There’s no gift so great
as the last months with a chick
before she fledges
#lizsharespoems #30daysofhaiku #nationalpoetrymonth
P.S. Yes, it’s my birthday. Yes, my youngest made me this birthday card. And yes, she’s a senior in school and ready to launch. My birthday will be quiet next year….
Sky’s a still gray sea…
waiting for the rain to come
can take the whole day.
#lizsharespoems #30daysofhaiku #NationalPoetryMonth
Spring cold snap surprise:
What’s a poor blossom to do
but dress in layers?
#LizSharesPoems #30daysofhaiku #NationalPoetryMonth
Haiku everyday
requires many long hikes.
The dog licks his lips.
I’d love for you to join me in celebrating National Poetry — either by reading or writing a haiku everyday! I’ll be here, on facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram. #LizSharesPoems #30daysofhaiku #NationalPoetryMonth
Masks. Masks we hide behind. Masks we dress up with. Masks we use to deceive or decorate.
Masks we make of our own faces. This is what we explored this month. Masks and what lies beneath them.
Enjoy!
Egg Speaks
People describe me as hard.
Cold, even. I get it, I do,
but there’s more to me
than meets the eye. I am soft
on the inside. Tender. Full
of possibilities. I can
transform, rise up, nourish.
I have a heart
of gold.
Salt Speaks
All these years
of being ground down
of being turned into
something smaller
than myself (as if
I don’t matter, as if
I’m too intense
otherwise) – I’m done
with that. I see
myself crystal-clear
now. Strong as a rock.
Earthy, natural, pure.
Irresistible.
Lemon Speaks
Like a globe
on its axis, like
the sun, like
garden basil,
like a day
split into
perfect parts,
I shine.
You can read some of my poetry sisters’ mask poems here:
Laura
Tanita
Sara
Tricia
Rebecca
And Linda Baie is hosting Poetry Friday at Teacher Dance!
Tanita was in charge of our challenge this month, and ya’ll?
It was a doozy, not just poetically but emotionally.
The idea was that we should write a poem inspired by — or in the style of — the poem Minor Miracle by Marilyn Nelson, which you can read by clicking here, and believe me, you should.
It’s a beautiful thing, right?
But also, there’s nothing minor about it.
It is one big long hold-your-breath moment of fear and horror and humanity.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s a bit much live up to.
Still, we each sat down to reckon with miracles in our own way.
Here’s mine….
Knock on Wood
(after Marilyn Nelson’s Minor Miracle)
Knock on wood, says the guy
in front of me, knock on wood,
like it’s a little thing,
a minor miracle, the luck
that plucked us from the sky
complete and unharmed.
Knock on wood, after having dropped
our heads between our knees as the plane
rattled like a silverware drawer
as the babies cried and the woman
on the aisle ran black rosary beads
through her fingers and the man
in the window seat whispered
Who will sit shiva for me?
In the middle of that, in the middle
of all of that, I did not whisper
or pray or knock. I just thought
about what I had to lose.
I paid attention to what we all
had to lose, and it was a lot.
.
Now, here’s where you can read the others.
And we’ve been joined by a new poet — Sara’s daughter Rebecca!
Yay for the passing on of poetry!
Sara
Rebecca
Tricia
Kelly
Tanita
Andi
Laura
And Tabatha Yeatts is hosting Poetry Friday over at The Opposite of Indifference. Enjoy!
It seems that my Poetry Sisters and I have officially been writing together for a decade.
Which is nearly impossible to me, in that time flies when you’re having fun.
But also, we didn’t exactly set out to do this — whatever this is — long term.
It just sort of… happened.
It is so often the way with life that really brilliant plans are only obvious in retrospect.
That in looking back we see patterns we didn’t notice at the time.
That in our successes, some plan or mastermindery becomes vividly apparent.
So much actually happens by gut or instinct or luck, at least for me.
For some reason these are the thoughts that emerged as I looked at one of this month’s artistic prompts (thanks to Tricia and an exhibit last year at the University of Richmond). These thoughts of patterns amidst chaos, of making our way through one while attempting to find the other. Which, when you think about it, is also what poetry is. So here’s my attempt at just that…
Color Equation 2 — Janine Wong
Life’s a Hard Job
Inspired by Color Equation 2 — Janine Wong
If you see a whole thing, it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives… But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. –- Ursula K. Le Guin
From that initial bang
you’ve been beautiful
offering up a careful
constellation
of stepping stones
through this chaos
of soil and subatomic
particles, offering up
a predetermined
path to follow –
no – to hang onto
like an astronaut
does a safety-tether.
From that initial bang
you’ve unrolled choices
in front of us, row
after orderly row
of equally good choices
but when we make
the leap toward one
or the other, we discover
we are weightless
we are improvising
we are – yes, it must be
said – hurtling through
space and it is – it must be
said – a hard job.
Find my pals’ work here:
Tanita
Laura
Tricia
Kelly
Sara
Andi
And it’s Poetry Friday over at Poetry for Children. Enjoy!
My poetry sisters and I have a larger poem-project underway but we need to kick that can down the road a bit. So, for December, we decided on a list poem using at least 2 of the following words: paper, stars, messages, promises, dirt, flour, rum, hope. Here’s mine!
Commitment
By Liz Garton Scanlon
When you’re on a mission
to Mars, you pack carefully
You take every tchotchke, every
dimestore paperback and sugar spoon,
every message written in invisible ink
You take promises dug from dirt,
mixed with flour and water,
cooked and cooled
You take it all, because once you’ve gone
there’s no hope of going back
to get what you’ve forgotten
And here are the others:
Laura
Tanita
Sara
Kelly
Tricia
Andi
Poetry Friday’s being hosted over at Elizabeth Steinglass’ blog!
Enjoy, and happy Friday!
This month’s assignment was to write an anaphora, which is a poem using deliberate repetition at the beginnings of lines. The theme, in this case, was to grapple with loss and, at the same time, grace and gratitude. I’m not at all sure that I captured that, and I’m a couple of days late to this regardless, but here goes….
Buried
By Liz Garton Scanlon
We bury bulbs in the garden.
We bury the dead.
We bury the lede.
We bury love letters underneath socks and slips.
We bury the kids up to their necks in sand.
We bury treasure.
We bury our feelings.
We bury the hatchet.
We bury bills.
We bury bones.
We bury our faces in our hands.
And then it is our job
to unearth it all.
To read more anaphora, go visit my poetry sisters:
Laura’s poem
Andi’s poem
Kelly’s poem
Tricia’s poem
Tanita’s poem
Sara’s poem
Hello and welcome to the animal kingdom!
Our challenge this month (from Laura Purdie Salas) was to write a short poem (six lines or less) describing an animal of our choice and incorporating the words spike, word and shadow.
Fun, right?
So I thought, instead of the usual suspects, what animals are unsung?
Unappreciated?
Even, dare I say, unloved?
And because hyenas are SO unsung, unappreciated and unloved, I wrote two — one a description, one a 7-word autobiography!
Here goes….
The Hyena
Hyena
looms large
casts a shadow
over warthog and antelope
under roof of Serengeti sky,
spotted coat spiked like a crown.
The Hyena’s Autobiography
I’m a scrappy grave robber —
laughing, unashamed.
Now, onward to other animals!
Laura’s is here
Tanita’s is here
Sara’s is here
Kelly’s is here
Tricia’s is here
Andi’s is here