Celebrating National Poetry Month: The First Green of Spring

 I have to admit... I don't eat the first green of spring, but I like to see that color again!

 

The First Green of Spring

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, march marigold,

this sweet first green of spring. Now sauteed in a pan melting

to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching

on this message from the dawn which says we and the world

are alive again today, and this is the world's birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we

will never be young again, we also know we're still right here

now, today, and, my oh my! don't these greens taste good.

 

-David Budbill

 

National Poetry Month: Hope

 Lake Roosevelt at Wilmont Bay during the drawdown, April 2011

Hope    
   
It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,  
it shakes sleep from its eyes  
and drops from mushroom gills,  
it explodes in the starry heads  
of dandelions turned sages,  
it sticks to the wings of green angels  
that sail from the tops of maples.    
It sprouts in each occluded eye  
of the many-eyed potato,  
it lives in each earthworm segment  
surviving cruelty,  
it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,  
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs  
of the child that has just been born.    
It is the singular gift  
we cannot destroy in ourselves,  
the argument that refutes death,  
the genius that invents the future,  
all we know of God.    
It is the serum which makes us swear  
not to betray one another;  
it is in this poem, trying to speak.    
   
Lisel Mueller

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