RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal IV

Well, it's done. One full year of outdoor journal tucked into chapters, for potential use when I finally start (finish?) writing God in the Yard. Here are some random fragments I rescued from the last pages and put into poem form.

I'm planning to make this the year of the journal. A different kind of journal, using Journaling as a Spiritual Practice to guide me. So hopefully I'll still have random poems to find and set here.


xxxxvii

Blueberry bushes
stripped, lean, beautiful
amber and crimson against
a bronze needle bed.


xxxxviii

How desperately
the dog next door
tells the world
that I am
here.


xxxxix

Moon shimmers, glassy blue
night; I lie under glistening
pine, watch house lights shine
over empty white yard while my
girl cuts cucumber crescents
on grain-gold kitchen counters.


xxxxx

Three cardinals volley
chirps, swing calls—
bush to hemlock to pine.


xxxxxi

Snow descends in dancing
sheets, sparkling cloth flung
out by a dressmaker’s hands.


xxxxxii

Trees black, struck against
faded cobalt sky and the sun
leaking tears, yellow, pink.


xxxxxiii

Furled leaves of wild
garlic mustard and, soon,
forsythia breakfasts!


xxxxxiv

Hemlocks sway, twigs
snap, slap the air—bold
tango at yard’s edge.


xxxxxv

Faintest tongues
of forsythia speak
cheer into the yard.


xxxxxvi

Forsythia triple-
leafed—fleur de lis
gracing the woods.


xxxxxvii

Red thorn berry
shriveled, deepened
to muted cranberry—
too-long suckled
by winter’s
urge.


xxxxxviii

Thorn-studded branch—
wan skeleton, brittle
against the landscape.


xxxxxix

Look around! Watch
the hemlocks swinging
hear the ‘thtick thtick’ of
little pinecones dropping
touch the pearl-blue sky
see the buds swelling
in hopes of spring.

Moss photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
Ann's Of Launching and Recovering
Mom2Six's Poetry
Erica's Morketiden
High Calling's The Poetry of Twitter
Joelle's Emptied

THANKS FOR THE HIGHLIGHT!
High Calling's Confetti Days

RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal III

'Tis the season to feel overwhelmed. Yet in the midst of it all, I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. This weekend I came to the end of my first outdoor journal and, indeed, almost to the end of sifting through my chronicles of the year of daily outdoor solitude. As this work is winding down, there are yet a few poems hiding, waiting. Here are a few I found on Saturday...

xxxiv

Maple afire ‘neath
sun’s last flames—
phoenix upon its nest.


xxxv

Maple, fine in yellow
dress, readies herself
for winter’s dance.


xxxvi

Wood-winged bushes
finally blush peach yellow,
succumb to wind’s cool fingers.

xxxvii

Scent
of death,
moldering;
how unexpectedly
lovely
the fragrance.

xxxviii

Fall sneaks into
the house, hiding on
my skin and hair.

xxxix

Moon’s full-orbed
body glows through
chintz of cloud.

xxxx

Dogwood
wears the finest
lace, woven from
day’s departure.


xxxxi

Hemlocks whisper,
“Hush, hush, hush,
the girl can hear us.”


xxxxii

Snow empties the sky
to a bare whiteness, but
it fills me, fills me.


xxxxiii

Little lemon tongues,
wagged off at last.


xxxxiv

Pine sways
softly and I
am at rest.


xxxxv

Hemlock branches
bounce like babies
in their swings.


xxxxvi

“Tip, tip, tip,” says the rain
to my sorrow. “Trust me, do.”
And the hemlocks in their
stillness say much the same.



RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal II
RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal I

Madonna and Child painting by Salvador Dali, photo by L.L. Barkat.

RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal II

As I said before, I want to preserve bits of the outdoor journal. So I salvage sentences, dress them up in line breaks and set them here.

i.

Pine is sprung
with a million tiny
liquid globes, set

to capture day's grey
light or splash an
unsuspecting passerby.


ii.

