Tag: spring

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Poems in My Pocket

So here we are in the merry month of May, no longer National Poetry Month. Am I sad? Not at all. I adore May and especially this May, which has favored us with gorgeous day after gorgeous morning, again and again. My cup overflows.

And this morning, writing, with tea at my elbow, windows open to the cool air, I marveled at the enormity of green out my windows, the leaves bouncing and bobbing all around, looking so jolly, so free though somehow not free, but rather, attached within their community of others, and it gave me such a feeling of wellbeing, though I’ve been sick.

And I thought about what to write, fully expecting it to be some sort of concluding report, an official accounting of the Poetry Share, since April is now behind us. But I am far from finished handing out poems, because of the joy. So I will likely be carrying poems around in my pockets for a long time to come. Look out!

Here’s a thing. I went to Old Navy yesterday to see about some shorts and I found a pair, black linen with a comfy elastic waist (just to prove that, yes, I really am an old lady), but most importantly with FOUR big serviceable pockets, the better to carry poems in. Yes. That becomes a box to tick off now. Pockets for the poems. I gave poems to three of the salesgirls there. And one to a gal on her knees on the concrete floor of the Salvation Army, sorting through donations. Big smiles of wonderment and lights in their eyes again and again at the question, “Would you like a poem?” Oh sure, maybe they think I’m crazy, but I don’t think so. I think it’s more of who can resist the offer of a poem? Only one person, so far, and I feel pretty sure he has lain awake at night with regret over that. What have I done? that hapless man at the Post Office is asking himself. Who in their right mind refuses the offer of a poem?

I gave to the nurse at Quick Care and the young woman at the pharmacy counter, the checker at HyVee. A woman humming past me on a walk. Bank tellers. A young guy called Zamboni, running through the park. Three ladies at the thrift store. People gathering signatures on petitions. The egg and bread sellers at the Farmer’s Market. The dear postman whose name I now know is Sean, is Irish, and his brother and sister were almost named Seamus and Siobhan. All of this I know because of the Seamus Heaney poem. La!

Just about anyone who doesn’t look dangerous has been offered a poem.

In case you want more recommendations, here are a few of the ones I’ve handed out since the last update. Rumi’s “The Guest House;” Mary Oliver’s “Peonies;” Billy Collins’ “Aimless Love;” Reed Whittemore’s “The Party;” Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky;” Tony Hoagland’s “The Word;” e.e. cummings’ “[anyone lived in a pretty how town].” And more. I forget. I’ve been sick, so I’m a little bit fuzzy-headed. But really, I can’t be expected to do all the poetry, can I? Your favorites are bound to be different from mine. Go on a poetry safari. Find the ones that speak to your heart. And then spread the love. And then you, too, can call out to others that you’re “on top of the world!” as you walk jauntily by.

It’s just another way to enjoy life. There are so many. This is just one more to keep in your back pocket.

“Then you have to remember to be thankful; but in May one simply can’t help being thankful . . . that they are alive, if for nothing else. I feel exactly as Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden before the trouble began.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer.”― William Shakespeare

“Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.” — Julian Barnes

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Taxes

Doesn’t it seem rather uncivilized and frankly ugly that income tax reporting happens on April 15th? Or in April at all? In the middle of spring?? It does to me.

Who wants to think about money and expenses and unreported tips and foreign income and grantors and transferors when one should be traipsing through the wildflowers? Not me. Okay, taxes are one of those “get to” things I wrote about earlier, because if I didn’t have enough income to even report, I’d be pretty darn poor. However, why couldn’t this heinous task be set for, say, November 15th, after which we’d celebrate Thanksgiving, being thankful for all we have, including income?

My sister, a CPA, has been my tax accountant for many years. She did this for me out of love, in exchange for a few greeting cards and perhaps a box of chocolate covered pretzels (which I often forgot). Now, however, she’s retired. A local friend agreed to take me on as a client. I asked him for a deadline for all my info and materials and he suggested March 15th. Okay. But then he stretched that to the last week of March. Uh-oh. Never remove a deadline from a deadline-dependent artist type who hates numbers and figures. Now I’ve hardly begun. The pile of papers on the dining room table grows more menacing by the day.

I like to think that Mary Oliver and I would have been right in step with each other, with regard to taxes. She wrote a poem titled “Percy Speaks While I Am Doing the Taxes.” I’ve copied it for you, below. Surely she, like I, would like to have simply tossed all her receipts into a box and handed that over to the hapless accountant. “Do your worst, fine fellow! I can’t be bothered. I have spring to attend to.” Surely she, like I, would so much rather have been out in the woods somewhere with a small dog, sending love and kisses to the baby wildflowers, tiny shoots of green, and blue blue sky. As my sister, too, would rather have done for all those years. Now she is released from my 1040, Schedule C, Business Use of Home, 1099, etc., etc. Whereas I will ever and always, in Just-spring, have a pile of papers on the dining room table, mocking me.

I add now, to my list of desired household employees, in addition to the“dreamy-eyed gardener,” a bright-eyed, cheerful bookkeeper.

