More Treasures, Holiday Swap 2023

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Tracey Kiff Judson Here. Thank you Tracey! I hope, Tracey, that you are feeling well after your bout with the Green Goblin, Covid.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here.

This week a lovely package arrived from my Swap Partner Carol Varsalona. She very cleverly wrapped it in photos about Syracuse, where she used to live, years ago. I was excited to receive it and I opened it gently to save the wrapping.

Inside were two poems, that I transcribed below , as well as a small candle and a Holiday Card.

One poem my Carol celebrated Christmas.

Oh Christmas,
You're the most wonderful
Time of the year.
A season of wonder and hope
Joyfully, we adorn thee,
Even with holiday 
hustle and bustle,
You bring warm cuddles.
Surround us with your guiding light,
So we might honor your holy night. 

CVarsalona 2023

Another poem celebrated Syracuse winter snow, which she had experienced first hand, showcasing the snow.

SYRACUSE WINTER
by Carol Varsalona 2023

In a dreamy landscape of powdered sugar,
Show dances before dropping and settling.
Each design enhances Earth's beauty
Until blizzard-like winds swoop across like eagle 
wings.

Snow dances before dropping and settling.
Syracuse snow knows no boundaries
Until blizzard-like winds swoop across like eagle 
wings
Touches each home and pathway.

Syracuse snow knows no boundaries,
Free-floating to the rhythm of the wind
Touching each home and pathway,
As choreographed by winter. 

Free-floating to the rhythm of the wind,
Snow playfully creates her own designs
As choreographed by Winter
In a dreamy landscape of powered sugar. 

But it’s been a while since Carol lived in Syracuse. Her poem highlights the beauty of snow. Snow is beautiful and this week we got a foot. But the climate has changed slowly. So I wrote this as a response, with a little sadness, because it is comforting for seasons to be relatively predictable.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN SYRACUSE JANUARY 2024

Snow used to come early
color everything white
now winter is mild.
Not frigid. Not wild.

Snow thick and fast,
a cold sparking treat
I admire less often
from my window seat.

Mild storms after New Years,
is lately the trend,
probably less in the future
no sign change will end. 

© Janice Scully 2024

This week I listened to Liz Cheney’s book OATH OF HONOR. It’s really fascinating and worth the time.

Have a great week! Thank you, Tracey, for hosting.

New Orleans and a Book by Ernest Gaines

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Haiku aficionado and artist, Marcie Flinchum Atkins Here. Last week she shared a video showcasing her fabulous haiku and photos. Thank you, Marcie, for hosting.

Today, I’ll share a few sights from New Orleans. I was there a month ago for a wedding but had plenty of time to acquaint myself with the French Quarter with all its non-stop music, art, and hospitality. (Sorry the photos are not my best.)

MERCHANTS IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

Artists show their work
in the shade of live oak trees
tourists stop, some buy.

© Janice Scully 2024

I heard wonderful music, especially Jazz everywhere. Indoors and outdoors.

IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

Clarinets and drums,
jambalaya and jamming--
an all day party. 
  

© Janice Scully 2024


I always look for a bookstore.

I like to buy at least one book when I travel and found this short novel by Ernest J. Gaines, A LONG DAY IN NOVEMBER.

Gaines is the author of A LESSON BEFORE DYING that I read years ago. I have never read another book by him.

A LONG DAY IN NOVEMBER is a tender book narrated by six year old Sonny, who during the 1940’s on a southern plantation where his parents chop sugarcane, finds himself in the middle of his impoverished parents separating. He is a charming, engaging character, as are his parents, and the story of his parents struggles, and how their fiery argument is resolved made for fascinating read, a quintessentially southern story. I loved the book! I recommend it, and I’m ready for another book by Earnest Gaines.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Elfchen poems

Welcome to Poetry Friday on this last Friday of the year. Thank you Michelle Kogan for hosting! Check in with her Here.

I was away last week visiting family. I hope everyone had a joyful holiday. Since our return, my husband feels under the weather. He’s OK, and so far is so far Covid negative but who knows? I’ve noticed that friends here and there are getting covid, though no one is very sick.

Let’s move on to elfchen poems.

This week I will contribute a few. The form is described Here. It’s a short five line poem and the directions made me think:

First line one word: A thought, object, a color, smell or the like.

Second line two words: What does the word from the first line do?

Third line three words: Where or how is the word from line one?

Fourth line four words: What do you mean?

Fifth line one word: What results? What is the conclusion?

I saw the most brilliant blue in the stained glass at the Sagrada Familia, a cathedral in Barcelona last year.

MEDITATION

blue
deep calm
colors evening skies
children will sleep tonight
peace

© Janice Scully (draft) 2023

Pumpkin pie with cinnamon.

