Haiku – Page 5 – SALT CITY VERSE

Two Haiku and Two Novels

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Today we are hosted by Carmela at Teaching Authors. Here. Stop by and see what she has for us today.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out more HERE.

I didn’t post last week. Things have been hectic but I’ve been reading and there are two novels I’d like to share them with you.

But first, an haiku.

The following greeted me in my in-box from Poets.org this week.

ONE FLOWER
by Jack Kerouac 1922-1969

One flower
   on the cliffside
Nodding at the canyon

This little verse captures a moment, and the beauty in it for me is the image of something small and beautiful, calm, simply there, and brave in the face of an abyss, here in the form of a canyon. It seemed a perfect beginning to this post as both novels are about courage. They are both written in prose.

The first is a fabulous middle grade novel entitled ONE SMALL HOP, by author Madelyn Rosenberg, published in 2021 by Scholastic Press.

The abyss in this novel, like the canyon in Kerouac’s haiku, is climate change. The main Character, a seventh grade boy named Ahab, and his friends live in a dark futuristic setting. The young characters in this novel their reality head on.

Most animals are extinct. The sea has risen, the water is toxic and children live inside most of the time. But when a lone male frog is discovered by one of Ahab’s friends, the kids focus on the possibility of saving the frog species. To do it, they must smuggle a frog across toxic terrain into Canada, where they have located a lone female frog. Will the kids introduce the frogs and create a new future?

I expected to find this book devoid of hope. Read it and I promise you will be uplifted by Rosenberg’s story and humor.

The other novel I read is HEARTS UNBROKEN, a YA novel by bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith. Like her main character Louise, She is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Louise sits on the canyon/ abyss of racism. She is working on the school newspaper. Her little brother, also Muskcogee, has been cast as the Tin Man in the school play, The Wizard of Oz, and a black girl, a talented singer, has been casted as Dorothy.

When the wrath of the parents in this mostly white school come down against the casting of the play, (Obviously, complained white parents, they got the parts only because they were minorities). Louise and her brother get caught up in the swirl of anger which leads to a grave threat of physical danger.

But Smith has crafted a page turner and we see believable conflict play out in several compelling story lines as truth battles misinformation and prejudice. Readers will see, and understand, through this story, the hatred all minorities are up against day after day in America.

One last haiku.

SUMMER READING

On a beach, at home,
or shadowed by deep green leaves,
stories fill the hush.

©Janice Scully 2022

Thank you, Carmela, for hosting.

Poetry Gifts

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Here. Stop by, she always has wonderful poetry to share.

And so do I today. Thank you Jone Rush MacCullough for organizing the postcard swap, to celebrate the New Year with poems. Here are two lovely gifts I received this week. This postcard was sent by Mary Lee:

On the back was this haiku:

each flame provides light
we illuminate this world
us all--together

Mary Lee Hahn

Maybe Mary Lee is referring to Poetry Friday bloggers. She could be. I’m so grateful to feel welcome and part of this group.

And from Linda Mitchell came a Christmas ornament inspired by one of Sara Teasdale’s poems:

There will Be Stars

There will be stars over the place forever;
Though the house we loved and the street
we loved are lost,
Every time the earth circles her orbit
On the night the autumn equinox is crossed,
Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of mid-night
Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep;
There will be stars over the place forever,
There will be stars forever, while we sleep.

by Sara Teasdale
Dark of the Moon (1926)

On the sky colored star-shaped ornament that Linda made is a haiku inspired by “There will be stars.”

stillness will be deep
stars forever while we sleep
circles on the night

Linda Mitchell

Linda also added another poem:

Between joy and sorrow,
all I need to do is look up
to know the stars are above you too.
Remember to look up.
Happy New Year!
2022

Linda Mitchell

I was so thrilled to get these in my mailbox and so grateful.

No matter what happens this year, there will be stars.

Stay well, Everyone. Thank you, Carol, for hosting Poetry Friday!

Beginning

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by artist and poet, Michelle Kogan, HERE. Stop by and check out what she has for us this week. Thank you Michelle for hosting!

First of all, the tragic school shooting has to be acknowledged. I’m praying for those families that are experiencing the unimaginable, for the children crying for their lost friends.