Percy Speaks While I Am Doing the Taxes – Mary Oliver

First of all, I do not want to be doing this.
Second of all, Percy does not want me
to be doing this.
bent over the desk like a besieged person
with a dull pencil and innumerable lists
of numbers.

Outside the water is blue, the sky is clear,
the tide rising.
Percy, I say, this has to be done. This is
essential. I’ll be finished eventually.

“Keep me in your thoughts,” he replies. “Just because
I can’t count to ten doesn’t mean
I don’t remember yesterday, or anticipate today.
I’ll give you ten more minutes,” and he does.
Then shouts—who could resist—his
favorite words: Let’s go!

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Early Spring

Spring Beauty, so very early!

Oddly, I find the early spring we are experiencing not only unsettling but a little sad. Of course I adore spring! And winter is my least favorite time of year. But I do live in a land of four seasons and this year we barely had a winter at all.

There are things both natural and unnatural about this early spring that bother me. On the unnatural side, there is, of course, global warming. We are wrecking the natural order of things and that is very sad. All kinds of terrible things are happening across the globe because of what we humans have done and are still doing to this planet that is our home.

Toothwort, too, so early!

On the natural side, there’s time slipping away. Being a woman of a certain age, I am acutely aware of the passage of time. I look out my windows now, in early March, and see lots of green already. Oddly chagrined rather than joyous yesterday, I felt ashamed to actually feel a little sad about it. This is not just a sweet little blip in the middle of winter. I’ve always loved those. No, it’s done, it’s over; and we haven’t put in our dues with ice and snow and freezing toes and fingers yet. Two weeks only of it, I’d say. We’ve paid almost nothing for the rewards of spring.

Wildflowers, bulbs and flowering trees are already doing what they do so well.

Shouldn’t I be reveling in it? Crusty Old Winter’s zoomed away in a rush without even a sly goodbye. Yet this year I’m not yelling, Good riddance!

No. For I have passed another winter on Earth. How many more will I have? So I feel a bit unsettled and not quite as celebratory as usual.

But signs of spring are signs of spring, and color and blue skies and the cheerful little flowers are always lovely and welcome. I just hope they don’t disappear in a rush because summer’s landed too soon! I like FOUR seasons. Four. This is where I live, in Four Seasons Land, which is located on Earth, which we need to somehow protect. Sigh. So many things to fix.

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” ― Anne Bradstreet

“That is one good thing about this world . . . there are always sure to be more springs.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

” . . . always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves”
― e.e. cummings, Collected Poems

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Dancing Daffodils

Our daffodils have taken a real beating this spring.

We had some unseasonably warm weather this winter and in their optimistic way daffodils began popping up as early as late February. Some of mine bloomed shortly thereafter. Inevitably, temperatures dropped into the twenties a few nights in a row and at two or three different times. The poor things, shivering in the cold, covered with frost! Then there was the wild wind. And rain. Try as they might to stay upright, their heads bowed to the ground. The pretty faces they’d turned to the sky leaned down to contemplate the earth.

One of my cards, now retired, from many years ago

Stalwart daffodils offer many lessons. One could think: a) don’t be reckless; b) be patient and wait for spring; and c) everything is not a competition. But I prefer to take these lessons: a) persevere despite hardship; b) remain optimistic regardless of your circumstances; and c) never let your resilience flag. They do almost always pop back up, just as we can and (usually) do. Sure, some of them look pretty bedraggled and might be passed over for a spot in the living room vase. But doesn’t that just give them more time to turn their faces back up to the sun, more days to breathe in the cool spring air? Would you rather be bobbing in the spring breeze (okay, wind) or standing perfectly still in somebody’s house?

I began this in a bit of a low mood today. The moneylenders have gotten me down. But I have decided to take my inspiration from all the bouncy, vivacious daffodils. And what about the wildflowers?? It’s prime time for going on a wildflower hunt. And it’s completely free! You don’t need a thin dime to do it. You don’t even have to drive anywhere to find them. If you can’t get into the woods, you’ll still find wildflowers popping up in the yards and along sidewalks.So. Take a page from the Book of Daffodils. Bounce along. Turn your gaze to the earth and search for wildflowers. Seek out beauty. Pop back up if you’ve been knocked down. Nurture your resilience. And take a lesson from William Wordsworth (below). Life is good.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
― William Wordsworth, I Wander’d Lonely as a Cloud
If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”
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Vernal Equinox

I love that word, “vernal,” which literally means “of or relating to spring.” And equinox, too–equal night–when the sun sits directly above the equator, causing exactly equal hours of day and night in that part of the globe. We in the Northern hemisphere don’t exactly have that but we call March 20 the Vernal Equinox, anyway.

Anticipation of Spring is a wonderful thing as we plod along through the vagaries of winter weather. It is lovely to daydream about what might be stirring underground and within the branches of trees and shrubs. Tiny little bits of life busily organizing themselves to push forth into the warm sunshine. What might it be like deep inside those dark places?

