Greetings, Poetry Lovers! With all the grave news and concerns of the day, I've been grateful for more gifts of poems in my mailbox, thanks to Jone Rush MacCulloch's annual New Year's Poem Postcard Project.
Here are three more gems. Enjoy!
From Linda Baie, a gorgeous piece of visual and verbal art related to one of her favorite subjects, trees. She captured the end of fall in such a beautiful way:
One
leaf drops;
a maple
skids underneath
a yellow aspen.
Sweetgum's orange joins in.
Odd that a green leaf appears,
lands the middle - spring memory
refuses to be one left alone.
they create a wreath of us, together.
Poem and Image ©Linda Baie.
Kimberly Hutmacher sent a gorgeous photo of a celestial treat that I immediately recognized, having made my family go outside and crane necks forever waiting for its appearance: last month's visual "convergence" of Jupiter and Saturn at dusk. Kimberly's poem on the back reads:
Connection longing
Watching the great conjunction
Universal hope
Poem and Image ©Kimberly Hutmacher.
(Thanks for that much-needed glimpse beyond ourselves, Kimberly, and promise of hope!)
And Diane Mayr's name on a poetic/visual project is always a welcome sight. She embraced the "Year of the Ox" theme with her usual clever take in this haiku:
A NEW YEAR...
HONEST DAY'S WORK NO LONGER
AN OXYMORON
Poem and Image ©Diane Mayr.
She also included these words of Japanese New Year's greetings: Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu.
Continued greetings all around, as we make our way through the begining of this new year. These friends remind us to look at the wonders at our feet, and the wonders far, far away in the night sky, and the wonders of being human!
A related bit: Re. poetry swaps, I had the good fortune to send a Winter Poem Swap poem (Thanks for organizing, Tabatha Yeatts!) to our dear friend Kathryn Apel in Australia. Kat was kind enough to share it today on her blog, but the cat photos take the cake. ;0) I did run my simple poem by our dear friend Michelle H. Barnes, who lived in Australia for several years. Her hubby, Peter, actually suggested the "buddy" line... and I liked it better than what I had there. (Shhh... he didn't want credit, so keep that a secret.) When you go visit the Roundup today, you'll see that Kat's Winter Poem Swap gift to Margaret was written along a similar theme - albeit her poem is flowing with lyrical language and gorgeous details. I do so love our Poetry Friday community, and our "doors" are open to new folks as well as old friends.
An unrelated bit: With Valentine's Day just a month away, on Instagram I'll be featuring "Heartsyletters" offerings from my artsyletters Etsy shop over the next few weeks - gifts for literary Valentines! You can find me at @artsylettersgifts . The first post stars an upcycled '80s metal choker base with an upcycled '50s question-mark-in-a-heart charm. (I made one to test drive and have been wearing it almost every day this week.) ;0)
As mentioned, the lovely Margaret has our Roundup this week at Reflections on the Teche. Row thee yonder.