spiral - Day 6 of the 2016 PAD Challenge

Two days behind but undaunted. I've spent this week preparing query letters for my Young Adult Fantasy novel, Elsekind. I intend to send it out to three places on Tuesday, so that's fairly exciting and slightly terrifying. 

And today, I have a poem to share. Perhaps my favorite topic to explore in poetry is the connectedness between objects in the micro- and macroverse, particularly the Fibonnaci repetition of patterns. I love how patterns in nature replicate on the small and large scale. It's stunning and humbling, how a snail and a galaxy can contain the same atoms, the same shapes, once again proving that we all are more alike than we are different.

Fibonnaci knows...

spiral

one shell

one tiny shell

one spinning spiral

like a floating iris

like the golden eye

of a great grey heron

poised on a riverbank

in a glimmering city

in a far away country

on a great continent

riddled with rivers and

crisscrossed with streams

on this blue, blue earth

swaddled in clouds

strung with twinkle lights

turning and turning

within an orbit,

within the wide-flung arms

of a galaxy

one among

billions.

one shell.

one tiny

shell.

My Parents' Patio Re-Design, Finale

My parents came home this afternoon, and we had almost finished the patio project. All we need now is lighting, mounting fixtures for the wall art, and wind chimes (must have wind chimes).

Here are the pictures of the finished project:

Dexter approves.

2015 Poem A Day, Day Twenty-One

Prompt for Day Twenty-One:

For today’s prompt, we’re dealing with our third “Two for Tuesday” prompt(s):
     1. Write a “what you are” poem, or…
     2. Write a “what you are not” poem.

I'm off prompt today, sort of. This is more of a reflection poem. It's been sitting in the unfinished poem folder for a while, but today when I looked at it, I made a few changes and thought, "It's as ready as it will ever be."

Mirror

A fear:

you will write

about the ways

I have scarred you.

And I have,

it pains to admit.

I have pushed

when I should

have comforted.

I have dismissed

when I should

have listened.

And you will write

about the ways

I have failed you.

All my searching

and running,

all my scattered 

hopes

dropped like 

fragments

of broken

mirror

in your lap.

2015 Poem A Day, Day Nineteen

Prompt for Day Nineteen:

For today’s prompt, write an authority poem. Maybe you are an authority on something or know someone who is (or who thinks he or she is). Maybe you respect authority, or maybe not so much. Maybe you are on the run from the authorities, in which case I can only say good luck, but this blog probably isn’t the best hiding place–especially with so many folks poeming away.

I am a few days behind on the challenge now. This one is super-rough, and I'm not sure it's an authority poem. 

Open Carry

I have a policy

for the kids

in my care:

I take you

with me

in my heart,

in my mind

every day,

every where.

Driving home

from school,

you are in the

backseat,

you control

the music

and the air

and the volume,

and the depth.

At night

when I cook,

I worry:

Do you have

what's good

for you?

Do you have

enough?

When I try

to sleep,

there you are,

chatting,

talking,

laughing,

crying.

And I worry.

Into the odd

hours,

I worry.

This is my

open carry.

This is my

weapon

against

crime

and poverty

and cruelty

and hate.

This is

what I have

to give:

openness,

acceptance,

and the

promise:

I carry you

in my heart,

and I

remember

who you are.

2015 Poem A Day, Day Thirteen

Going off prompt for this one. It was supposed to be a confession poem, but I had nothing.

Instead, I was playing with haiku for Earth Day's nature poem, and I wrote this one. It's not a nature poem, but I like the idea of Rorschach and kaleidoscopes.

But What About Freud?

A prismatic flash

Turning kaleidoscope's wheel

Rorschach would love this

2015 Poem A Day, Day Eleven

Prompt for Day Eleven:

For today’s prompt, write a seasonal poem. This should be a snap for haiku poets; after all, inserting seasonal words is a rule for the form. However, you don’t have to write haiku to write a poem that references or happens in one of the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Pick a season or include them all.

I didn't want to write a rhyming poem today, even though that's been the mode for my poet mind since the beginning of this challenge. For this prompt, I opened Writing Down the Bones and read the chapter titled A New Moment. In this chapter, she writes about how it is important not to rest long on our successes or failures, but to keep the pen moving, to keep writing.

I found inspiration in the lines that went: “Continue under all circumstances. It will keep you healthy and alive.”

I love that. Creativity is a force that helps us meet challenges. It helps us work through insecurities and anxieties. It gives us hope and helps us meet our grief eye to eye. Goldberg goes on to write about not needing a reason to continue beyond our own will to create. Creation is reason enough.

So here is my seasonal poem, nurtured into existence by Natalie Goldberg, the small birds nesting on our patio, and a time I climbed Gwanaksan Mountain in Seoul, South Korea.

Each to Its Own

Suns rise

Kingdoms fall

Hearts break

Birds nest

In the spring,

new buds bloom

In the fall,

they gray

and wither

You may have stood atop

Gwanaksan

You may have flung

your arms wide

You may have been

an echo loud

against the wall

of time

It is not the same mountain now

New rains fell

bearing stones

and seeds

and sand

At mountain's base,

the city springs:

Each day new

and tomorrow old.

Yet the young

walk her streets

Alive and amazed.

From space we see

the churning veils

of illusive storms

Our cities etched

in the face of earth

like sandcastles

in the rain.

Season after season

we spin and spin

as we have always spun

in the dance

of the earth and the sun.