I did not
want
to leave the warmth
of the kitchen,
scent of
fresh-roasted granola
and evening's
potato curry.


iii.

Maples shake
shower the woods,
while pine barely
trembles, keeps
shivering pearls
to herself.


iv.

Sun:
mere
suggestion
beneath
white-blanket
sky.


v.

Spider
spun
while I
rested
did not
know.


vi.

Pine
royal-
waves
in faltering
sun, needles
wear
golden
resin.


vii.

Squirrel tail
wiggles, a weightless
question mark.


viii.

Dying dogwood: a rippled
set of leafless branches
yearning towards sky.


ix.

Mosaic of leaves
fans out from
canopy of wood-
winged bushes;
I feel at a loss
for words.


x.

Leaves
already golden
curled
at the tip, a small
whisper
that summer
will soon
depart.


xi.

I shall not
miss
the mosquitoes!


xiii.

Squirrel
purrs,
soft-trills.


xiv.

I take off
my glasses,
am privy to a
softer, brighter
wood, living
Impressionism.


xv.

New squirrel
in the woods,
black like a
velvet cat!


xvi.

Pine branches...
spokes in two directions,
lateral 'round trunk and
spinning 'cross knobbly
joints of each protusion—
wheels within wheels,
Ezekiel tree.


xvii.

Silken web undulates,
a lady's private wash
upon the wind.


xviii.

Lesser fauna
begin
the first
soft weeping,
shed summer's
joy
and substance.


xix.

Kale is
purpling,
bluing and
purpling.


xx.

Curled
brown
lace
edges
yellow
fern
fronds.


xxi.

Wild cowboy squirrels
buck through hemlocks;
cardinals shoot out, cry.


xxii.

Fall's dry fingers open
winter's white duvet,
shake and ready it.


xxiii.

Crickets
serenade,
auditory
softness.


xxiv.

Spider's suspension bridge:
one line, span supported
by a single silken cable.


xxv.

Puffs of pine needles
shimmy like fat grass
hula skirts.


xxvi.

Let the mosquito
land. Then you can
swat him.


xxvii.

Red berries on
thorn bush— bright
packages for birds.


xxviii.

Lone, fresh forsythia bud
spills October's secret:
too flirtatious with the sun!


xxix.

Pine flames
amber under Fall's
enroaching torch.


xxx.

Geese call overhead,
fading sound of
goodbye summer.


xxxi.

Yellow and red
splash against
my black umbrella.


xxxii.

Lightning flashes
and I write
of yellow leaves.


xxxiii.

Mischief pine has
decked the little
bush beside me with
a thousand threads
of bronze needle
tinsel, draped her
in surprise holiday.


I'm pleased to have found so many poems in one day. I realize, looking at all these next to each other, that I use the word soft too much. Which was no problem in the journal. But which I would need to attend to if I wanted to really work on poetry. However, I'm not your read-the-dictionary type. Suggestions?


Sunset photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.

POETRY FRIDAY (or thereabouts):
Little Sonia's To the Lake, to the Ribbon Red at LL's Green Inventions
Erica's Writer's Block

RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal

I've been culling my outdoor journal, dropping things into chapters as I go.

Every so once in a while I find something unusable that I want to keep. But where to keep it? And how? It seemed perhaps a good idea to keep a few little treasures here, as random acts of poetry. Discovered. Embraced.


I love
the fallen
golden
grasses—
straw reaching
sideways to
escape destiny.

-----


This is
life, this.
Beautiful life.


-----

Hemlocks
bow in turn,
do obeisance
to the house.

-----

White butterfly
barely whispers
against my arm,
hurries away
through quiet
arch of forsythia.

-----

Trees
wrestle
the air.

-----

Sun shines through
leaves— soft green
illumination.

-----

Light plays
upon the pine,
dips her in golden oil.

-----

I hold
three little
blueberries
which I will
hide inside
to ripen.

-----

Miniature
face of the baby
cardinal... tiny
promise of a
crest-to-be,
above his eyes
like a hat.


Snow Storm photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.