Poetry Corner: Springing into Action

POETRY CORNER

– 4/04/18

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

​We are still in troubled times, and we must ‘Spring’ into action. Just the slightest movement of our minds makes a difference, makes us -and others- feel better. ‘We want the open-hearted life’​ Luis Osofsky points to, we want to appreciate the ‘butterfly poised your nose’ as Billy Howell-Siddard says. We might feel like a ‘caged canary’ as Grace Galton says, but as she points out he’s ‘singing his heart out.’ Like Michele L. Harvey, we want to put down the ‘mending’ and ‘fly.’ There is always the ‘invitation’ in the wings that Diane Mayre listens for, and you may find it under your ‘shadow’ as Keiko Amano does. It is ‘scintillating green!’ as Giselle Maya has found.

~ Smiles of encouragement from Kathabela

River canyon (Photo – Louis Osofsky).

​​Louis Osofsky

our open-hearted
life, this pond,
everything
we do and say
… ripples

​​Louis Osofsky​ says: “Amusing, the way in which the landscape and conditions of the environment match our readiness and manifestation of our character. Even at the center of our own existence, the presence of our essence, where some think to be alone, there is no separateness: we are with all the world.”​

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Billy How​ell​-Sinnard

say anything

just don’t sit there
arms folded

a butterfly
poised on your nose
gone forever

Billy How​ell​-Sinnard lives in Ft Wayne, Indiana.​ His tanka comes from a difficult time, talking to himself, he shows how to overcome it. ​”I wrote this poem thinking of the times I had so much to be grateful for but couldn’t see it right in front of me.”​

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Grace Galton​​​​

on the first

sunny day of Spring
wild birds pause to listen

to the perfect notes
of the caged canary
singing his heart out

​Grace Galton​​​​​​ muses​ ​”the sight​ of a caged canary has always touched me deeply. Of course, the caged canary does not know​ he has no freedom. He has been granted a beautiful appearance and a wondrous voice​. ​It is I who am saddened by his imprisonment, but wonder how he would cope if you were free to fly.”​

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Michele L. Harvey

another mend
he’s put on my to-do list…
but a spring wind
is unwinding the first buds
and I must fly to greet them

​Springing into action, ​the first green shoots emerging from snow put the poet Michele L. Harvey in mind to do the exhausting work of spring cleaning.​ ​Because she moves house twice yearly, from city (Brooklyn) to country (Hamilton, NY) and back again, spring and fall cleaning can be especially challenging.​ Add a husband of forty years with a backlog of mending and suddenly migrating north to a summer home, hanging laundry in the sunshine seems a pleasure.​ ​To this poet and artist, small things like buds unfolding, matter most.​​

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Springing into Action (Photo – Diane Mayr).

Diane May​r​

boxwood hedge

the flutter of wings
and intensive chatter

sparrows gather
this spring day, but I did not
receive an invitation

Diane May​r​ ​questions​ and answers herself! “Why spring into action? In New Hampshire, we had three nor’easters in three week’s time in March, and the vernal equinox was all but forgotten. But, in the past week, I wake up to birdsong, and it​ also​ greets me home from work. Birds have spring-sung me into merriment. I’m ready!”

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Violets (Photo – Keiko Amano).

Keiko Amano

violets
in the stone step
under my shadow

Keiko Amano alternates living three months in Pasadena and three in Japan. Her multi-lingual​ curiosity and poetics rooted in Japan and blooming in California give subtle insight and a natural wonder to every interaction.

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Dandelion (Photo – Keiko Amano).

Giselle Maya

luminosity
and dancing grace
the cranes
awaken me to spring
though they meet in snow

dandelion salad

jonquils bright
in March sun

long lizard tail
out of hibernation
a scintillation of green

Giselle Maya lives in a mountain village in Provence, France. She definitely springs into action in her garden after winter. She loves writing poems and prose in the Japanese genre. She writes daily in her journals: a garden journal with notes about spring surprises in the garden and what to plant and when, a tanka journal, a pillow book and bits of paper to jot down ideas. She writes daily about SHASEI (Shiki), the art of noting the miraculous in our daily lives and writing it down in tanka, haiku, haibun and tanka prose form.

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♣ We welcome and encourage your response especially in the form of short poems. You may reply by leaving a comment below.