Now it is all beginning. Ahh. The treasure hunt for wildflowers, buds, blooms, color, baby and migrating birds, and delicate greens is on. The courtship of blue and green has begun in nature’s ballroom of sunshine and raindrops. All manner of creatures are stirring, too, in the mud, dreaming of their lives above ground beginning once more. And already I’ve heard the peepers!

I always feel that living where there are four seasons offers the gift of anticipation. We know Spring will come. It’s a given. We don’t ruin it with expectation, as we do often ruin things in life. You can put as much pressure, hope and desire on Spring as you want and it won’t be chased away or ruined. It won’t fail us. It is infallibly itself and will definitely arrive, no matter what we ask of it. And we can rest in the knowing that it will be beautiful.

My paintings, my pickleball skill, my meditation practice might very well be adversely affected by my expectations, taking me out of the moment and stealing my joy in the doing. But Spring exacts no such price. I can daydream, hope, imagine and picture it with great anticipation, and what does it do? It comes and does what it does and it loves everything to pieces, no matter what. And for that I am very grateful.

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

“(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)”
— e.e. cummings, Collected Poems

“always
it’s
Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves”
― e.e. cummings, Collected Poems

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.” ― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here on my blog.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Astonishing! Spring

Spring is upon us and I think just about everyone has a feeling of buoyancy once Vernal Equinox arrives. Even though here in mid-Missouri only a very few trees have buds on them, we all feel that little buzz of excitement, knowing that things are happening. Within those branches and down in the damp earth many tiny bits of thing are very busy doing whatever it is they need to do in order to pop out, to spring! Those mechanisms, those mysteries of growth and emergence–bud, leaf, blossom–are known only to the few who study such things, and I am not one of those, not much of a studier. I am just happy to look and love and maybe imagine the tiny goings-on.

“Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.”

― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Now the grand adventure has begun. Oh, the looking, the searching, the joy of discovery on our little expeditions into yard, garden or woods! We look for the first this, the first that of the season and the first ever this or that. I remember so well when I saw my first Shooting Star–not a thing in the sky but a wildflower–on a trail called Shooting Star. I was with my sister, who was visiting here in search of birds and anything lovely. I’d always thought that trail was so named for sightings of the celestial type of shooting star from the bluffs there. No. The bluff was full of wildflowers. Shooting Star is one of those wildflowers I’d seen in my book and always wished I’d find in the wild. In person, as it were. And then, that April, my sister and I saw it together.

Just before official Spring, I’m casting my eyes to the ground on familiar woodland paths in search of the wildflowers whose whereabouts I have come to know. The east side of a certain hill is the first place I look with camera and mental notebook. And I am not disappointed. Shyly, they begin to show themselves. Tiny, delicate False Rue Anemone leaves, barely out of the ground, are my first reward. Toothwort leaves, too, and pretty soon a tiny row of buds hanging on their stems like socks on a laundry line. They will open by afternoon, I think. But I am a morning treasure hunter, so I will wait for the next day. I get a little burst of excitement with my first Trillium, first Blue-Eyed Mary, first May Apple, one after the other and another. I write these things down in notebooks. Yes, I count myself lucky.

Here’s a lovely Wendell Berry poem that I like to read every spring. I love every bit of it (though my feelings about outhouses are mixed) but I love especially his list of sins, for they are similar to my own.

A Purification

“At start of spring I open a trench
In the ground. I put into it
The winter’s accumulation of paper,
Pages I do not want to read
Again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the suns, growth of the ground,
Finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise,
have been inattentive to wonders,
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse,
of mind and body, I close the trench
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.”

― Wendell Berry

The old escapes into the new. What a lovely phrase. I hope this spring finds you hopeful and as he says, “happy enough.”

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Spring

Stumbled upon a hillside of bluebells

never before seen by me

in the lushly green mossily

green thickly green woods

of my wanderings and

my heart already tenderly

rendering love notes noted

that I this humble I am free

(miraculously) to be and breathe

exactly here precisely now

utterly perfectly wantonly

present for this marvel

we call simply

Spring.

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Turtles

Windows open this first day of spring

the cool air whispering truths in

a language I cannot puzzle out.

Vernal sky layered with soggy clouds

considers yet another downpour.

On the path I saw one and then another

box turtle coated with mud from a deep sleep.

I long to see the place that kept them safe

all winter, to see their eggs and the

babies hatching out into a place both

strange and somehow familiar before

plodding off into the mystery and

delight of the world already knowing

what to do and how to do it while

I, after sixty years wandering,

continue to stumble bumping

into boulders tripping

over roots and stumps.

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Days Begin

A crazy cacophony of birdsong

happens, as it turns out, before dawn.

At least it is happening today and

my brain the human kind that

likes to find order

make assumptions

discover meaning

rest on comforting facts

line up reliable regularity

would like to assume that

this is how it is with birds

on every warm spring morning

still dark awaiting the smile of the sun.

And so now I can know that

days begin with a riot of singing!

How jolly!