Friday, March 22, 2024

First Blossoms

 It has been off-and-on spring here.  Maybe it's the same with you. We've had 70 degrees and 25 degrees. We've had rain and sun, and the wind has been quite phenomenal.  A front came through yesterday and hit the house like a blast, and knocked over a recycling container. I was concerned for the guy who was taking down a tree at the end of our block. He as hanging from a giant crane, cutting branches from some old white pines. Fortunately he was done with that part of the job. 

Anyway, spring IS here and the early blossoms are nodding in the wind. Do the first bright flowers of spring give you a spark of delight? I tried to capture that feeling as I wrote this haiku.  




Holding my breath for

first flash of lightning - striking

yellow daffodils.

---draft Karen Eastlund




I was reading Diane Ackerman's poetry last night, and came across this lovely poem:

School Prayer Poem

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night


and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Diane Ackerman   (read entire poem HERE.)








The forsythia are blooming now also. New Jersey has a lovely long spring. Today it feels like winter, temperature now is 28, but spring will be triumphant!



Have a wonderful week, and thanks for visiting. Say Hi! in the comments!

Find the rest of the Poetry Friday group at Rose Cappelli's Imagine the Possibilities. She has some lovely bird poems for us today.  Thanks for hosting, Rose!  Click HERE to read her post.






7 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your forsythias and daffodils. We're a little behind you. "In the name of the sun and its mirrors" seems an excellent first line in Ackerman's poem. It reflects the "first flash of lightening" in your haiku.

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  2. I love Ackerman's writing & this poem is new to me - lovely that "the mansions of the stars", & your 'flash of lightning', Karen. Yes, March has been mercurial & I still haven't seen any color, but the green shoots are up & the trees are fuzzy - soon! Thanks for a spring post!

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  3. Oh my! Your forsythia is stunning! How does something so bright find enough energy in 28 degree weather to sustain its light? Beautiful!

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  4. Karen, what gorgeous flowers! They must be pretty hardy. We have a few crocuses, but they seem to have ... croaked. : /

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  5. Your post is so hopeful, Karen, just like spring! Thank you.

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  6. Gorgeous! Hope your Spring is lovely. We're in the between season seesaw here as well.

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  7. Karen, isn't that the way of March? cold, warm, windy, sunny, rainy! So many changes. I love your haiku. It conveys the hope of spring. I loved Ackerman's poem especially the title. What a prayer for school.

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