This week, on and off at my computer, I have been thinking about beginnings. After all, 2022 is about to begin and none too soon.

The calendar, of course, is totally empty. There is no choice but to arrive at January and see what will happen when we get there. Everything has a beginning. New Years Day is my favorite day of the year because it’s a beginning and I am always hopeful.

New buds on branches
Full moon rises in the sky
our calendar world. 

© Janice Scully 2021

I have been writing poems on the prompt “beginnings” for a submission to an on-line journal. Human beings are always beginning something, and maybe children have even more beginnings in their daily life. I don’t know but it seems they must. But adults have more begin agains.

I didn’t submit this poem. I revised it this morning and thought it might speak to teachers.

BEGINNER


Once, you didn’t know

how to read.

but you 

            learned words,

            turned pages.


One new word

led to another

            and soon you read

            sentences. 


Which led to reading 

your first book

and the next,

              which is how it is

              for everyone.


At the beginning 

is where everyone

              In the whole world
  
              begins. 

© Janice Scully 2021

I hope you find hope and joy in your week. Begin or begin again a few books.

Lastly, I have had good news this week. A short non-fiction essay I wrote from my childhood entitled SWIMMING TO PENNSYLVANIA, was published on line at RavensPerch.com here. I was thrilled. The piece began as a monologue for my playwriting group, but I turned it into an essay.

Thank you, Michelle, for hosting.

Remembering Diptheria

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Catherine HERE. Thank you, Catherine for hosting! Be sure to stop by to see what she has for us this week.

What is Poetry Friday? Find out more about it HERE.

Today’s Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis vaccines given together

The hesitancy surrounding the Corona Virus vaccine is discouraging as is the lack of understanding and respect towards our public health officials who are trying to get America well and out of our hospitals. No one wants to be in the ICU, but too many people end up there when they could have been vaccinated and out and about living their lives.

Trees wave in a breeze,
sunshine, blue sky, stars at night--
viewed from ICUs.
Nurses put in overtime.
Sick patients lay bewildered.

© Janice Scully 2021

So now is a good time to ponder the past.

In the October issue of Smithsonian Magazine is an article entitled “The Plague Among Children” by Dr. Perri Klass, who recently wrote a book entitled HOW SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH GAVE CHILDREN A FUTURE.

No one today remembers when Diphtheria was a plague in the United States. But in 1735, Noah Webster wrote, that from a town in New Hampshire, the disease “Gradually travelled southward, almost stripping the country of children . . . Many families lost three or four children–many lost all.”

Children quiet, hands still,
whole families playing no more--
Diphtheria struck.

© Janice Scully 2021

“Throat Distemper” as Diphtheria was called, created a thick crust in the throat of children and slowly suffocated them as parents watched.

Having seen this horror, one day in 1894, there was shouting and applause, hats tossed in the air at a convention of Doctors in Budapest. Dr. Roux had presented certain research findings: the discovery of an antitoxin that could save the lives of children with Diphtheria! It wasn’t a vaccine, but a treatment that saved a high percentage of children.

A vaccine was later developed that would stimulate in children antibody formation against the disease toxin and totally prevent the disease.

Diphtheria was essentially eradicated in America and those who created it were celebrated. Most doctors today have never seen a patient with diphtheria, but as of 2017, children in war-torn countries such as Yemen who are who not are getting preventive health care and vaccination, die from this disease.

The scientists who, through painstaking work, developed vaccines that prevent horrible suffering and death, need to be remembered. They need to be thanked. Gratitude for those to those who risked their own lives fighting disease is appropriate. Dr. Fauci lived through several epidemics and should be listened to.

Young people today have been educated by the pandemic. I hope they might be inspired by their experience to study science and public health. I know some will.

We eat sleep and work
as if the past never was--
Leaves fall then winter.

© Janice Scully 2021

Have a great day. Stay well. May everyone get vaccinated.

Spring Haiku and a Touch of History

Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted today at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Thank you, Jama for hosting! Stop by and see what she has in store for us!

Spring is coming to Central New York and below are two haiku inspired by this amazing season. I love the magic of early spring, who doesn’t? I love when trees come to life, before they are even full enough to cast shade. I think we can use all the beauty we can find, and these images are small bits.