PUMPKIN PIE

Cinnamon.
Holiday memory.
Ancient amygdala triggered.
Take a deep breath.
Delight.

© Janice Scully (draft) 2023

This lilac tree looks down for the count.

DREAMING OF SPRING

Lilac,
playing dead.
Gray,cold December.
Fragrant purple flowers gone.
Deceiving. 

© Janice Scully (draft) 2023

I have one last one I wrote after listening to a radio story here on the show 1-A, about laboratory grown, cultivated, chicken. It is worth a listen. Cultivated meat is being tested in two restaurants, one in San Francisco and in Washington D.C.

Chicken.
Lab grown.
No slaughter required.
Reportedly tastes the same.
Try?

©Janice Scully 2023

Since food production requiring slaughterhouses and the killing of animals contributes to 20% of green house emissions, it would be significant in the fight against global warming. I’d definitely try if it is ever available.

Well, as for the elfchen, I look forward to reading more. I found that most of my lines were end-stopped. I wasn’t sure to punctuate or not.

Happy New Year!

Poetry Friday is HERE: Christmas Haiku and Slippers.

Welcome everyone to Poetry Friday! Today I have the honor of being the host. I hope all of you and your loved ones are finding joy in this holiday season.

What is Poetry Friday? It is explained Here.

Christmas is moving along at my house. Our tree is decorated.

this young pine's branches
firmly grip fragile treasures--
as if it grew them.

©Janice Scully 2023

I made stollen with my friend, Leah, something we do every year together.

fresh Christmas stollen,
obviously sprung from snow,
not a hot oven.

© Janice Scully

But, in spite of a tree and baking, this doesn’t feel like an ordinary Christmas now that 2024 is around the corner. I feel unsettled, another word for free floating anxiety.

I wrote another poem, one that does not concern Christmas, but instead, Democracy.

TAKING DEMOCRACY FOR GRANTED

like slippers
so cleverly made 
that you can’t recall
having cold feet at all, 
 
until one day you jump out
of bed, put on your old slippers
and for the first time 
your feet feel 
the ice-cold kitchen floor!

You stare into the early silence,
vexed with regret  
because you never fixed 
that insidious hole,
           
and now
must replace 
the sole. 

© Janice Scully ©2023 (draft)

Have a happy holiday season! Add your blog to the list below. I look forward to reading them.

I thought I’d try writing an “Elfchen” poem or two this week. On Dec 29, the Poetry Sisters are sharing their “Elfchen” poems and invited the Poetry Friday community to give the form a try. See Tanita’s post Here. I found a description of the Elfchen from Here. It is a short poem, which of course doesn’t mean easy. I hope I’ll have one to share in two weeks.

Two Silly Poems ala Valerie Worth

Happy Poetry Friday, this week hosted by poet Patricia Franz Here. Thank you, Patricia for hosting. I look forward to seeing what you have for us this week!

I enjoyed reading all the poems recently written in the style of Valerie Worth and shared on Poetry Friday. Michelle Kogan wrote two lovely ones Here and on that post are the links to the other Poetry Sisters and their poems in the Valerie Worth style.

I took out my copy of ALL THE SMALL POEMS AND FOURTEEN MORE by Valerie Worth. I noticed that, although it seems she has a poem for absolutely everything, she doesn’t, of course, who could? There is so much to write about.

So here are two more poems, ala Valerie Worth. The subjects came to mind as I have been in my basement sewing. Keep in mind they are first drafts.

NEEDLE

Slim
Sharp
Sliver of steel.

It weaves
straight in 
and out 
of pieces of fabric,

requiring a machine
or fingers
to direct it

because one eye
is not enough.  

© Janice Scully 2023 (draft)
THREAD

You're rarely seen,

silent, a humble servant
when we're out and about

at school, at play 
your work is ignored--

you keep our clothes on us
instead of the floor. 

© Janice Scully (draft)

I’m making a table runner for my son and his wife. Do I like the combination of colors? I think so but things look very different when they are unfinished, so I have my fingers crossed. I think it will be colorful and pretty on their table.

I have found the holiday season a welcome diversion from the news that continues to make me sad. I went to see the Syracuse Stage production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL last night and as it always does, reminded me what is important, that is, kindness to others.

So on that note, Happy Holidays! Have a great weekend. Thank you Patricia for hosting!

The Almost Beginning

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Anastasia (I love that name!) at Small Poems. Thank you for hosting! Anastasia looks back on her acceptance letter of her work and shares a poem.

I’m thinking about holiday gifts and I’m trying to make some of them. But as most sewers, crafts people, cooks, knitters, painters and all other artists know, disappointment can often tag along on one’s creative endeavors. Today, after not embroidering for a long time, I decided to try to embroider a flower. I was thinking of embellishing a bookmark. I found a picture of an embroidered flower that I thought was pretty and used it as a guide but thought mostly I’d wing it.

