this when she was melting. (Orange Julia)
She was too selfish,
to care about anything beyond herself (Orange Julia, Blue Morpho, Cydno Longwing)
and so she melted. (Side-Striped Hairstreak)
Poor wicked witch.
She could never find joy in a butterfly. (Monarch, Longwing)
Joy finds those, (Postman)
who care about nature, (Gulf Fritillary)
and all her creatures. (Cattleheart)
May our beautiful butterfly world bring joy to you~ (Starry Night Cracker)
In a Sigh
Some Morgan Magic in honor of World Poetry Day.
.
The Warm Blush of Light
Kisses my forehead,
Sings in my Spirit
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Dream Pool
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).
Friendly Fairy Tales 