Trying to add a few twists and turns and not just have this a straightforward ode to spring joy. Hold onto your seatbelts. I have no real plan, just going where the flowers take me!
National Poetry Month, Day 8, Verse 8
Category Archives: Writing
National Poetry Month, Day 7, Verse 7
I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to see this little conglomeration of some of my favorite wildflowers on my walk the other day. I actually almost walked past it, but I stopped and went back to snap a picture. I had the haiku pretty much written by the time I got home. I love it when it happens like that. Matsuo Basho said something about writing poetry which unfortunately has not stuck with me, but it was something about not allowing space between inspiration and writing. To just write the thing. (Can’t you just imagine Master Basho standing over you with his cane and yelling, “JUST WRITE THE THING!” lol)
So that’s what I did.
National Poetry Month, Day 6, Verse 6
I got up this morning and looked at the illustration I was working on last night (a bit late) and it wasn’t finished and I panicked…until I remembered that I started that one for tomorrow because today’s was already finished! This is what happens when you stay up too late being creative. Especially at my age!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one. I had fun playing with it since I did have some extra time. It’s a bit different for me. I used some different iPad “brushes”.
National Poetry Month, Day 5, Verse 5
Not much explanation needed for this one. I found these rather jovial flowers while on my walk the other day. They remind me of court jester hats. I fell in love, of course, and had to add them to the spring renga.
National Poetry Month, Day 4, Verse 4
Back to the two lines, four syllables thing. You’d think it would be easier, but I have to consider what’s coming next in this linked format as well as what came before.
National Poetry Month, Day 3, Verse 3
My renga continues…
National Poetry Month, Day 2, Verse 2
I actually wrote an entire haiku before I remembered verse 2 is only fourteen syllables and two lines… I’m not totally unhappy with the edits.
National Poetry Month Renga Day 1, Verse 1
Y’all, snow and ice is harder to draw than you’d think.
Poem for the spring equinox: Stay
The spring equinox actually slipped past me yesterday. I spent a lot of time outside, though, so I guess I celebrated by soaking up some of that spring sunshine.
I’ve felt spring coming for sometime for me. I’m thawing in many different ways. In the process, I wrote a poem that’s sort of a love poem, though it’s written to multiple different people. So not the steamy kind of love poetry. (Sorry, but maybe I’ll write some of that at some point, too.)
Anyway, I wanted to share it here. It’ll probably become part of my next book of illustrated poetry.
Poem: “Young” with two quotes and some philosophy
It’s one of those days when I find myself reflecting on what my life is and what it has been and what I still hope it will be. You know those days. We all have one of those days. Sometimes we eat cake on them.
Plato said, “Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master, but from many.”
Lol. Plato can keep that particular sense of calm. I will take the freedom, though. The freedom to experience the passions that I’ve denied myself in order to fit in a bit more.
I’m experimenting with spoken word poetry (I’d love to write a rap, but I’m not musical enough), renga/linked haiku, and I’m returning to rhyming poetry (mostly, though my haiku doesn’t usually) because I like writing it even if it isn’t the current fashion. (Screw the fashion. I love the challenge of writing real, solid poetry with rhymes.)
These are all things that probably would not have happened if my life was what it was a year ago. So, yeah.
And still I can’t seem to forget the way it felt to be young, to know I could change the world, to feel the earth shake beneath my feet, tremble before the force of my youth!
That’s a lot of pressure.
Jonathan Swift said something that feels even more appropriate to my particular stage of life than Plato’s praise of old age. “No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
I’m getting older. I own my years and all that came with them. I do not wish to go back. I would not redo anything that has occurred.
But I’m not finished yet. Let the young have their go at changing the world, but I’m still here.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 