Month: February 2025

Weathervane Seagulls

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented Denise Krebs HERE. Thank you, Denise, for hosting!

It has been a busy week. After struggling with a failing laptop, I finally replaced it. So it’s a thrill to transfer my writing to a new computer which actually inspired me to get to work on some revisions. I feel like I’m getting a new start! My non-fiction poetry collection about “Team Digestion” received some needed cutting and a rework of its story line. Now what will I share this week?

Here’s two photos and haiku:

Earlier this winter in California, I would use the seagulls on the beach to tell me which way the wind was blowing. It seems that gulls face into the wind so they can remain upright and not blow over. The wind was so strong it almost blew walkers over. I loved seeing them standing together, all in the same direction, like soldiers.

On a breezy day
Seagulls gather together
To brave the west wind

©Janice Scully 2025

Here’s another sighting. The beach was less crowded, but still, they all faced the wind. 

Seagull weathervanes
—today facing down
a stinging east wind

© Janice Scully 2025

I can’t let my mourning for the loss of respect and decency in our country take the joy from my life. There is no time for that. I am so grateful for my little grandson, Tommy, now already 2 months old and growing bigger every day! I look at a picture that comes every day and feel such joy and hope.

Have a great weekend!

Unicorns and Narwhals

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by poet Laura Purdie Salas, HERE. Thank you, Laura, for hosting.

What is Poetry Friday. Find out HERE.

I’d like to celebrate a museum today: The Cloisters, in New York City.

My husband, Bart, and I happened to be in the NY suburbs visiting family and on a Sunday morning, drove across the GW bridge to one of our favorite places. It is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and sits in northern Manhattan, close to the bridge, in Fort Tryon Park.

The museum displays medieval art including the seven Unicorn tapestries, woven in the late 1400’s.

The unicorn, of course if a legendary creature with a single horn protruding from it’s head. To some, the unicorn is the symbol of Christ and its pursuit and capture a metaphor for the crucifixion and resurrection. For others, the tapestries are explained by some as an allegory of marriage, the devotion and subjugation of love.

However you interpret them, through Christianity or culture, the tapestries are amazing. For instance, according to Wikipedia, in the background are 100 different plants, 85 identified by botanists. That’s a lot of detail! At the Wikipedia site, you can view the seven tapestries. 

 Unicorn in Captivity, the last of the series of seven tapestries.

I always learn something at every museum. One thing I learned at the Cloisters was that the tusk of the narwhal whale was thought my many to be that of a unicorn.

Such tusks, ten feet in length, when found were safeguarded in churches from London to Cracow. One such tusk, in France, was said to have been given to Charlemagne, according to a museum plaque. Other prized unicorn horns were gifted to San Marco of Venice, Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy and other deserving fellows.

A Narwhal tusk or, if you prefer, a unicorn horn, displayed in the corner of the tapestry room

What do you think? Is it love/marriage or religion, or today, government gone amok that has placed this beautiful unicorn inside a fence? Here’s a tanka:

I WONDER

Love or religion?
A lovely animal fenced--
medieval, me thinks.
Who made the fancy collar?
Why fence an innocent in?

 ©Janice Scully 2025

Image from Freepic

Thank you for hosting, Laura!

If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility, by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. Illustrated by Olivia Sua

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by poet Linda Biae at TeacherDance. Thank you for hosting, Linda.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here.

Today the mailman brought me the new poetry anthology IF I COULD CHOOSE A BEST DAY, edited by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, Illustrated by Olivia Sua.

The contains thirty poems by as many poets, many who are well know to the children’s poetry community, such as Nikki Grimes, Renee LaTulippe, Rebecca Kai Doltish, Georgia Heard, Joseph Bruchac, Laura Purdie Salas and many, many others. I feel honored to have been included. Thank you, Irene and Charles!

The collection is about possibility. What if you could choose the best day?

The artwork by Olivia Sua features children at play in a colorful, gentle and welcoming world. The book opens with a welcoming poem by the editors, entitled, “Welcome.”

Welcome
by Irene Latham and Charles Waters

If you're reading this,
It's time to unlock
the door to possibility.
Trust yourself--

        Turn the key.

Every poem in the book begins with the word, “If” : which seems like an invitation to a child to imagine as they explore each poem, and think, “What if . . . ?” Some of the poem titles include “If this wind persists” by Sydell Rosenberg, “The gift of If” by JaNay Brown-Wood, “If We Were Rich” by Janet Wong, to mention a few.

I’m sorry I was not able to copy the art inside the book, but at least I can share the cover. The book will be released early March.

It’s been two years since I submitted and I almost forgot this book was being published, but here it is.

The illustration on the page of my poem is a picture of a pretty whitewashed town with snow falling. There is a silhouette of a child, a girl, in a window of one of the houses.

IF A SNOWSTORM COMES TO TOWN

If a snowstorm comes to town,
I'll watch the snowflakes falling down,
watch them swirling to the ground
sparkling, spinning round and round.
Never will they make a sound
just keep falling
down 
     down
           down.

I love to watch the snowflakes fall--
no one rushes snow at all!
Out my window, wandering free,
snow is how I like to be. 


Janice Scully 2025

I was thrilled when my copy arrived today! My new grandson in California is finally home from N.I.C.U and he seems, I hear, very happy to be there. I’ll definitely add this book to his growing collection!

Thank you for reading. I’m sure you will hear more in the coming months about this collection.

Begin with a Seed

Welcome to Poetry Friday! What is Poetry Friday?

This week we are hosted by Carol Here at Beyond Literacy. Like me, Carol has been occupied this week writing a daily poem on Facebook along with author Laura Shovan‘s 13th Annual February Poetry Project. Thank you, Laura for this opportunity!

It’s been fun and the daily prompts have helped me find new ideas that might spark a poem. Plus I get to read the work of other poets.

One prompt asked us to write about small spaces. Hmm.

What came to mind were seeds, which are of course very small spaces filled with blue print of a new plant. Also I thought about how plants seem to adhere to a purpose, they do what they can to have a healthy life.

Plants, unlike us, follow its instruction and have it seems the wisdom to flourish. Unlike us, they don’t get distracted from their mission. They don’t self destruct. They simply grow and become part of a forest.

LAKE TAHOE

REDWOOD SEED 

doesn't have the power to think, 
feel, see, smell or taste
as it navigates life,

(we are so gifted!) 

yet a redwood moves 
faithfullY
towards its sacred destiny,
growing taller and wider,
year after year,
decade after decade, 
it fits in
among neighbors
and if nature grants it,
it lives a long life.

But as redwoods 
tower silently above us 
like cathedrals,

human neighbors
spin round and round
in ever more 
wasteful 

and tragic 
circles.


Janice Scully 2025

Thank you, Carole for hosting Poetry Friday. Have a great weekend!