Dandelion Dreams

If we didn't know dandelions were weeds,

would we love their sunny faces?

If we didn't know they were invasive,

would we stare in wonder 

at fields of yellow?

If we didn't know they'd keep coming back,

would we let them be?

If we didn't try so hard to be rid of them,

would we appreciate their tenacity?

If we didn't know they were weeds,

would we love their transformation 

into blow balls of seed?

Crab Apple Blossoms

Breathe the lilac scented air. 
Breathe fragrance of crab apple trees in bloom.
Ahh!

Dance in the Puddles

So, it's raining;
dance in the puddles.

Spring -- Yes, Another Poem About Spring

Spring                                

This is spring – the wooing

of sunlight and soil,

now winter has left us, gone with the snow, shards

of ice; its relentless gales

turned to warm breezes

coax crocuses and squills,

unwrap pungent earth, wake up

the bees.

This is the damp season.

Learn to embrace it.

Spring teaches us to love

the innumerable greens,

the fertility of melt,

and the return of the robins,

as they stamp,

heads canted

listen for worms.

Last Sunday, was the first day we had no gritty snow remaining in our yard.  In Eastern Canada, the winter has been harsh this year, so thoughts of spring are an obsession for me. This poem moves from beginnings of spring still attached to winter, turns on the couplet, then falls joyfully into full spring.

This week, the online course I am following is about turns in a poem.  

For example, sonnets have turns.  An argument is implied and developed; the eighth line comes through to the idea of "maybe" and right after, turns the argument in a different direction.  

A second kind of turn happens not as an argument in a poem but at the line end.  If the syntax doesn't naturally pause at the turn, it is an enjambment. We are sucked into the next line by our curiosity about where the syntax is going to go because it's open, it's broken, it's enjambed. 

There's another turn that can be a kind of conflation of a perceptual and a conceptual turn. Within the poem, there can be a complete reversal of the perceptual scenario. And there can be a conceptual reversal, this turn from talking about a subject to talking about how we can talk about the subject, which is in words -- that miracle that there's a possibility of putting what we feel and what we perceive into words, that we have faith that our words will offer up experience to someone else. 

There are turns that make you feel great to be reading a poem, when you end up in a place that you didn't expect at all. That's one of the exciting things about poetry.

The idea for the poem, I owe to Laura Lush’s poem “Winter” from The First Day of Winter,

(Rondale Press, 1997.) To  read the poem "Winter" and to learn more about Laura Lush, click on this link.

The Colours of Water

...the crocuses bloom the colours of water rethinking itself. 

This word image is from the poem "Crocuses" in Lynn Davies' book, The Bridge That Carries the Road.  I am studying the work of Lynn Davies, as one way of teaching myself about writing better poetry.

To learn more about Lynn Davies and her poetry, click here.

Spring, a Poem

Spring

Snow pulls your cedar fence apart, pushes it slant.

Crossbars slump into symbols for “less than.”

Winter loosens its hold, sinks into flood, rushes

the downward slope to the river.

A red ribbon rides the melt, dangles on the lip

of the storm drain, bright floss tangled in a gritty grill.

You wait weeks for the slow dissolve of winter,

to discover your yard, wounded.

Then, one morning, above the crocus

and compost, this burst of russet

on a damp grey limb.

A robin sings.

Last week, I posted six objective observations from my neighbourhood, as part of a course I am following. This week, the assignment is to use those observations as the basis for a poem. The poem should also make use of sonic word associations and utilize differing line lengths to create pauses at expressive moments.

It is helpful to begin with a bit of language that holds interest, such as my “slow dissolve of winter” and from that create a word cloud of sonic associations. 

The word “dissolve” produced a word cloud of solvent, ventilation, discuss, discover, concussive, dishevel, solution, ablution, sheen, blue.

The word “winter” gave me a word cloud of winner, nerd, twin, tern, turn, winsome, win some, terrify, wonder, wound her, wound.

I used the words “discover” and “wound”  in my poem because they added sonic echo and because they suited what I wanted to say.

