Celebrating National Poetry Month: Nasturtium

                                       a nasturtium that has bloomed all winter in the greenhouse

 Nasturtium

is a ring of simple petals
in a single o of surprise as if saying,
this is not what I expected.
is color in one shade that doesn't flinch
but meets what fate hands out,
the slender stem broken and placed
in clear water in clear glass,
so that there are no more days outside
near round-faced green petals, and
there are no bees and no seeds to
form, and the earth that seemed
so certain always right below is gone,
and all it seems to say is I see with my
one way of seeing that I will live what life
I have left in someone else's house.

by Gigi Marks Cairn

From One Poet to Another: Celebrating National Poetry Month

You Know Who You Are

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Why do your poems comfort me, I ask myself.

Because they are upright, like straight-backed chairs.

I can sit in them and study the world as if it too

were simple and upright.

Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words

and not one of them can save me.

Your poems come in like a raft, logs tied together,

they float.

I want to tell you about the afternoon

I floated on your poems

all the way from Durango Street to Broadway.

Fathers were paddling on the river with their small sons.

Three Mexican boys chased each other outside the library.

Everyone seemed to have some task, some occupation,

while I wandered uselessly in the streets I claim to love.

Suddenly I felt the precise body of your poems beneath me,

like a raft, I felt words as something portable again,

a cup, a newspaper, a pin.

everything happening had a light around it,

not the light of Catholic miracles,

the blunt light of a Saturday afternoon.

light in a world that rushes forward with us or without us.

I wanted to stop and gather up the blocks behind me

in this light, but it doesn’t work.

You keep walking, lifting one foot, then the other,

saying “This is what I need to remember”

and then hoping you can.

Kindred Spirits

Isabelle and Kit were both rescued kittens. Isabelle and her brother Lucas has been left out in the national forest and a couple brought the whole litter home. We adopted them from an ad in the paper. Kit was found by our dogs in our tree. He was sick and needed attention. He decided to stay. When Isabelle lost her brother Lucas to feline leukemia Kit replaced him as her kindred spirit. I was so happy I had my camera close to get the series.

 Kit has a secret about where the mice are!

 Isabelle is a good friend to groom those hard to reach places.

 He returns the favor.

 Eskimo kissing

Perhaps cats can really fall in love. Instead of kindred spirits, maybe they are mated for life!

The Fields of Happiness: Celebrating Poetry Month

 some views from my greenhouse and a lovely poem

The Fields Of Happiness

© Courtneyann

People say it is a field,
A lovely field of happiness.
With flowers spread,
Throughout this field.
Skies,
So clear and blue.
The sun,
Shining ever so brightly.
Birds chirping as if it was
The first of spring.
Rabbits hopping around
As if they could go on,
For forever and eternity.
As the creatures enjoy,
Enjoy this wonderful place,
For it makes everything
Joyful, exciting, and happy.
A dark cloud has come,
Taken up the rays of sunlight.
With one cloud,
Brings many clouds.
The flowers,
Have now died
And weeds,
Have taken their place.

The skies,
Are no longer clear and blue.
The sun,
No longer shines with the rays,
The rays from the heavens above,
Instead it rains,
Rains as if it were meant to do so.
Birds no longer chirp as if it was,
The first of spring.
Rabbits don’t feel the need to hop,
For they won’t go on,
For forever and eternity.

People say it’s like a field,
A lovely field of happiness.
They don’t understand,
For every field of flowers,
There is a single weed,
That one weed eventually spreads,
And takes over the flowers
Replacing them as if,
They have never existed.
For every time,
It is sunny and blue,
There will always be,
That one small, dark cloud,
Hovering right near by.
There is no such,
Thing as a lovely field of happiness,
Every field has its flaw.
It is a field everyone lives in,
Some point in life.
Once you are in this field,
There is no way of escaping,
There is no way in making it perfect,
For there will always be that one,
That one weed or cloud,
Standing in your way,
Of perfection and happiness

