April is Poetry #30

 The orange truck moves from block to block.  Sometimes, kids watch.  A cat slinks by.  During the next storm, we'll be glad of the branches trimmed to limits.  But sometimes, I want to tear down the signs that go up overnight: No Parking. Tree Service. Monday 8-5.


Last day; last haiku
A tree dies in sawdust smoke
Who will I tell now?

---Sara Lewis Holmes


Thank you to all my friends who wrote beside me, and to those who commented here.  You made April poetry.

April is Poetry: #28 and #29 (Citizen Science)

Oh, April is speeding by!  This weekend was gone in a flash, but that's because any time I have with the fabulous Loree Griffin Burns is always too short. Loree was in town for the USA Science and Engineering Fair, and I caught her presentation on Citizen Science.  After writing about scientists who track trash and scientists who investigate honeybees, Loree decided to write about something powerful and simple: how any human being with alert senses and a willing heart can participate in the grand adventure of scientific discovery.

Citizen Scientists
by Loree Griffin Burns
photographs by Ellen Harasimonwicz

From listening to frog calls to hunting for lost ladybugs, each citizen scientist is asked only to be an expert in their own local community, and to observe and share the data he or she collects.  It's a bit like Twitter science.  (I hope Loree won't object to that description!)  Just like Twitter has enabled millions of people to be on-the-spot reporters, observing and relaying what they see and hear, citizen science empowers kids, families, scout troops, classrooms, 4-H clubs, nearly anyone--- to take what they see and hear in the small square of their backyards and add that knowledge to the vast earth-wide pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Cool, huh?  You can read more about citizen science and Loree's fascinating path to writing the book here.

Loree and I also talked about haiku----since she knew I was writing some for Poetry Month--and because she believes science and haiku have a lot in common. By focusing on the very small and the very particular, we gain access to the profound.  She even recommended a poetry book to me that I can't wait to find: Seeds From a Birch Tree. For now, though, I'm paying attention only to what I heard and saw and learned from Loree today.



Shh! I'm listening
Spring peepers caught on iphone
shared sound grows louder


Red binoculars
Held breath, sharp eyes, open ears
One sky; many wings

Poetry Friday: A Love Song

This has been a week of singing.  My fledgling efforts to learn a single song have been alternately giddy and frustrating.  For one thing, I've discovered that I'm completely unused to singing to music.

Ha!  That's not really a joke.  To Mike's horror, I told him the accompanying chords he was so lovingly playing for me were a distraction.  I know. Awful.  But I've always sung with a crowd, and for me, what I listened to was them, their voices, so I wouldn't screech off-course.  I had no idea what to do when the only thing I could hear was a steady beat of chords.  What I really needed was to SEE how my voice was supposed to compete with lovingly entwine with that.

To help, my husband laid down a guitar track in Garage Band.  Now the measures click by and the sound waves pulse in and out. I can see it.  It's helping.

But it's also incorruptible. Tying to sing with music is thrilling in a way that trying to jump on a spinning carousel is fun.  I keep mis-timing my leaps and winding up in the dirt. But the lights! Those prancing steeds!  The hypnotizing spell of the notes pouring out and up and down and around and around...

Which brings me to the poem for today.  It's one that's I've shared on Poetry Friday before, back in 2009. But I love it for how it can gush without being mush. How everything spins and stays hyper-still at the same time. And it's so much about timing.  Love often is.

A Love Song by William Carlos Williams What have I to say to you When we shall meet? Yet— I lie here thinking of you. The stain of love Is upon the world. Yellow, yellow, yellow, It eats into the leaves, Smears with saffron The horned branches that lean Heavily Against a smooth purple sky. There is no light— Only a honey-thick stain That drips from leaf to leaf And limb to limb Spoiling the colours Of the whole world. I am alone. The weight of love Has buoyed me up Till my head Knocks against the sky. See me! My hair is dripping with nectar— Starlings carry it On their black wings. See, at last My arms and my hands Are lying idle. How can I tell If I shall ever love you again As I do now?

Listen to this poem read aloud.


Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabitha Yeatts.

P. S. The poetry haiku daisy-chaining project I alluded to yesterday? Stay tuned for it next week!