To me, the effort was just OK. A little sorry. Not horrible, but not exactly the flower or plant I was inspired by. After two hours of work, I felt like I’d wasted most of my morning. But isn’t that the way it goes?

I will try embroidery again soon, but since it’s Thursday and time for Poetry Friday, perhaps a poem about my experience might redeem my lost time, though, of course it just might add to it.

The fact is, and we all know it, especially you teachers out there, the sense of failure and disappointment is part of the learning and creative process. We all feel it and unless we accept it, we will never succeed at anything.

Below is my poem, another draft, another beginning.

THE ALMOST BEGINNING

Did you ever
try something
and fail?

Like write a poem?
Bake a cake?
Draw a flower?

And felt
the words weren’t right
The cake didn’t rise enough
and you created a spider
instead of a flower?

             Congratulations! 

You have arrived at
the Almost Beginning 
         of whatever you attempted.

That dull disappointment
in your stomach?
It will linger only if
you give up.

So next, 
think about 
what was wrong

        with the words
        with the ingredients or oven
        with your crooked stitches,

and try again,
certain you can get there,
because maybe  
      days ago
      years ago 
you have been here, 
at the Almost Beginning, before.  
 

© Janice Scully 2023

Enjoy the holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving and Ravens . . . Again.

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Happy Thanksgiving. This week we are hosted by Ruth at:

http://thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

Thank you Ruth for hosting! I have so enjoyed her poems and her wide knowledge about birds that is found on her blog.

I’ve had a quiet holiday with just my husband, Bart and our son, Matt. Maybe that’s why I have so many leftovers!

Last week I bought a book with a title I couldn’t resist:

I posted two weeks ago about Ravens and Halloween. But I am posting again about ravens because there is more to say after reading more about these very old, very smart birds.

The first of the ten birds in Moss’s book that “changed the world” is the Raven, the largest member of the crow family, with it’s large “pick-ax” bill, iridescent black feathers and remarkable call. This bird has at times helped and then hindered human efforts to survive. They’ve been loved and hated through the centuries.

Moss tells us:

For human and animal hunters, their ability to fly made them assets to survival.

“Only the raven can reconnoitre a large area of ground, locate potential prey and then return to guide the hunters towards the target.”

SYMBOSIS

Wolves.
Ravens.
Early man—
hunting buddies
for thousands of years.
Ravens flew to spot prey.
Swift wolves rushed off to the scene,
heeding raven intelligence,
as did humans: a happy threesome. 

© Janice Scully 2023

The raven’s fortunes, good and bad, have been in no small part determined by humans. To ancient Norsemen, they were seen as helpers to the Norse God Odin. But after hunting and gathering was left behind, ravens became pests to farmers and herdsmen, eating crops and attacking animals. Humans nearly exterminated them.

Today, ravens flourish. They are almost everywhere, clever enough to survive in diverse habitats.

THE FORTUNES OF THE RAVEN

Ancient Norsemen celebrated 
black feathered, bold beaked ravens
that served as the thoughts and memories 
of their one-eyed god, Odin.

                           But when humans discovered farming, 
                           they nearly rid the world of these pests
                           gobbling their grain.

In plague times, Ravens helped
clear the streets of the dead.
The more the merrier.
A boon to public health.

                          but later herders battled ravens
                          that threatened new born animals,
		          and livelihoods.
                         
Today, birdwatchers admire their call 
and clever sky antics.
Numbers have exploded!

                          Humans change. 
                          Ravens hope for the best.

© Janice Scully 2023

I haven’t finished the book yet but look forward to learning about the extinct dodo, pigeons, the bald eagle, penguins and more. I appreciate lately more than ever my love of reading and the peace it brings me as I curl up with a good book.

Have a great weekend!

Revolution in our Time, Y.A. Non-fiction by Kekla Magoon

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Karen Edmisten here: https://karenedmisten.blogspot.com. Thank you very much, Karen for hosting.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here:

After I read REVOLUTION IN OUR TIME: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY’S PROMOSE TO THE PEOPLE, I knew I had to recommend it to my Poetry Friday friends and anyone else interested in American History. That is simply because when I was a teen in the glorious nineteen sixties, lies were spread about the Black Panther Party and so much else.

I remember overhearing adults and from reading the newspapers, that the Black Panthers were “terrorists.” But they were not terrorists. This organization was formed to help black people deal with police violence that targeted them, to help black people cope with poverty, substandard education, access to voting and in short, a country that governed by racist laws and policies.

