NaPoWriMo 2026 Day 30

We’ve reached the end! May your words continue to flow! Now get out there and get ready for May Day!

The Eve of May

amid all the ripples of news
the ever presence of it all
all day every day all night
the world stands on a knife
the flats along the river’s edge
this green yellow burstin out
past the dark winter river gray
elbowing past April to May
Shake your bells! Leap up! Beat your sticks
on the still drowsy earth waking
turning point of the year we sing!
calling forth the spring and our lives
So unlikely, so sharp this blade
allow the joy! Feel life moving!

A white downy feather on a background of macadam

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NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 29

NaPoWriMo asked for a memory with details. That’s sorta dangerous – you never know what might pop into view. After a few days struggling with remembering what day it is, I was strong in my belief this morning that it was indeed Wednesday. I was sick at the very beginning of COVID. I went to a lecture on a Tuesday feeling punk and spent a couple weeks being really sick. Went to get a doctor’s note to go back to work and everything got shut down the next day.

It’s true that shut down was an introvert’s dream and I had lots to amuse myself. Yes there was worry and trying to figure out how to get food etc but days with no retail crowds? Yes please. This was not true for one of my managers who had given everything up apparently for the chance to micromanage people. If we were unruly before, now we were unreachable. I finally had to suggest that she find something that gave her some pleasure and comfort. As I recall, she mentioned she had once played the flute.

During Lockdown

Wednesday, always a bit weepy
ever since we had to stay home
for weeks and months, years wasn’t it?
mom just hungering for a hug
My manager with no one to manage
found out we were fine without her
and while checking on me by phone
sobbed out her realizations
Often having done the make-work
I’d get in the car and go paint
folks walking along too worried
distant waves and nice to see you
The phone rang – where are you, she asked
I’m out painting. It’s my weekend

a forked stick, looking like the letter Y, lays on pavement.

Posted in covid19, Do the Work, en plein air, In the neighborhood, landscape, life around us, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, sonnet, work (dayjob) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 28

Yesterday I did a bunch of mowing after getting home from Monday’s protest. I did the front lawn by the house and then I went past the barn and, with the blade all the way up, pushed back the edges of that field. It’s got a bunch of tussocks, and some thistles, and now that the grass is mostly squashed down, two rose or berry bush kinda things. I’ll keep pushing back on that as I can to keep it in grass.

Against the hill of year-round pine,
branches of wild cherry flowers
in the mid-morning suspension
these moments of early spring joy
turning as the road turns seeing
combinations the world mixes
for pleasure? to teach us to see?
to open up to this moment
when all things are waiting to be
as it knows we are, if we’d reach
out an eye to know where we are
where we are in this spring time bliss
learn lessons of brief white petals
see today’s hills flipping ahead.

Photo: Electric ride-on mower sits in a garage to charge.  The garage door is closed and light comes in through two windows that are curved at the top and have multiple panes. The mower is facing toward the door. The control screen indicates 82% charge and the battery indicators in the back are glowing green.

Posted in Do the Work, gardens and flowers, In the neighborhood, life around us, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, sonnet, taking time to look, the creative process | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 27

Almost to the end of NaPoWriMo! Today’s optional prompt was “write your own poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind.” LOL I didn’t do that exactly but I did string together three haiku (which I often do anyway) and a tanka because you know living better with math (3×3)+5=sonnet.

What of changing forms
are you missing haiku too?
join me this morning

I pursued sonnets
a whole month of fourteen lines
it was quite spacious

Petrarch hadn’t heard
of anything like haiku
so he did his thing

writing just sonnets
was a good break from haiku
with more wriggle room
now make paths to brevity
budding trees whisper to sky

Photo: landscape with late evening sun running across bright green grass. In mid-ground, a couple red barn-like buildings. Behind them there's a white rail fence and then bare spring woods and a blue cloudless sky.

Posted in Do the Work, haiku, In the neighborhood, landscape, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, sonnet, taking time to look, the creative process | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

NaPoWriMo 2026, Day 26

You want an ars poetica? I’ll give you ars poetic! And your little dog too and a host of golden daffodils!

what is poetry you’re asking again
won’t you know it when you see it?
that spot where pencil meets paper
just as, just before the line starts
that tiny spot of ink before
the first letter appears out of nothing
that moment fingertips resting
on the keys, tapping the rhythms
waiting, waiting, the beating feet
undecided insertion point blinking
blinking blinking and then appears
the first word scribbled written typed
where does it come from isn’t the question
it comes to ring that bell for you.

A small host of golden daffodils doing their thing under a couple evergreens

Posted in Art in the world, Do the Work, drawing, fountain pens, gardens and flowers, landscape, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, sonnet, taking time to look, the creative process, words | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment