spun sugar trees
limbs bent to the knees,
white with delight
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Notes:
This is a rhyming haiku.
It’s something to do.
Want to try one, too?
Happy Valentine’s Day and welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted thanks to Kimberley Moran at Written Reflections.
I may be old, bent and broken,
entirely blocking your path,
but inside where it counts,
I’m still a twig, leafy and new.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Even in winter,
with nary a leaf,
trees hold up the sky,
cut the wind and
frame the stars.
Tall maples sing our future,
lament our past.
First, morning pianissimo
swells to workday allegro
but quickens to andantino
after a tangerine sunset.
A mad tarantella makes
Saturdays ache with dance.
Stormy days, we hear brass
crescendo of crashing branches.
Trees measure our lives.
Each season has its movement,
winter’s pianissimo alternating
with icy crescendo:
concertos made from time,
measured into beauty,
the melody our breath,
the bass our heartbeat.
Woodwind chords are
refined by strings.
In the tree song,
we find time
and healing.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: I hope you are hearing music. Have a great week!
You’re a star on the tree,
a light in the long winter darkness,
a beacon for joy and magic.
You’re the reason there’s chocolate,
the purpose to music,
the warp and weft of all weavings.
You put the stars in my eyes,
dance a jig in my thoughts
and bring the warmth I need.
Believe in yourself,
this new year is yours
just as it’s mine.
We both have a place,
a moment in time,
a river that overflows with happy.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: I wish you all that’s happy, whatever you do or don’t celebrate. We are all brothers and sisters in the mystery of life, all stardust in the universe, all hungry for love and joy. I’ll be taking some time with my family the next few weeks. A million warm holiday hugs!!
Here in the woods,
the light doesn’t quite shine.
In the deeper quiet, I
hear only the wind and
the laughter of leaves.
The sunshine is distant.
Here in the twilight,
I can think my thoughts,
without its brightness,
blinding my eyes.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This poem is part of a longer poem. Is there a place where you can be yourself? Where you can be free, use your outdoor voice, sing or dance or remember?
My heart is safe in the quiet moments,
when my memory swells with the sweet fruit
of remembered triumphs, not even my own.
The first day my son climbed a tree,
he looked up and laughed at the sky.
Another day, I found a love note in my sock drawer,
penned by my tiny second boy, “i luv yuo Moma!”
When my knees failed to do as I pleased,
my daughter offered me a hug, complete
with damp kisses scented with hot chocolate.
After a surgery, lost in circles of pain,
my growing-up boys made a week of dinners,
fragrant salads awash in salmon and spices.
Before my daughter leaves for school, she tells me,
“I’ll hold you in my heart all day, and I’ll always love you.”
My aunt finds four-leafed clovers every spring,
and I find love hidden in the smallest thing.
My heart is full of wild strawberry sweetness,
a mashed jam of moments like these.
Note: This poem was inspired by a poem by Jane Yolen, emailed to my mailbox. What a blessing to a poet is correspondence with other poets. I hope your day is showered with the sweet fruit of your most delicious memories.
Hanging on,
don’t want to fall!
I’m good here,
up where I’m tall.
I’ll stay till spring,
can’t get me down!
I’ll wave and nod
And be the crown.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is for Poetry Friday, hosted this week thanks to Carol’s Corner!
.
Combing the willow’s hair
is a wind cold and autumnal.
It twines about soccer players,
and curls into secret places,
places lined with leaves and
cushioned with damp wishes.
Thoughts are birds
zigzagging in branches
alighting on bobbing twigs
in the willow’s bouncy house.
I remember tadpole wiggles,
looking for dangling legs
between the sunspots and
cherry blossoms dotting
the burbling brook.
In that thin suburban wood,
I found a tree too young to climb
and other places I couldn’t follow.
The willow’s house invited with
a knob of bark for a handhold,
a limb wide enough for a teacup.
Its leaves held all the stars
from sundown to sunup.
Now I follow my daughter there,
and the magic hasn’t gone.
Giggles, leaf mold, and secrets
crown the twilight willow world.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Happy Friday the 13th! So close to Halloween, the day has a spooky feel. It set me remembering once, when Friday the 13th fell on Halloween itself. Or am I inventing that? I love to invent things, after all. I hope your memories are playing fun games with you today, too. Hello to all from Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Wee Words for Wee Ones. Kids of all ages are welcome here. Have a magical weekend!
A toddler oak glints like rubies.
Too young for acorns, trunk,
Or boughs, just a sprig,
a sprout, a snip of joy,
with earth between its toes,
it has unfolded proudly.
Its leaves flower in fall,
alight, aglow, aflame,
crimson with yearning for spring.
Its sire has amber leaves and brown
scattered about the ground.
Does the tiny tree dread
gale force winds, ice and snow
more than its older kin?
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
flight
one perfect moment
remembered
fingers curled in longing
to relive one’s height
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Do you have one time in your life you would relive if you could?
In the green dappled shade, beneath
a cider-smelling apple tree,
is earth magic.
A white blossom in spring swells to
a tiny, green fruit in July:
summer magic.
I pull down the autumn-red fruit, and
its tart-sweet crunch in my teeth
is apple magic.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: The SCBWI conference was an inspiration and confirmed for me that I’m on the right path. My crazy fits with their crazy. 🙂 My surgery is in the morning, so it might be over before you even read this. Halleluja, may the worrying be past and the healing begun. Soon, I’ll be having more fun! Meanwhile, I have a bowl of sun-sweet Macintosh apples. XOXO Brenda
Green leaves entrance,
make my feet dance
down pathways
through wildflowers
into secret glades,
surrounded by
silent sentinels:
pine, oak and spruce.
The hum of crickets
finds me where I hide
but no other person does.
In that loud silence,
full of ducks quacking,
geese honking,
bees buzzing,
and mosquitoes hunting,
one yellow leaf falls.
Even the crickets pause
in shocked wonder.
Clouds thicken and churn,
rain slashes and dashes,
the sky’s anger interconnected,
a reflection of us all.
The coming of autumn
is part of summer,
as sunset is part of day.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
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