And Another:

I rarely have enough flowers outside to cut and bring indoors, but this spring the daffodils seemed to explode. So I picked some. I love how they arrange themselves as they lean together in a glass.

Now for some history in the midst of National Poetry Month. As you might know, I live just outside of Syracuse, New York and have always been fascinated by “Salt City” history. During the 19th Century, Syracuse was the main suppler of salt for much of the United States. It supplied the Union Army during the Civil War. Commerce was aided, of course by the Erie Canal, which was funded, to a large extent by Syracuse Salt.

Though parts of the canal still exists outside the city, the canal seen here has been filled in to become Erie Boulevard. Many think it would have been amazing if that part of the canal still existed.

SALT CITY ON THE ERIE CANAL 
 
 A boat bumps up to a dock
 with the thud of ropes 
 

 and gritty canal water
 slaps the wooden sides and shakes
 

 sleeping passengers.
 They’ve arrived in Syracuse,
 

 at the bustling era 
 of Syracuse Salt,
 

 before the railroads took over,
 before midwest mines
 

 stole all their business,
 before the canal was filled in with dirt
 

 and Model T Fords replaced 
 canal boats. 

© Janice Scully 2021

Be sure to check out what Jama has for us and may spring bring at least a few peaceful moments to us all. Thank you, Jama.

ONE HAIKU ON MAKING PITA BREAD

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Thank you, Susan Bruck, for hosting here at Soul Blossom Living.

I’ve kept busy this week revising work. I’ve also been reading Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. I’ve never read them cover to cover. Twain writes characters with heart breaking humanity. For instance, Twain Huck is unable to be “good” and turn in Jim, an escaped slave, to authorities. He knows if he were a well bred boy and had good character, he would. Twain shows us through character, how slavery corrupted American society. Through his work, we can gain insight into how we became the America we are today.

For an adventure, I baked this week. I have always wanted to make pita bread, and I was surprisingly successful. I read the directions carefully and found it wasn’t that hard. They were crisp and tasty and I surprised my neighbor from Lebanon with some. I used the recipe in my old Fanny Farmer Baking Book, but there are many good recipes on line. Here’s one.

Here are the pita before their plunge into a 500 degree oven . . .

and after.

I wrote a haiku about what I learned about pita:

 Two to three minutes
 
 it takes to bake pita bread-

 same as the sun rise.  

©Janice Scully 2021

I hope you all are well. Have a good weekend.

Last Minute Haiku

Welcome to Poetry Friday, the coming of Spring edition. Heidi Mordhorst, at My Juicy Little Universe, is hosting HERE. Be sure to stop by to see what poems she is sharing this week.

Spring is coming to Central New York and everything seems imbued with new hope. They are lowering the age for vaccines and people are lining up. I don’t think it’s too wishful to believe that as time goes on more and more people everwhere will agree to take it.

Today, I waited for a LaMiPoFri to come to me as I stared out my living room window at the early spring colors, mostly brown, but some green. I noticed my husband left a ladder by the porch.

MARCH RITUAL

Wood ladder among

the hemlocks and melting snow–

Christmas lights come down.

©Janice Scully 2021

Then another was inspired by old dry leaves that never fell.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Dry crispy leaves shake

in spring — as xylems hoist sap

upward to new buds.

©Janice Scully 2021

THE BOTTICELLIAN TREES, by William Carlos Williams, provides images of trees changing in spring. Trees/ alphabet metaphor to me was unusual. It’s a lovely poem. Below is the beginning, and the rest HERE

THE BOTTICELLIAN TREES

The Alphabet of 
the trees

is fading in the
song of the leaves

the crossing
bars of the thin

letters that spelled
winter

and the cold
have been illuminated

with 
pointed green

by the rain and sun--

I hope everyone is well and enjoying the first days of spring, at least they are the first days in Central New York.

A small tree in my front yard

Welcome 2021!

It’s Poetry Friday and my thanks to Sylvia Vardell for hosting at POETRY FOR CHILDREN. There you will find a wonderful and useful sneak preview of 2021 poetry books for kids.

