National Poetry Month #9 : Favoring Billy Collins

Billy Collins came through today and provided a priceless poem to describe one of those rare, perfect spring days. 

Today  

by Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

Source: Poetry (April 2000). 

A Time to Plant

Today was the first time I got my hands into the dirt and did some planting. I started this week-end with containers since there are not many plants safe to put out in the ground yet. I did some plant shopping over spring break and today I mixed soil, added fertilizer and got the plants into the containers.

Primroses are such warriors in a spring garden. I love those first blossoms after a long winter. I love the color of the one at the top of the post.I discovered a new primrose on my recent trip. This is called a Drumstick Primrose.Of course I had to buy it. I love the pansies at the base of the container.

Pansies are another early spring favorite of mine. So many colors and "faces". I always know they will endure cooler weather.

I brought home two blooming shrubs from my trip also. I am just going to keep them in their original pots for now not to disrupt their blooming. I couldn't resist their bright blooms.

National Poetry Month #8: Fresh

On a trip to the western part of Washington state this week I was immersed, surrounded, and in awe of natural beauty each and every day. This poem was a perfect choice for today. With a series of my photos taken in  the northwest corner of  Washington state, here is the poem  "Fresh". (Photos were taken near Samish Island and Bow, WA.)

Fresh

To move
cleanly.
Needing to be
nowhere else.
Wanting nothing
from any store.
To lift something
you already had
and set it down in
a new place.
Awakened eye
seeing freshly.
What does that do to
the old blood moving through
its channels?

"Fresh" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from You & Yours. © BOA Editions, 2005.

National Poetry Month #7: Stay Gold

This isn't the name of the poem by Robert Frost, but it is the phrase that always resonated with me when I read this poem because of the characters in the novel "The Outsiders". As I walked through tulip and daffodil fields today in the Skagit Valley of Washington state one line that kept coming back to me was "Stay gold Ponyboy.. stay gold."

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay. 

Robert Frost

National Poetry Month #6: Traveling the Rivers of Washington

I wrote this poem as I listened to the names of the rivers in Washington state. As I traveled across a good portion of Washington state today, I photographed the rivers.  Today I saw the Columbia, Skykomish, Wenachee, Okanogan, and Methow.  Above is the mighty Columbia

Traveling the Rivers of Washington

In Washington state

 rivers flow out of the mountains,

connect to guide travelers,

 merge with the ocean,

and roll on to the Columbia.

Coastal Indians paddled the Nisqually, Nooksack, Quinault;

Northern bands camped on the Kettle, Colville, Sanpoil, Okanogan;

Explorers relied on the Spokane, Yakima, and Palouse;

Missionaries journeyed close to the Touchet, Tucannon, and Walla Walla;

Locals love the sound of Methow, Pend Oreille, Puyallup;

Wynoochee, Chehalis, Skykomish, and Elwha;

But when it comes to spelling them-

My favorites are Green, Snake, Lewis, and Rock.

Christy Woolum

National Poetry Month #5: House or Home?

When does a house become a home? I am such a nester I can make my car, a motel room, a guest room, or an RV home in no time. Home is where your husband, family, dogs, and heart is.

He Has Lived In Many Houses

furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft, a tent, motels, under a table, under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not, as yet, a yurt. In these places he has slept, eaten, put his forehead to the window glass, looking out. He's in a stilt-house now, the water passing beneath him half the day; the other half it's mud. The tides do this: they come, they go, while he sleeps, eats, puts his forehead to the window glass. He's moving soon: his trailer to a trailer park, or to the priory to live among the penitents but in his own cell, with wheels, to take him, when it's time to go, to: boathouse, houseboat with a little motor, putt-putt, to take him across the sea or down the river where at night, anchored by a sandbar at the bend, he will eat, sleep, and press his eyelids to the window of the pilothouse until the anchor-hauling hour when he'll embark again toward his sanctuary, harborage, saltbox, home. -Thomas Lux