In “Spring”, my line lengths vary as I create brief stops or breaks where I want the thought/image to pause. Often at the beginning of the next line, there is a twist or additional information, a surprise. Line breaks allow me to share with the reader, the places where a pause will help with their understanding of the picture I am painting.

“Spring” is a draft poem, a work in progress. As always, my photos and words are copyright 

©2011-2015 Carol Steel.

Be Careful What You Wish For

My neighbor drives me nuts.  

He plays his music at an outrageous volume; in winter I can hear it through closed windows and hefty snow banks.  In summer, he floods my yard with noise.  We have to speak loudly on our own deck to have a conversation.  

I cherish music, and wouldn't mind sharing his tastes, if I could hear anything but the bass. He must love bass; it overpowers the words, the melody, everything.  I can feel the thumps reverberating in my skull and down my spine.

But, he does have a beautiful yard, and it is a pleasure to walk by his gardens.

I complained to a friend about the pounding sound pollution and voiced the wish that he would move. She cautioned me to be careful what I wished for.  And she was correct.

The neighbor sold his home and there are new folks living in the noisy house with the gorgeous yard.  All is quiet now, feels peaceful, except for last week.  The new neighbor went out to his yard with some friends and together they began ripping at his trees with a hand saw and trimmers.

What a heartache to watch him cut down a saucer magnolia.  Does he know how challenging they are to grow in our climate zone?  Does he know how inspiring it is to see a twenty-foot tree full of pink and cream blossoms; blossoms shaped like cups and saucers pouring out spring?  

Of course, all of this is none of my business.  I know that.  A neighborhood is really a village of people who need to respect and tolerate each other, so I will, and I do.

Still, how can anyone cut down a tree so lovely?  I don't understand.

And, I must be more careful what I wish for.

The Leaves in May

All at once the trees wear chartreuse; 

life rising,

swollen with spring.

Forsythia in Bloom

The yellow birds sing

throats full of spring. In windows,

forsythia sun.

Spring Squills

 

The first flowers of spring

in our yard

are the squills (scilla bifolia).

 

They pop up in the places we planted them

and in the places

where the squirrels moved them...

always surprises.

 

 

They grow in a circle under the crab apple tree

and in waves though the grass.

 

They don't stay long,

but long enough to comfort 

my heart's hope for spring.

 

Crocus Flowers Bloom

The sun shines

The crocus flowers bloom

My heart hums a tune

the song of robins

Need I say more?

A Perfect Rainy Monday

Raining...again…today.  I wanted to be outside raking winter’s debris from the yard, but it’s raining again today.  I look out the window and can see work, which needs to be done.  I can’t see past my list: rake, trim, stake and repair.  The list nags at my brain.

My internal critic wants me to be out there getting stuff done; ticking off another chore from the list.  It’s not a good way to begin the day.

But, what’s this in my yard?  

A pair of mallard ducks have landed.  They waddle up the gravel path to the paved driveway.  It, too, needs work, as the frost has pushed and heaved the driveway into humps and depressions where puddles of rainwater pool.  I wonder if the ducks are looking for a drink from a puddle, but no.

They are looking for something else, necks outstretched and clearly searching.  Ah, they’ve found it, but what?  I can’t see anything but dark pavement, but they are rushing to a flat spot near the puddles. They appear to be eating something.   Heads down, heads up and shake. 

I can’t see anything from inside and know if I open the door to get closer, they’ll fly.  I grab the camera and wind the lens out and watch.  Worms.  Thin pink earthworms are lying on the pavement after the hard rains.  And the ducks are eating them, bending down and sucking up the worms, like children sucking up spaghetti noodles, one at a time.  

I hear myself laughing. What a delight!

I laugh at the ducks.  And at myself for fretting over my list.  Everything has its time and its purpose. The world does not end because I can’t rake today.  

This day is already perfect, just as it is full of rain and worms.  The ducks are relishing the opportunities this day offers, just as it is. 

