Mostly Poetry for Children
Remember the Women’s March six years ago? It was the largest crowd I’d ever seen.
Women's March, Washington D.C. On cold trampled grass-- girls and women protest trampled rights to come. © Janice Scully 2023
Haiku master Issa (1762-1826) wrote this:
In crevice after crevice on the cliff face-- wild azaleas. by Issa
My haiku today is inspired by the above haiku by Issa and this California photo:
December, Santa Cruz.
Scattered on ledges and lulled by the sea-- cormorants. © Janice Scully
Happy Easter and National Poetry Month!
California Dreaming?
Several songs come to mind at the Santa Cruz Pier.
Santa Cruz Pier The Pacific swirls and roars. Seals sleep, well fed, exhausted, under the boardwalk. © Janice Scully 2023
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Margaret Simon on her blog Reflections on the Teche, Here. What is Poetry Friday? Find out HERE.
On her blog, Margaret will be posting the next line of the Poetry Friday PROGRESSIVE POEM, now in delightful full swing. Thank you for hosting!
Many individual poets celebrating National Poetry Month. For example, I am posting a new haiku a day and today that will be #7.
To find out which poets are doing what on Poetry Friday during National Poetry Month, click HERE. You will find a round up of NPM blog events on Jama’s blog, Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
As I thought about the haiku for this post, I remembered this is the week when Cherry Blossoms bloom in Washington D.C. I thought they were breathtaking to look out when I lived there. The trees were a gift in 1912 from Japan to the United States. More about this interesting history HERE.
This picture gives you an idea, only a rough feel for what it’s like to walk among so many cherry blossoms.
Spring in Washington D.C. April visitors— pink clouds of cherry blossoms in sky and water. © Janice Scully 2023
Happy National Poetry Month!
San Francisco December 11, 2022
Hungry pelicans hunt fish, turtles, and tadpoles-- coastal water fest. © Janice Scully 2022
Details outside my window:
4/5/23 7AM A gray house through trees, obscured by brown mottled trunks-- a crow darting past. © Janice Scully 2023
The daffodils in my yard are paused here, on the verge of a full-bore celebration of NPM.
4/4/23 8AM
daffodil chorus
in the cool splash-splash of rain
feet anchored in mud
© Janice Scully 2023
The return of birdsong marks spring mornings in Central New York.
I often hear the Cardinal. Click on this link to hear it, too.
4/3/23 it breaks the silence the sudden chirp of birdsong sun lights my window ©Janice Scully 2023
A gift from my neighbors: Home made maple syrup, almost gone.
4/2/23 sap flowing in trees drips and drops into buckets— a gift of sweetness. ©Janice Scully 2023
April begins National Poetry Month! So many poets/bloggers I’ve met on Poetry Friday, have begun National Poetry Month projects. So I think it’s about time, the last hour and a half of April First, the first day of NPM, to begin a project, too.
I would like to write more of the short ancient illusive form called the haiku. It’s a familiar short form that looks easy but isn’t. So my celebration of NPM will be to try to write one haiku, maybe two a day, based on something I would like to remember, like a snapshot.
Today I discovered my first haiku while raking grass, in Central New York when it’s time for spring clean up. I wrote a second haiku this afternoon.
Outside, the ground is softening, studded with debris.
4/1/23 8AM pine cones in April half stuck in thick brown wet mud— snubs springtime clean-up ©Janice Scully 2023 Draft
4/1/4PM sudden wind, trees shake, sunny skies switch to grey— such a foolish day! Janice Scully 2023 Draft