Not a poem: fog

It’s fascinating how fog obscures some things and makes others visible.

web1

A cold Neoscona huddling in the center of her beautiful web.

web2

Same spider and web, different angle.

web3

A different smaller orb weaver in the back yard. (I didn’t get close enough to identify her because I didn’t want to disturb her, but she wasn’t large enough to be a Neoscona.)

web4

Another small (non-Neoscona) orb weaver’s web. This one swayed gently in the morning breeze like a lace curtain.

web5

I regret I didn’t get a shot of the neighbor’s lawn in deep shadow, with dozen’s of tangle webs like piles of diamond necklaces. I saw all manner of webs in trees and shrubs and lawns that I would never have seen on a clear morning.

30 in 30, day fourteen

sept 2017 30-30This is a derangement (an exercise from Wingbeats II) of a fragment from Edna St. Vincent Millay.

In memory

No more the broken bird beats
golden; the once-ivory box is
spoken: all your words are lovely.

Restore the secret of earth:
chemistry shall never talk
but of your music.

– from Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Memorial to D.C.: Elegy”

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/millay/april/sa-memorial.html

30 in 30, day thirteen

sept 2017 30-30Reading Mary Oliver again; even her prose is poetry.

Time means little in the world of poems

To be contemporary
is to rise through
the stack
of the past,
like the fire through
the mountain.

Only a heat
so deeply and intelligently
born can carry
a new idea into
the air.

– Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 12

30 in 30, day twelve

sept 2017 30-30I find book titles such wonderful inspiration. This poem is made of words and phrases from the titles of a single author. (Bonus points if anyone correctly identifies who it is.)

In the lion valley

leave the crocodile of forgetfulness
on the sandbank of desire, the case
for love in the summer of a dragon moon

curse the borrower of night
in the street of four hundred pharaohs
silhouetted in scarlet and green velvet

the devil may care that the seventh sinner
is naked once more, but the Dead Sea is a cipher
and the last camel died at noon

30 in 30, day eleven

sept 2017 30-30My favorite report on this phenomenon was the Miami Herald article that compared it to Moses’ parting of the Sea of Reeds.

Double-stranded

a widdershins eye
the size of a continent
glares into space

drops boats and sea
creatures to exposed
ocean bottom

before flushing them
clean onto land

30 in 30, day ten

sept 2017 30-30This poem was inspired by the friends and family I know who keep this intricate handcraft alive.

Tatted

made of lace, this heart is delicate
but not fragile: strong knots and stout string
bind it to itself, to generations
of hands with shuttles and dreams
drawn in tight loops against
hardship and despair

30 in 30, day nine

sept 2017 30-30Today’s poem came from mulling over an episode of Madame Secretary while walking the dog.

Thought loop

It is said
that clinging is the source
of suffering.

It may also be said
that suffering is sometimes
the source of clinging.

30 in 30, day eight

sept 2017 30-30The first stanza is an actual fortune cookie fortune. The second stanza seemed to follow from the first.

Variation on a fortune cookie

The river seeks its own level.
It will not fight the rock:
it flows around it.

The rock sits lightly
and does not fight the river.
The rock becomes its own center.

30 in 30, day seven

sept 2017 30-30I’ve been collecting fortune cookie fortunes to use as prompts. These three seemed to form their own poem.

Perspective

Prejudice
is the child of ignorance.

Wealth
is the ability to fully experience life.

Your flashlight
is a case for holding dead batteries.

30 in 30, day six

Thanks to Diane Mathews for providing the prompt for today’s poem (which ended up a bit geeky), via Facebook.

 

sept 2017 30-30a fallen AT-AT
kneels in the mist at twilight
petrified camel