I will too.

words and photos are ©copyright 2009-2014 Carol Steel

Bright Colours of Spring

At daybreak, the grey sky opened to orange, yellow, pink and mauve.  Though I know this means more grey later today, perhaps dampness and achy arthritic joints, I relish colours anywhere I can find them.  Spring has been long coming and the usual swathes of bright flowers are nowhere to be found, not yet.

 

At least, they have not yet appeared in this yard.   I wait with the pale grass bleached by winter, the grey rock wall and the grey squirrels that explore there, the aging cedar fence broken under the weight of winter, the garden too wet to rake; wait for the fresh green of spring to push through matted leaves and the detritus of winter.

I long for the bright colours to burst open.

Photos and words are ©2009-2014 Carol Steel

Return of the Robins

Could this be spring coming, with the return of the robins, warbling "cheering-cheer-up-cheerio"?

Photos and words copyright 2011-2014 Carol Steel

Saucer Magnolia

 

 

Saucer Magnolia

All day each blossom opens
from a bare branch no bigger
than the handle of a teacup,
bursts out of a dark pink bud
and, it has in turn burst
from a fuzzy cocoon, once tight and brown.
Yet, from cups and saucers,
the cream and rose
pour out again and again.












This poem is after Ted Kooser's poem  "Screech Owl" from Delights & Shadows.  The photos are mine.  Words in colour will take you to another website with additional information, if you click on them.

Raccoons

 

 

 

Raccoons

 

A late spring night and the raccoon mama

has come again to the shadows in front of my house

as she has for the past eight years,

with her kits tumbling, wearing their masks.

 

Don't think they are a casual part of my life,

 

these white-ringed tails in the dark.

 

 

(This poem is after Mary Oliver's  "Snowy Egret"  from Evidence.)

 

Words in colour will take you to another website for additional information, if you click on them.

The photo is not mine.  It is used with permission under a creative commons license.  The photo is owned by vladeb and is from vladeb's photostream, which can be found online.



The Anywhen of Spring

 

 

 

Consider this.
If the anywhen of spring
arrives, dressed in daffodils
and squills, a soiree
to celebrate would have
its anywhy.

And the anywhich
of the whoop it up
simply must include
(please say if you concur)
some chiffon gowns and dancing shoes.
No?  Too much?  Then we'll agree
on ragged jeans and running shoes.
But most important,
there must be cheese
cake
with razzleberry swirls.
Not just anycake will do.

We'll bless the anywhere of blooms
with crumbs of cake
and drops of wine,
sprinkled
anyway.

And yes, yes to rejoicing
anywhither and anywise,
the moment spring bursts in.

We'll whoop her up with
wine and cake.  Give her
the whole shebang.

We'll welcome spring
with all the best 
of anyhow
we can.

The words and photo are copyright Carol Steel.   This is a silly poem to welcome spring on this warm Sunday in April.  The raspberry swirl cheesecake is from Tony's Pastries.  Have you been there?  If not, shame on you.  Anything from Tony's is an orgasm for the taste buds.  Tony's Pastries is located at 137 McLaughlin Drive in Moncton, New Brunswick.  This isn't an ad nor did I receive anything for my enthusiasm and endorsement, (but I would take a raspberry shortbread cookie, if it were offered).  Go.  Try it.  Anything is yummilicious at Tony's anywise.

Love is in The Air

The ring necked pheasant male is trilling and squawking from his vantage point, looking for love in the yard.  When he spots a female, he squawks and fluffs his feathers to attract her attention. 

"Hey, look at me.  Ain't I fine?  Choose me, choose me."

Love is in the air.  Or is it just nature and need?

Whatever it is, it's loud and colourful and urgent. 

 

Photos and words are copyright carol Steel.

Earth Day 2013

 For the beauty of the earth...








 

Carrying Spring

 

 

Carrying Spring

Crocus,
bright petals,
you come bearing gifts;
cups full of sunshine
spill over
with spring.

 

 

Words and photos are copyright Carol Steel.