National Poetry Month #11: Photographer

 This is dedicated to my brother Bill Woolum, my favorite photographer.

Photographer

Light has limits. What he can't see

He believes in. He tacks up background.

Shadows explode from a flash.

Winter trees, victims.

Noon comes to find him

At home in the color blue

Whistling in a minor key.

In his dark room, he seeks clarity-

Turns to acid

In unmarked bottles.

Light in the abstract bores him.

His shapes labor against light,

Make gestures in space like mimes.

At midnight he puzzles what presence eludes him.

The space between trees,

The moon's other side,

Eclipse spins from his thumb.

Sunrise. Sunset.

He can never get it right.

- Carol Muske

Black and white photos by brother Bill. I am responsible for the pictures of Bill taking pictures.

National Poetry Month #10: Thank You

Two words that resonated with me today: thank you.

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin
Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it smiling by the windows looking out in our directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

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