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
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.
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?
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.
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!
I have been away from Poetry Friday since August and am delighted to be posting again. I was worried I’d be too rusty or my website wouldn’t know me. But now as I write, it seems like I never left.
My little grandson was born in a big rush two days before Christmas, eight weeks early, miles away in California and the sea.
So my husband Bart and I left snowy New York
for chilly northern California.
In the December Christmas Poetry Swap organized by Tabetha Yeatts, I received this lovely poem written by Tabatha. She knew I was awaiting my first grandchild.
EMERGENCE for Janice by Tabatha Yeatts
A New Baby, like a sky vibrant with the northern lights,
draws us together where we gaze exhilarated
upon this gift-- The world, Illuminated.
I love “like a sky vibrant.” Every child is so different and each “illuminates” the world in a new way.
But now, on January 31st, Tommy Bartholomew has been with us a month. He was born quite early, and we were so worried! But thankfully, he is fine, and will be able to leave the hospital soon.
I wrote this in response to Tabatha’s poem:
FOR TOMMY B.
we will watch; wait each day as this new star marks his path.
Will we understand what he brings from so far away?
We will make sure he knows he is part of a family and we have been waiting breathlessly to meet him
Tricia, one of the POETRY SISTERS suggested we write a tanka followed by a haiku in response to it. It was written in honor of the doctors and nurses in the N.I.C.U at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. It was a wonderfully supportive place, kind and professional.
THE N.I.C.U. December 23, 2024
in between two worlds a tiny boy, eyes still shut, cannot leave here yet. kind nurses swaddle and feed, keep him warm and safe.
sudden arrival! doctors hustled late at night, work that never ends.
I’ve anticipated claiming a new little word this year and I think it has to be HOPE. Hope for all babies, all families, hope for our country. I’ll see what I can come up with. Happy Belated New Year, everyone!
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Susan HERE at her blog Chicken Spaghetti. Thank you for hosting, Susan!
This week I will share a photo I took one evening this summer of a perfect half moon. The moon is very big, with a diameter of 2,159.2 miles, about 1/4 the size of Earth. But it is 238,855 away from our Earth and so it looks very small as I gaze up at it from my driveway.
Half-moon suspended held in view by gravity half lit, half hidden
I would not consider the moon a small thing, just a large object that happens to be far away.
Recently an on-line magazine was looking for poems about small things. So I thought about things much much smaller than the moon, things that I encounter here on earth. I wrote a poem and sent it. My poem wasn’t chosen, it’s short and straight forward. I revised it some and will share it here.
SMALL THINGS
A seedling in a forest, a raindrop in a lake, a firefly in the night, snow, a single flake.
The little bird that chatters every stone, or flower or bee.
On Earth all small things matter so we protect them, you and me.
Jone’s gift delighted me. It just so happens that here in upstate New York, today two of my last cornflowers were screaming for attention in my small garden.
So here’s a poem for Jone:
LATE AUGUST BLOOMS (In response to Jone Macculloch's coneflowers)
WELCOME TO POETRY FRIDAY! Today I have the honor of hosting on this mid-August day.
What is Poetry Friday? Find out HERE, on Poet Renee LaTulippe’s website. In short, it’s a bevy of children’s book lovers, poets, teachers, librarians, and artists who share their blogs every week. What’s on my mind today? This book:
As I was roaming the children’s poetry shelf at my local bookstore this week, I discovered Nikki Grimes’ 2023 picture book A WALK IN THE WOODS, Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and his son, Brian Pinkney. The back story, how this book came to be, is told eloquently in the back matter..
Briefly, Nikki Grimes, and a longtime friend of artist Jerry Pinkney, began a picture book together several years ago. The work to illustrate Grimes’ story was sadly interrupted by Jerry Pinkney’s death.
Fortunately, the artwork was continued by his son Brian Pinkney and also his niece Charnel Pinkney Barlow. It’s a story about a young man’s experience of loss after his Dad. What is it like for him to lose his father and what will be his path forward?
The poems and art are uplifting, hopeful, never too sentimental. Given the losses so many young people have experienced during the pandemic and through gun violence it’s fair to say that many are still grieving along with their families and will for a long time.
A WALK IN THE WOODS begins with this picture and text:
There is never an answer to such a question, but this young man’s father does answer him. He has left him a map of their beloved woods nearby, a place they both loved, with a red X marking a treasure waiting for him. Dad also leaves a key to the treasure.
So the young man is sent on a journey and he heads to the wood. What is this treasure? The reader wonders as we begin our walk in the woods.
Just being in nature is itself a comfort. Grimes writes:
The soft song of a Carolina Wren settles me as I sidestep fallen limbs, keep and eye peeled for rabbits, and survey a stairway of mushrooms sprouting from the trunk of a tree, and with each step, the hurt inside my heart pounds less and less.
Yes, nature has that affect on people. On the way into the woods, the boy encounters woodland creatures, beautifully illustrated: a rabbit, an eagle, a brood of grouse in a nest. Eventually he arrives at his destination: a treasure box. He opens it.