Source: The Fields Of Happiness, Garden Poems http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/nature/poetry.asp?poem=19611#ixzz1IhvCy1vH

Ode to The Cat: Honoring Pablo Neruda and All of Our Cats

 

 Ode To The Cat 

There was something wrong
with the animals:
their tails were too long, and they had
unfortunate heads.
Then they started coming together,
little by little
fitting together to make a landscape,
developing birthmarks, grace, flight.
But the cat,
only the cat
turned out finished,
and proud:

Follow up:

born in a state of total completion,
it sticks to itself and knows exactly what it wants.
Men would like to be fish or fowl,
snakes would rather have wings,
and dogs are would-be lions.
Engineers want to be poets,
flies emulate swallows,
and poets try hard to act like flies. 

But the cat
wants nothing more than to be a cat,
and every cat is pure cat
from its whiskers to its tail,
from sixth sense to squirming rat,
from nighttime to its golden eyes.
Nothing hangs together
quite like a cat: 

neither flowers nor the moon
have
such consistency.
It's a thing by itself,
like the sun or a topaz,
and the elastic curve of its back,
which is both subtle and confident,
is like the curve of a sailing ship's prow.
The cat's yellow eyes
are the only
slot
for depositing the coins of night. 

O little
emperor without a realm,
conqueror without a homeland,
diminutive parlor tiger, nuptial
sultan of heavens
roofed in erotic tiles:
when you pass
in rough weather
and poise
four nimble paws
on the ground,
sniffing,
suspicious
of all earthly things
(because everything
feels filthy
to the cat's immaculate paw),
you claim
the touch of love in the air. 

O freelance household
beast, arrogant
vestige of night,
lazy, agile
and strange,
O fathomless cat,
secret police
of human chambers
and badge
of burnished velvet!
Surely there is nothing
enigmatic
in your manner,
maybe you aren't a mystery after all.
You're known to everyone, you belong
to the least mysterious tenant.
Everyone may believe it,
believe they're master,
owner, uncle
or companion
to a cat,
some cat's colleague,
disciple or friend.
But not me.
I'm not a believer. 

I don't know a thing about cats.
I know everything else, including life and its archipelago,
seas and unpredictable cities,
plant life,
the pistil and its scandals,
the pluses and minuses of math.
I know the earth's volcanic protrusions
and the crocodile's unreal hide,
the fireman's unseen kindness
and the priest's blue atavism.
But cats I can't figure out.
My mind slides on their indifference.
Their eyes hold ciphers of gold. 


by Pablo Neruda
Meet all our cats: Isabelle, Grayson, Junebug, McDuff, Kit, Sweet William, and below here Lily.
  

What's That Smell in the Kitchen?:Favoite Poem by Marge Piercy

 Mom used to make  a basic potato soup that was so delicious. It contained potatoes, celery, onion, and evaporated milk. I jazzed up her recipe today with some clams, carrots, bacon, and garlic.

Food has been the inspiration for many poems. This one by Marge Piercy is one that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. Although the soup was tasty tonight, the bread slices broiled just a bit too much and I am sure my husband was asking this same question.

What’s That Smell in the Kitchen?                       

Marge Piercy

All over America women are burning dinners.                                                  

It’s lambchops in Peoria; it’s haddock in Providence; it’s steak in Chicago;

tofu delight in Big Sur; red

rice and beans in Dallas.

All over America women are burning                                                                

food they’re supposed to bring with calico

Smile on platters glittering like wax.

Anger sputters in her brainpan, confined

But spewing out missiles of hot fat.

Carbonized despair presses like a clinker                                                         

from a barbecue against the back of her eyes.

If she wants to grill anything, it’s

her husband spitted over a slow fire.

If she wants to serve him anything

It’s a dead rat with a bomb in its belly                                                             

ticking like the heart of an insomniac.

Her life is cooked and digested,

nothing but leftovers in Tupperware.

Look, she says, once I was roast duck

On your platter with parsley but now I am Spam.                                           

Burning dinner is not incompetence but war.