Friday Fun ~ 15 Words or Less

Laura Purdie Salas is a blogger who presents a poetry challenge each week called "15 Words or Less." She posts an image as inspiration for her readers' poems.

That have to be 15 words.

Or less.  :)

The poems posted by her readers are encouraged to be first drafts--to avoid the quest for perfection and to just write.

Perfect.  I'm in. 

Yesterday, she posted a photo of a maple tree putting on its fall colors.  So pretty.

Here's mine.  I'm a revise as you go kinda girl so it's not exactly a first draft, but it's a close as I get. I limited myself to ten minutes.

Teachers, she suggests using her photo prompts and only allowing students two or three minutes.

Give it a try, why don't you?

PHOENIX TREE
in tree ablaze we see
fiery fall’s finish
winter’s wait
spring’s stirring
summer’s splendor

© 2017 Rebekah Hoeft

Thankful Thursday ~ Coffee Cup

I'm a morning person.  I love a quiet house and time to myself to read and write.

But coffee.

Coffee is not an option.

I wrote an ode about coffee, so strong are my affections for the bittersweet beverage.  It's posted over on Today's Little Ditty.  The March 2017 padlet is full of other odes, which I presume are all about things people are thankful for.

Not me.
I drink my coffee
bleary-eyed in bed
or on my couch.
In ugly pajamas.

Ode to My Coffee Cup
In half-light, readied, steaming, pink perfect cup,
I held you, warming my palms, a balm.
Relaxed morning sighs brought your waking scent;
then first soft sip, familiar to my ears--
our ritual ending in my bittersweet waking.
Why now, Coffee Cup, are you empty?  Coffee Cup,
It's because I am greedy and day is dawned;
it's time to get up.
 ©2017 Rebekah Hoeft 2017

Helen Frost challenged the Today's Little Ditty readers to write an ode using a form she described.  You should go check out the interview and poetry form.  It was a fun one to write.

Writer Wednesday ~ Fog Haiku

Inspired by Carl Sandburg's poem I posted about yesterday and the fog that we saw last week around my school, a haiku for you...

wisps of white obscure

what's far from sight; insulates;

an intimate world

© Rebekah Hoeft 2017

I love the feeling you get in fog--a private fantastical world that moves with you as you walk, the real world just outside of your foggy sphere.  

Teacher Tuesday ~ Fog

It's been delightfully foggy in the mornings near the school where I teach and the third and fourth graders are learning about fog, so what's a girl to do except make a slideshow for some of her favorite kids?

Fog ~ Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor

and city

on silent haunches                                                           © Doug Blair

and then

moves on.

You can view and use the poem in slideshow form here.

All images, excluding the cat image, were found on Pixabay and are free for commercial use.

"Fog" was written by Carl Sandburg and is in the public domain.

The cat picture belongs to Doug Blair and is used with his permission.

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Miscellany Monday ~ Happy Fall!

Autumn and I are buddies.

School's started and we're back in the swing of things.

Leaves are changing.

Cider and donuts are no longer a dream.

Air is crisping...or not if you live in Michigan and it's 100 degrees on the first days of fall and is muggysweatyslimy out and your air conditioner has been running nonstop for three days.  Come to think of it, the air is pretty crisp in here.

Also, did I mention leaves?!

My favorite part, today because offspring can decorate the van's antenna.  Not sure if it's a good thing for the antenna but who cares.  Pretty.

Maple leaf monolith, or stack o'leaves if you prefer.

Miscellany Monday ~ Who Wore It Best?

The woods--full of flora and fauna and...eyeballs.

So, my question for you today is:

Eyeballs.  Who wore them best--plant or mushroom?

The Eyeball Plant.  Very rare.  Scientific name:  eyeballitus planticus.  

The Eyeball Mushroom.  That's its scientific name, I'm sure.

Five for Friday ala Today's Little Ditty

Michelle Barnes, over at Today's Little Ditty, challenged her readers to write a five word poem on Friday about "peace" as a warm up to creating poems for the International Day of Peace.

I know.  It's Sunday.  Let's just pretend it's Friday, m'kay?

I've written a piece or ten about peace (Heh. See what I did there!?) or the feeling of peace or the lack of peace or wanting peace.  And actually, now that I'm thinking about peace pieces, two of those poems have been prompted by Michelle's challenges.  And looking back at those poems, they both had to do with the woods. 

"Consolation"?  Woods. 

"At Maybury"?  Woods.

The woods.  I am a fan.

The thing with five word poems is that they don't leave much room for wordiness.  Any room.  At all. And I'm a wordy girl with a struggle to express myself in small doses.  I did try during poetry month this year.  It gave me fits but I constrained myself to 30 days of tiny Twitter poems.  Hard.  But kinda fun in a stressful, word nerd way.

So for Michelle's challenge, I created a concrete-ish poem.  Other poets managed to write five words poems without the need to add a graphic element, so you really should go and check out the ones posted on her site.

One of my favorite Bible passages is Psalm 46, particularly verse ten:  "...be still, and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

The woods.

Being still.

Remembering God is big, Creation shouts His praise, and that sadness and mourning and the atrocities of this world, though inevitable, are not forever. 

Because Jesus.

The woods are my happy place and my peaceful place and the place I have the greatest chance of being still without much effort.  But when I consider the words from Psalm 46 and take a moment, pause, be still, it doesn't matter where I am.  Perfect peace doesn't have to wait for a perfect world.  Because the Word is powerful.

But the woods help.

Peace.

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