Inside the box are treasures Dad left behind for him are his sketches and poems from when he was a young man, here’s one:
Garter Snake
Quick! Someone's coming to gather the sun-beaten diamonds along your coiled, cold-blooded body. I wonder how much those diamonds are worth? HURRY! Slither behind those rocks leading into the woods. I'll see you again, tomorrow.
Here’s another gorgeous page:
North East Red Fox
An earth of foxes is given chase. Young Red Fox races the wind. His cousins fall far behind. What becomes of them? Once safe, he pauses and dares look back. Too late?
On one page a Great Horned Owl looks out at us and on another, a deer, with Dad’s accompanying poems.
In the end, Dad has left an encouraging note and permission for the boy to write his own story, live his own life, which we all must do, after a loss:
I leave you these drawings, these scribbles, and mostly, this forest-- the true treasure. Finish my stories or not, but this last page is for you, Son. Draw and write your own story. I'll always be watching.
This is a beautiful book and it made me think of losses in my life. After reading this picture book, I wrote a simple and short poem about my mother who has been gone for more than a few years, though she lived a long life. Though I was older than the main character in Grimes’ story, like the boy in the book, I see Mom’s eyes in my own eyes when I look in the mirror.
I have always found it hard to write about loss of a loved one. When writing about such things, it helps to have some distance.
To My Mom
I know you are gone no need to be told but you often feel near to imagine, to hold.
When I look in the mirror I look in your eyes I'm used to it now you're my Mom, no surprise.
My voice is like yours so I have been told so much of me seems directly bestowed.
Still I am myself, as I miss you so much, and will never forget your care and your touch.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone HERE. This week she is sharing some thoughts about joy and creativity. Thank you, Molly, for hosting.
I participated in the Poetry Friday New Years and summer swaps this year. A couple of the gifts I received I never shared and would like others to enjoy them.
For the New Year, I received a card with a photo from Margaret Simon. The photo and I love the words “grace” and “wisdom” in this elfchen poetry form.
GRACE BELONGS HERE TELLING ME HOW GOOD I AM NOW *** WISDOM
Another postcard I received last winter in the poetry swap was from Denise Krebs. I love her very cool, whimsical art work!
by Denise Krebs
Then earlier this week Denise sent me a summer swap full of treasures. Denise took the haiku and accompanying photos from my blog and made small bouquet of signs out of them! I was so touched by it as well as the poem she wrote to go with them.
My bouquet of haiku made by Denise.
Haiku Bouquet A Triolet for Janice Scully After her "Peony Bouquet"
Sing of beautiful photos with words, words of poetry--bouquet of haiku to reimagine flowers and birds. Sing of beautiful photos with words of history, life, and more--herds of topics in poetry month gift--time to sing of beautiful photos with words, words of poetry--bouquet of haiku.
I wrote a triolet to celebrate using a word I don’t usually use, to try it out. Some readers may think it’s an exaggeration but that then again, they might not.
AN EBULLIENT TRANSITION
Surprising indeed how tall they grow, in summertime ebullition! Red and pink in such a show, Surprising indeed how tall they grow. When they will stop, I don't quite know, this sparse to full transition. Surprising indeed how tall they grow, in summertime ebullition!
Good luck to all the teachers and librarians returning to school. I always loved the first day of school as a child; it’s an exciting time and I hope the new year goes well.
Next week I will be hosting Poetry Friday. See you then! Thank you, Molly for hosting today.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Tracey Kiff-Judson Here. Thank you, Tracey for hosting! Make sure to pay Tracey’s blog a visit to see what she is sharing this week.
Yesterday, as I was at a coffee shop musing over what to share this week, and also recovering from reading the ongoing news of world events, my friend Catherine showed up with a bouquet of peonies for me. I was thrilled and grateful for her generosity and friendship.
Here they sit on my porch.
PEONY BOUQUET
My friend gave me flowers she was thinking of me in early afternoon hours. My friend gave me flowers from her backyard bower, (Also one stubborn ant--but no bees.) My friend gave me flowers, she was thinking of me.
Many poems are inspired by nature. Sarojini Baidu, was an Indian woman activist and poet (1879-1949). I might have learned of her from a Poetry Friday post, though I don’t recall who introduced me to her poem, JUNE SUNSET. The poem celebrates nature through images that seem so fresh. Here is the first stanza:
JUNE SUNSET by Sarojini Baidu
Here shall my heart find its haven of calm, By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm. Here shall my soul find its true repose Under a sunset sky of dreams Diaphanous, amber and rose. The air is aglow with the glint and whirl Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight, Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl. Afloat in the evening light.
Such amazing words: Rush-fringed rivers, meadows of Lily and palm, dreams, diaphanous, amber, rose, sapphire, emerald, topaz, pearl.
The first line inspired this golden shovel poem.
IN BLOSSOMING NATURE, A golden shovel poem “HERE SHALL MY HEART FIND ITS HAVEN OF CALM” Sarojini Naidu
In blossoming nature—here you shall, I hope, understand where my wintering heart awakes. In May, we find Peonies and roses. Spring! It’s a pop-up world, a haven, of petals white and pink, full of new but ancient calm.