It’s been a long few days. But I was thrilled to receive some lovely New Year postcards, a yearly event on Poetry Friday. Thank you Jone Rush Macculloch for organizing this. The result is that I received some gorgeous photos adorned with joyful poetry .

The following card and haiku by Mary Lee Hahn filled me with hope, perfect for New Years.

recently minted

shiny coin of here and now

ready to be spent

Carol Varsalona’s card reads like an invitation:

Upon the lake

silverdrops dance

as a new year arises.

breath in winter’s freshness.

exhale earth’s frostbitten bite.

Evolve!

The haiku on Jone’s card held a haunting moon and a haiku in Irish (I think), translated into English on the back.

first full moon

makes poetry wishes

happy new year

This lovely bookmark created by Linda Mitchel had a poem on the back celebrating the year of the ox.

Here’s a haiku from me this week:

cardinal hunting

frozen seeds under a hedge–

crow on icy bough

My thoughts have been with the thousands of people who have been dying everyday with the Coronavirus. It breaks my heart. So much unnecessary suffering. God bless them and their families.

A Peaceful Lake for a Tumultuous Time

Today is Poetry Friday and Robyn Hood Black is hosting at Life on the Deckle Edge. Be sure to stop by to see what she has in store for us. Thank you, Robyn, for hosting! I hope everyone is healthy and safe.

When I feel agitated, as I have been this week by yet more over-the-top political chaos, it helps to go outside and find peace in nature. Yesterday my husband and I went to a favorite place called Green Lake, a “meromictic” lake that is always a deep blue-green. It is protected by trees and so is usually calm, with trees and sky reflected photographically in its surface. The lake is 195 feet deep, created by a glacier long ago in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

What is a meromictic lake?

Briefly, it is a lake of three layers that never mix. Compared to the top surface layer, the bottom layer has a low oxygen content, a high salt content, and little light. A middle layer separates the two extremes. Depending on the oxygen, light and salt content, different organisms survive in the the three layers.

Most lakes, the great majority, are “holomictic” meaning that its surface and deep waters mix at least once a year. Meromictic lakes don’t mix because they are deep, have steep sides, and because the bottom waters are heavier, with salt. The Black Sea is the largest meromictic lake in the world.

I was there on a perfect fall day. The brighter leaves have fallen from trees around the lake, replaced by brown and rust colors. Beautiful changes. Here’s a haiku I wrote to share today.

Meromictic lake--
like neighbors in a highrise
its waters find peace.

Our hike around the lake was peaceful as I hope our country will be, at least relative to recent times, soon.

Have a wonderful day and weekend. I hope you all find peace wherever you go.

Thanks again, Robyn Hood Black, for hosting!

Three Bird Haiku

Thank you, Linda Baie, for hosting Poetry Friday. Don’t forget to stop by TeacherDance and see what’s on Linda’s mind this week.

It’s the anxious time. States are trying to vote safely and struggling with the virus. I am trying to come up with small and more distant ways to acknowledge loved ones this holiday season. It’s just the way it is. We have to accept it.

For this post, I dusted off three bird haiku. This first one was chosen as one of the poems to be paired with an artist for the SYRACUSE POSTER PROJECT in 2013. Artist Carolyn Glavin, a student at Syracuse University at the time, illustrated it, which I thought was perfect. The photo doesn’t do the artist justice, but it’s a charming painting that I cherish.

cardinal, feathered
masked bandit on a snowy 
limb--all can see you

Here are two more haiku featuring birds:

the black white and red
woodpecker pecks a metal
pipe--he doesn't know.

a sudden robin
among the forsythia--
orange in yellow light

Thinking about birds this morning has taken my mind off the election for a short time. Out my window I see bright orange and yellow leaves which brightens an otherwise cloudy damp day.

To close, Happy Halloween 2020! I just read Lee Bennett Hopkin’s 1993 anthology RAGGED SHADOWS to celebrate. Inside these covers, as many teachers probably already know, are wonderfully eerie Halloween poems by legendary poets such as Karla Kuskin and Eileen Fisher and Valerie Worth.

Enjoy the weekend and be sure to stop by TeacherDance for more Poetry Friday inspiration with Linda Baie.