Tag: Etheree

An Etheree on the Arrival of Spring

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

I love watching the season transform. I’m sure I’m not alone. So, I appreciated the Poetry Sisters inviting all of us to write a poem this month, an etheree, on their ongoing theme for 2023, of transformation.

Who are the Poetry Sister’s? Find their names Here on a post by Mary Lee Hahn.

What is the poetry form called “ethheree?” This link has the info in case you aren’t familiar or you’d like a review.

Winter rallied, like a dying diva at the end of an opera, and re-established it’s hold on Central New York this week with the recent nor’easter storm on 3/14/23.

Central New York, outside my door 3/14/23, quiet and still.

But spring IS coming, because it’s what happens slowly in March in Central New York.

The day following the storm, March 15, winter seemed to be tip-toeing away as if it could escape notice.

March 15, 2023, the sound of dripping trees outside. 
TODAY, MARCH 15 

Change
happened,
winter-paced,
slow as hedgehogs.
Wind coaxed snow off trees.
Ice melted in sunlight.
I saw daffodils rally
deep in soil beneath last year’s leaves, 
(in my mind's eye, from experience)
to conjure yellow blossoms, about now. 

© Janice Scully 2023

The change of season and nature is a popular topic for poets, as one would expect. I opened THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS and discovered this short lovely poem. 

LOCUST TREE IN FLOWER
By William Carlos Williams 1935

Among
of
green

stiff
old
bright

broken
branch 
come

white 
sweet
May

again.

I think the word “again” at the end adds great impact. It does, it seems, because it underlies the miracle of the natural cycles here on earth. Spring happens again and again. The old and stiff branch bears flowers again.

Thank you for hosting, Laura Purdie Salas. Happy Spring!

Your Wondrous Liver

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Catherine Flynn Here. Make sure you stop by and find out what she has up her sleeve for us this week. Thank you for being the first host of the year!

What is Poetry Friday? Learn more HERE.

I’ve had a reset with the new year. I’ve have returned to a few manuscripts that have been dormant for a while, with new eyes. One is a manuscript of poetry about the non-fiction topic DIGESTION, of all things.

My plan was two years ago to write a poem about “Team Digestion” that is, all the organs involved in this important endeavor. I was thinking perhaps that kids about seven might like to know where their food goes and that I might have fun writing about it. Also, no matter where you live or who you are, what happens to your food is always the same.

It was fun.

Anyway, I wrote poems, in several different forms, some of them I really like, some not so much, along with non-fiction notes to go with each.

But with this new year, I decided a prose picture book story about digestion is more suited to the topic, not to mention, way more publishable. I’ve revised and written a manuscript that I am much more excited about, more fun to read, and it captures the teamwork involved in digestion.

You’ll have to take my word for it.

But I have poems that I can share. Below is an etheree about a very important part of the team. It’s the mastermind, the liver, that takes all the thoroughly digested nutrients from the busy small intestine, and puts them together to make all the proteins and other things the body needs to grow.

An etheree is a ten line poem that starts with one syllable and ends with ten syllables. Each line grows by one syllable. 

LOOKS DON’T TELL MY WHOLE STORY

Red
silent
sentinel
never asleep
lord of the belly
lounging like a walrus
in the right upper corner
Some things do not look impressive,
yet do the unimaginable.
Such is the case with the wondrous liver. 

© Janice Scully 2023

I’ll close with short two liner about the Gall Bladder. Have a great Weekend! 

WHAT IS A GALL BLADDER?

This organ is the pear shaped bin
your liver stores its bile in.

© Janice Scully 2023
Human liver with gallbladder, duodenum and pancreas isolated vector illustration

A Summer Etheree

It’s Poetry Friday and it’s hosted this week by Catherine at READING TO THE CORE. Thank you for hosting! Be sure to stop by.

This week I am posting a poem from a prompt offered by the Poetry Sisters. The prompt was to write an etheree about summer or about foresight.

An Etheree is a poetic form. It is ten lines long. The first line is one syllable and each subsequent line increases by one syllable.

When I heard of the summer 7/24 reopening of the National Zoo in Washington D.C. I thought I’d write about that, a place where children might learn about nature and animals safely during the pandemic. Everyone above six must wear a face mask, and those from 2-6 recommended but optional. What will the animals think?

SUMMER 2020 AT THE ZOO


A
macaw
is painted 
red. Tiger hides
behind bold black stripes.
Pandas wear spectacles,
while the elephants blend in.
This year when the zoo is open,
animals, resting in cool shadows,
might puzzle over camouflaged people. 
 
© Janice Scully 2020

I just want to note that today was the funeral and celebration of the life of Congressman John Lewis.

May he rest in peace and may his important human rights work be continued everywhere in America till it’s complete. Listen to President Obama’s eulogy here.

Stay well everyone!

About Optimism

It is another Poetry Friday and there is continued tragedy in America beyond the Corona virus. Mary Lee is hosting and she has been using her blog, A Year of Reading, to support the #Blacklivesmatter, the family of George Floyd and all people of color who simply ask for the justice that white people enjoy every day. No one can be neutral. Thank you Mary Lee.

I wrote this to express my frustration.

WHAT A WHITE PERSON CAN DO FOR GEORGE FLOYD

Blind cops
broken justice
black man killed with a knee
four against one. We must speak up!
SPEAK UP! 

© Janice Scully 2020

I was going to post about nature, share a poem about the progression of flowers outside, but it seems inappropriate now. Maybe next week.

What does it take for people to get through tragedy?

On-line yesterday I listened to British playwright Simon Stephens talk about his play SEA WALL, a monologue staring actor Andrew Scott, that he shared this week on YouTube. In this short play an unthinkable family tragedy occurs. In a discussion afterward Stephens said that the only mature response to a terrible tragedy is strive to find optimism. I think that what he said is true, but with the leadership we have in America, racism, and the rampant lack of empathy for those who suffer, it optimism possible? But still we try to find a way forward.

I will end with a photo of my beautiful bleeding heart plant. Maybe there’s a little hope in it because it never quits. It keeps coming back every year. Sympathetic people, tree huggers, etc, those who try to help others are called bleeding hearts as if it’s a weakness, but these flowers seem to belie that with their beauty.

Thank you again, Mary Lee, for hosting.