Green growth and blue skies
Lovely days lure me outside
I forget my blog.
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Don’t have much to say
Maybe I feel uninspired.
No boring blog posts.
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Still no camera.
What’s a blog without pictures?
Cuts down on blogging.
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I stay up too late
Playing word games on Facebook.
Blog goes unposted.
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So I live and love,
Work and play, sleep and waken,
A dormant blogger.
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‘Til I get my groove
Come visit me on Facebook,
My blogging buddies.
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Wordful Wednesday is hosted by Angie of SevEn cLoWn CirCuS
Carly
Joie de vivre girl
Embraces life with joy
How I love this bundle of life
Love Dove
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Granddaughter
Mighty munchkin
Lives with gusto
Whether sad, whether glad
Joy giver
Valentine’s Day Verse
My friend Mad Kane of Mad Kane’s Humor Blog fame, enjoys giving poetry writing prompts. Here is her most recent offering:
Valentine’s Day is coming up — an ideal topic for my very overdue limerick and a haiku (senryu) prompt. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write some verse about Valentine’s Day. When you’ve posted your poem(s), please return here and add a direct link to your themed poetry, using Mr. Linky. And please post a comment as well.
So, without further ado, here is my limerick:
Some folks don’t like to be mushy.
They love you, but never are gushy.
If treated to dinner
Yourself count a winner
Just give them a kiss when it’s hushy.
Here are a couple haiku stanzas:
Tokens of my love,
Dear Heart, I give you freely,
Openly, often.
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Many thoughtful deeds
And kind words shared frequently:
Best Valentine’s gifts.
A Sestina for the Sabbath
There’s no such thing as a blessing that’s little.
Good gifts, small and great, remind me God is faithful.
I see His love, hidden in the mundane.
Even in humdrum duties, there is beauty.
Through cycles of days and life’s transience,
In joy and in sorrow, I am blessed.
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Having enough of life’s good things, I am blessed.
In the big scheme of things I am little
Yet you, Lord, provide for me in this time of transience:
Food, and the health to enjoy it, You give faithfully.
Today, again, my senses work; I behold life’s beauty.
All this gracious provision is not mundane.
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My daily duties revolve around the mundane.
As I care for my family, I am blessed.
A meal lovingly prepared is one kind of beauty.
Love shown in laundry washed, and other ways that are little.
I praise God for making me faithful
That I might love my family during this time of transience.
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Life may be meaningful, though it be transient.
Work, too, be worthwhile, though it be mundane.
In little and in much, I am called to be faithful.
In loving God, I am blessed.
My heart swells in love to Him while doing duties little,
As I clean, cook and wash, I’m aware of His beauty.
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I thank you, Lord, for Your holiness and beauty.
You are steadfast eternally; I am transient.
You are Almighty; I am little.
You are wondrous in glory; I am mundane.
By your mercy and kindness, I am blessed.
Through the years of my life, you are faithful.
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My voice rises in joyful song for your faithfulness.
One day I shall behold You in Your beauty.
Even during this earthly sojourn, I am blessed.
The sweet joys You give are not transient.
Let me not minimize Your blessings, nor call them mundane.
To see You face-to-face, I must wait a little.
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I praise You for faithful care in times of transience.
I praise You for beauty hidden in the mundane.
I am blessed by You, though I am little.
Recently I was looking through Write Source 2000: A Guide to Writing, Thinking, & Learning, a reference book that we use at the middle school. Since I’m interested in poetry, I meandered on over to that section of the book and came across a fun and easy poetry form called the CINQUAIN.
There are two ways to compose this non-rhyming poem of five lines, by SYLLABLES or by WORDS.
For the SYLLABLE CINQUAIN, the pattern goes this way:
First line        2 syllables
Second line        4 syllables
Third line        6 syllables
Fourth line        8 syllables
Fifth line        2 syllables
Oh, just one more thing: The first line is the TITLE of your poem, and the fifth line restates the title in some way.
Here’s my example of a SYLLABLE CINQUAIN:
COFFEE
My morning drink
I pour it from the pot
Warming aroma, bitter tang
Java
For the WORD CINQUAIN, the pattern goes this way:
First line        1 word
Second line        2 words
Third line        3 words
Fourth line        4 words
Fifth line        1 word
Here’s my example of a WORD CINQUAIN:
SCRABBLE
Word game
Strategy and spelling
Fit the words together
Spell
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This picture, taken a couple of weeks ago by my daughter Laura while we were walking on our road, got me thinking. Look at all those good apples, just gone to waste under a neighbor’s tree.
Here is a series of four tanka poems that came to mind as I thought about that fallen fruit:
Sweet fruit on the ground.
Time of harvest neglected.
Autumn’s bounty lost.
The tree was planted; fruit grew,
Yet no one ate of it: Why?
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Were they too busy
To notice present blessings?
Were they too lazy
To harvest this sweet bounty?
This gift was given, not received.
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Each day is a gift.
I will live it, treasure it.
Each moment matters.
Whatever the challenges,
I will thank God, and live it.
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Life has its seasons:
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Each with its own work.
If I live each day wisely,
Good fruit will come, be enjoyed.
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This reminds me also of an old nursery rhyme about using time wisely that some of our children learned when they were little:
Sixty seconds in a minute:
How much good can I do in it?
Sixty minutes in an hour:
All the good that’s in my pow’r.
Twenty-four hours in a day:
Time to work and sleep and play.
My daughter Laura took some photos of our Thanksgiving preparations, including this of one of my old cook books, an insert included many years ago in our local newspaper. The recipe I was turned to, for Broccoli Salad, is one I know by heart, but I just enjoy getting out the old cook book. Laura remarked on how browned with age the pages are, so I got to thinking about why I love the old book, and wrote a Tanka about it:
Worn and discolored
Pages of this old cook book
Remind me of meals
Prepared with love, served with joy.
Precious mem’ries tucked within.
This is my first limerick written in response to the prompt given at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog. Please play along, if you are so inclined!
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The dentist will tell you to floss
But why listen? He’s not your boss.
If you don’t mind decay
You can have it your way;
Your wallet and mouth bear the loss.
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Here is my haiku, written to the same prompt:
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Maligned profession:
The doctor of dentistry
Sees nervous patients.
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OK. I have some questions. I TRIED to get the clip art to be part of the text box upon which I typed the poem. When I then tried to publish from Word, the clip art would pop off. I selected ‘in line with text’ to try to keep it in place, but to no avail.
If you know what I should do, please tell me. Thanks.
Five Techniques I Use to Aid in Writing:
- Prompts provided by various online groups, such as this one, give a nice starting point for writing.
- I enjoy writing about things that happen in daily life.
- If all else fails, share a recipe!
- I use a poetic form such as haiku, tanka, sonnet, or sestina to provide a framework for writing.
- I write about a photo or series of photos such as I try to do for Photostory Friday.
The hostess of Give Me Five Monday is Becca of BeccA’s Buzz. She says:
The ‘Give Me Five’ Monday meme is designed to share fun information with each other in a simple short list! Here’s how it works. Each week, I will put out a random topic from my list of topics and you share 5 answers of your choice on the given topic and link back here! You can add photos, links or stories or just a simple list of your own of 5 things that relate to the topic as it pertains to you and your life experiences. It doesn’t have to be in any order of importance unless otherwise specified.
Sign up for weekly reminder emails @ beccagirl@charter.net
P.S. – Sorry to be posting to the prompt so late, Becca. I’m doing the ‘better late than never’ thing, since I didn’t want to miss out on this one. Thanks for all the good writing ideas you posted at your blog.
