Padded quiet morning, here
where life has barely thawed out
the birds wait to raise a cheer
to summer. Sunshine appears
with warmth, flexing its new clout
in the padded morning. Here
and there flying bugs appear
but the earth-dwellers have doubts
and birds wait to sound the cheer.
Chased by needling cold fears
pine doesn’t worry about
much here, soaks up the morning.
Sap slows thoughts, fills lungs. Clear
blue tries to break through the clouds.
The birds start to tweet out cheers.
My heart loves this high frontier,
while my limbs long to thaw out
in the padded quiet here
I join the birds in their cheers.
The truth is that writing a villanelle each day is HARD. Some of the photographs I chose to prompt me aren’t very easy to work from, and keeping myself on task with the form while also trying to break some kind of incredible creative ground JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN every single day. This was the best I could do for this photo, and it was a labor getting it out of myself.
If you look at the Tupelo Press website, I sent in something else for the same photo. It’s a kind of mashup of haikus and tankas used as stanza, which I know some purists will say is all wrong but hey it’s what I chose to do. You can see that poem at the link below; scroll down a little please.
Thank you, readers, for being here! Please if you can, consider donating to my fundraiser; I would love to meet my goal but I am a long, long way off. . .
The Poetry Patio 