pink morning light
gilds young trees, knee-deep in ice
thousands of diamonds
break light into rainbows,
blinding me to spring
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Tanka is defined in Oak Leak Tanka. This photograph was taken this spring. You can compare it to a picture taken last winter of the same trees in Five Brothers Tanka. This poem is in honor of Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Check it Out.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio.
What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for and what is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same. Only love.
Love is elusive prey,
Love curves and flows
Down lonely love’s path,
Can I find love?
Love’s flower-shaped bell rings:
Love calls to hearts,
Stony in love’s graveyard,
Can love find me?
Love weighs like stone,
Yet, somehow, love floats.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
— Maya Angelou (from Touched by an Angel)
Note: Perhaps you read and enjoyed my poem. Perhaps you thought, that’s not how I would write about love. Perhaps the quotes have inspired you. Whatever you may have thought, I invite you to please take up your pen or let your fingers dance over the keyboard. I welcome you to join in the Love Challenge, just comment here and give me a link. I will be happy to read your poem.
I dedicate this poem to Marlyn, who invited me to take up the Love Challenge, and gave me these rules (some of which I even followed):
And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you because the greatest secrets
are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
— Roald Dahl (Minpins, 1991)
Drip,
Rain
Drop
Plops,
Spring will come
With black mud, bees
And crocuses beneath trees.
Baby robins will scatter shells.
Fairies will chant vernal spells.
Birds will sing madrigals at dawn
To wood violets blooming on the lawn.
Foxglove’s speckled trumpets will play
With snowdrops and magnolias in May.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Ours shall be the gypsy winding
Of the path with violets blue,
Ours at last the wizard finding
Of the land where dreams come true.
— Lucy Maud Montgomery (from Spring Song)
Note: My poem, Spring Magic is a concrete poem, taking the shape of a drooping tulip or possibly a lily of the valley bell as suggested by Matt Forrest Ersenwine. Thanks, Matt! Happy Spring! This post is an ode to Spring in honor of the Vernal Equinox which is at 6:45 p.m. here on March 20, 2015. And a happy coincidence, also in honor of Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core who shared a wonderful original poem for World Folk Tales and Fables Week. I hope you have time to visit her. The photographs were all taken last spring — this year the ground is covered by a knee-deep sea of receding white ice.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
You’ll find no green beer here
Or stories with a jeer here
about shamrock socks
or leprechaun jocks;
The Irish won’t get a smear here.
I pass along this fantastic
idea, not sarcastic,
not as a joke
about wee folk,
But with thought enthusiastic:
Storytelling is an art
that makes the Irish a part
of words unfurled
joining the world
To one growing literary chart.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: The foregoing are my limericks three, to frame my respect for my Irish heritage. The shamrock is a work in progress by my daughter and I. To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, here are few treasures by Irish authors:
While mantling on the maiden’s cheek
Young roses kindled into thought.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
My body was like a harp and her words and gestures
were like fingers running upon the wires.
― James Joyce, Araby
Of the things which nourish the imagination,
humour is one of the most needful,
and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it.
I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground,
rather like the territory of Ireland itself.
Thwomp-Boom, ice dams fall.
Birds sing as sunshine strengthens.
Drip, drip, icicle lengthens;
When will the snow go?
Canada Geese waddle into traffic,
Honking: Where’s the ground?
Where can food be found?
When will the snow go?
Cars honk back; engines roar.
Traffic stalls and goggles at geese.
Is it spring despite me wearing fleece?
When will the snow go?
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
This Poetry Friday is wrangled by Author Amok. May your inner child be joyful this weekend!
Note: I was driving back from the pediatrician with my son, who clonked his head on the ice Sunday night (he has a mild concussion and will be fine), when two prosperous-looking Canada Geese waddled right across the busy road. The sight of them in the road is unusual, they generally congregate on grassy lawns. It reminded me that the wild things are even more inconvenienced by the remaining mountains of snow than I am. And that spring is nearly here!! Woo-hoo! The geese have returned! Given I was driving, I didn’t get a picture of them.
With puddles and ice
Lining sidewalks and streets,
I remember leaves.
First, the tease of buds.
Then the unfurling of
New leaves, palest green,
Sidewalks awash in bud casings.
Leaves as backdrop to the blooming of
Dogwoods, tulip magnolias, pink cherries,
White pear and apple,
Mauve plum and citrine cassia.
Continue reading
Pink
Twirl,
Calla curl,
Silky swirl.
Snow may hide
New England’s color,
But trucked-in treasure
Startles and entrances,
My heart dances —
A wild whirl.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes:
On the poem: This is a concrete or shape poem, meant in this case to take the shape of a calla lily.
On the weather: We’ve had one day of sunshine, with temperatures above freezing. Old Man Winter is not gone, but at least he’s growing sleepy. The Calla Lilies are from Trader Joe’s, where the floral section is a summer garden. Here is a picture better reflecting what it still looks like outdoors here:
On Poetry Friday: super-late this week, but life gets in the way at times. Thanks to Robyn Campbell, Kids Author and Poet, for hosting!
What slumbers on
Evergreen boughs —
Snow? Or is it more?
Are they angels slippers
Left as tokens of love?
Are they lacy linen
For mountain troll tea?
Or dryad eiderdowns?
Maybe royal cloaks swirled
Round highland princelings.
Or white fairy dream-dust,
Spun from dancing and mischief.
Perhaps each icy crystal is a
Frozen wish, yet to be granted.
The clouds have floated down
To kiss the children of earth,
Pausing to embrace entwined trees.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: More snow is due tonight. I hear Northern Maine has over eleven feet and counting. Makes our eight feet seem paltry. I hope you are warm and safe and having magical thoughts.
Fingertips of trees
Gusts of wind bear thistledown
Symphony in gray
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Happy Chinese New Year from me and from Marlyn at Kintal. It’s the Year of the Goat (or Sheep or Ram). The Goat is most liked by others, gentle and calm. I need Goats in my life. And I hope we all move together toward peace, forever in love, as Marlyn wishes here. Cheers, Brenda
One hundred inches* of snow has fallen!
That’s 8’4”. Taller than the world’s tallest person. Taller than Big Bird!
Shorter than some of our icicles!
We’re exhausted from beating icicles off our houses and from launching newly fallen snow to such towering heights. But we’re still smiling and planning the next party (going to one this afternoon in fact).
So woo-hoo to all of you!!
Warmly, Brenda
*Note: For the rest of the world, that’s just over two and a half meters — so much less impressive written that way.
Friendly Fairy Tales 