It’s Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented Carol Valsalona on her blog, Beyond Literacy. Make sure you stop by and check out what she has in store this week. Thank you, Carol.
Two weeks ago, Carol made a request:
Poetry Friday Friends: If so inclined, please share a new image poem on the topic, Summer 2020 in the Midst of Quarantine Life, at your blog for the September 4, 2020 Poetry Friday that I am hosting. It will be a way to showcase the beauty of nature during trying times.
I have been celebrating the beauty of summer this week in my kitchen. With all the sun and rain in Syracuse, my generous neighbor’s garden has exploded with vegetables, especially tomatoes. It’s been a bright spot during the pandemic at my house.
I think this qualifies as an image that celebrates the beauty of nature, don’t you? I was indeed inundated, as the tomatoes were ripe and many could not wait to be cooked. Spaghetti and meat balls anyone?
Of course summer seems sweet partly because, at least where I live, it ends. I’ve been feeling nostalgic. A week of chilly weather, it seems as if summer never happened. This idea inspired this:
PRESENT TENSE After a week, cool air on bare arms. The sharp flap of wind gusts in street awnings. Clouds linger, the sun too weak to chase them. You can't seem to remember summer. Months later, you notice the sprinkle of white on trees. The black glare on sidewalks, breath turns to mist as the world starts to freeze and it's like a dream, the time before you moved on from fall, and into your winter clothes but you did. © Janice Scully
Enjoy your weekend. I haven’t mentioned here all the disturbing things that are going on in America, but my thoughts and prayers are with Black Lives Matter, with those who are ill, with the scientists who are working to defeat Covid, and with the Joe Biden campaign.
Be sure to visit Carol’s blog, Beyond Literacy!
If you want to know more about Poetry Friday, it’s here.
Janice, oh the redness of those tomatoes remind me of my Nonnie’s sauce making. As a very little girl, I was always at her side in the summer. The smells from her kitchen were aromatic and so your offering for the Embraceable Summer Gallery is a fine example of creativity. I gladly accept your offering and will tweet it out now.
Janice, I don’t know what happened to my comment to you but here goes again. Your tomatoes are gorgeous enough to write poetry to note their beauty. They remind me of summers in Rome with my Nonnie whose garden was renowned as well as her Italian cooking. I can smell the sauce right through this page. I love your poem that will always remind me of summer when I was very little. I just tweeted your poem out.
Those tomatoes look like summer to me! Thank you. And one thing covid has done in my life is made me not remember things. It’s like all the usual time markers are missing, and so I have the feeling in your poem a lot about “I don’t remember summer.” Thank you for sharing!
I love those tomatoes, have a friend gifting me as your neighbor does, Janice. And I love your poem of address that seems to fit what is coming to us the next days, love “You can’t seem to remember summer.” We have record-breaking temps this weekend & possible snow showers coming on Tuesday. Crazy, right? Like our summer? Have a nice weekend!
Yes, those tomatoes are definitely SUMMER! Yum! And I also enjoyed your poem “Present Tense.” Lovely images, and it made me feel nostalgic too — passing time, changing seasons, another year gone. Sigh.
Janice, I love your Present Tense! I’m in Minnesota, and (though I hate hot weather) it always astonishes me how seasons past seem so distant and unconnected to life. When I’m sweating, winter is another world. When I’m shivering, summer is. :>)
Pass one of those juicy red maters, please? Mmmmm. And your poem is delicious, too –
“Clouds linger,/the sun/too weak to chase them.” Such a strong line! Have a great weekend, and thanks for supporting such worthy causes.
Point well taken. In every season, I try to freeze the sights and feelings in my brain to call up in the next season, or the next. I try to remember stepping out into a hot wet blanket of humidity when in reality it is so cold my nostrils stick together…and vice versa. It rarely works very well, but perhaps the point is just close attention to the natural world in every season!
How beautiful. I love the sentiment of trying to remember summer. And, tomatoes! Yay! Spaghetti for me, please! Extra sauce. It will go perfect with the chill that snaps the awnings and is cold on my arms.
Yum! Those tomatoes and your accompanying wee poem are a work of art! Spaghetti and meatballs? Yes, please! Your seasonal change poem is lovely, especially the lines,
“Clouds linger, the sun
too weak to chase them.”
Fall is in the air here, too. Looking forward to a season of change in the administration as well… Sending you my best, Janice. 🙂
Yes, tomatoes are the taste of summer! Ours didn’t do as well as we had hoped, but we’ve still made salsa and pizza sauce to enjoy through the winter.
Oh, Janice, I love this. Covid has scrambled my sense of time and your poem captures that feeling beautifully.
The bright spot of those tomatoes reminded me of the photo I just posted yesterday on Instagram. LOTS of tomatoes in our garden, and they’re calling out to be turned into sauce. 🙂
I think I’d like to linger in your “September Harvest” haiku for a while before fall comes and goes–lovely and so are those tomatoes! Maybe we can bottle or can away some of our memories from summer and slip them in between the “sprinkle of white on trees,” hope the sprinkle doesn’t come too soon, thanks Janice!
Janice, I love the deep red of your tomatoes! It is indeed a celebratory photo! We have many tomatoes this year as well. I have already made salsa twice! Your poem is spot on! Bountiful harvests are wonderful but one does have to stop everything to process the food. We have 30 fruit trees and everything comes to a halt when the fruit is ripe. I imagine we’ll be making apple cider later this week! Thanks for your wonderful post reminding us to enjoy the season at hand (because it will end).