Armed black panthers would show up at traffic stops and stand a legal distance away, to observe arrests of black people. It was done to deter police violence done usually when no one was looking. In California, open carry of a firearm was legal, and so black citizens bought guns and defended themselves too. This made white people nervous. The FBI made it their job to spread propaganda to stir the public against the Black Panthers like they did concerning Martin Luther King. The bad press against the Black Panthers served to terrify the white public.

As I look back on my teen years, I believe I would have greatly benefitted from honest adults telling me the truth. The Black Panther Party only lasted over teen years, and Magoon explains the rise and reasons for its fall, but even so, to me, those who spoke up about police violence, created schools where children were taught to read, and made sure hungry kids had breakfast were heroes.

Here is a Black Lives Matters site featuring kids’ poems:

https://charmlitmag.org/poems-for-black-lives-matter-at-school.

I found this ninth grader’s poem. It’s just the first few lines and the rest is at the above website. Thank you Ayodele Ayoola!

I AIN’T WELCOMED HERE NO MORE 

Ayodele Ayoola, Grade 9

I WALK DOWN THE STREET

AND GUESS WHO I MEET

THE MEN IN BLUE WHO SUPPOSED TO DEFEND

BUT INSTEAD THEY CHOSE TO APPREHEND

THEY SLAP, PUNCH, CHOKE ME RED

THEY WON’T STOP TILL I END UP DEAD

OH STOP! PLEASE? I CAN’T BREATHE!

Racism, of course, continues, but I found Kekla Magoon’s book inspiring. I learned about so many heroes from the sixties who I knew so little about, some who dedicated their lives and died serving their communities. There is nothing like a good book, and this is a great one.

Thank you, Karen, for hosting Poetry Friday this week. Find her blog:

https://karenedmisten.blogspot.com.

Walls and Neighbors, Robert Frost

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by writer and photographer Buffy Silverman at https://buffysilverman.com. Thank you, Buffy, for hosting.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out at: https://www.nowaterriver.com/what-in-the-world-is-poetry-friday/

Because of all the current fighting and all the walls real or metaphoric between people, I’m not the only one thinking about neighbors and how human beings get along.

I looked for a poem to share and I stumbled upon this famous 1914 poem by Robert Frost.

MENDING WALL

BY ROBERT FROST

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Though some might say, after reading the poem, that “fences make good neighbors,” it seems that there are no firm answers to the question about the utility of walls in Frost’s poem. Below is an example of a useful wall:

This wall of rock protects a town from the ocean.

But the utility of a wall is not always clear.

At the beginning of Frost’s poem, a wall between the narrator and his neighbor has fallen down by natural events such as frozen winter ground. Also hunters have created holes in the fence. So the narrator and his neighbor are rebuilding it even though, according to the narrator, there is little reason for a fence between the two properties. No cattle to contain, no apparent purpose, yet they are repairing it as they do every year.

Later in the poem, the narrator suggests that before building a wall, one might ask, “what was I walling in or walling out?” Who am I offending?

But people are different. To the neighbor it’s not a complicated question at all and he believes as his father did, “Good fences make good neighbors.” He shares no thoughts beyond this, doesn’t question the wisdom behind the wall.

The narrator, on the other hand, thinks more deeply about fences and walls and that it might be advisable to consider why? before building one.

What do you think?

It was helpful to read the commentary about the poem by Austin Allen here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/150774/robert-frost-mending-wall

Below is a silly poem I wrote a while ago about a mean neighbor when we were children.

OUR MEAN NEIGHBOR

Seven in all 
he grabbed this year,
and hid our balls
in his cellar bier.

New and old
from our favorite sports, 
my neighbor is 
a nasty sort,

grabbing them faster
than we can guard—
Oh!  Preventing this
is very hard!

You see, his garden,
full of leafy chard,
is down the hill 
from my back yard,
              
So might he be
more pleasant to me,
if it weren’t for the forces
of gravity?

© Janice Scully 2023

Perhaps, because of the forces of gravity, a fence at the bottom of our yard might have made for a friendlier neighbor.

Thank you Buffy for hosting! Have a great weekend.

A wall at the Castelo de São Jorge in Lisbon.

Halloween Friends

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Carol Labuzzeta at http://theapplesinmyorchard.com.

Thank you Carol for hosting. Carol has been busy at work collecting poems for her upcoming Ekphrastic anthology. Good luck to those who are writing and submitting.

Here’s a photo of a raven ready for Halloween.

A RAVEN

What will we all be doing to mark the day? Here are a few suggestions.

ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT 

Talk with jabbering witches,
Meet your grandmother’s ghost.

Gambol with werewolves
and vampire hosts.

You'll be howling and breathless!
You'll feel oh so alive!

and will think on it fondly,
if you survive.

© Janice Scully 2023

I hope all of you have a spooky holiday! And a safe one.