Good Morning

Kauai sunrise from the Homesteads 2018

SUNRISE

sunrise
all yellow
and pink

bird cries
my eyes
flutter
and blink

cows
meander
down to
the stream

Not sure
I want
to wake
from this
dream.

Happy Good Friday.  I hope it is a poetry day for you.  I wrote this poem  when I looked out my window and saw the cows meandering over the hill.  The egrets had left their perch in the top of the mango tree to travel with them.  I know it is going to be a good day, even though there are predictions of rain this whole Easter weekend.  It did strike me how many of my poems start with a small observation--usually about the weather.  What is the weather like at your place?  Can you write a poem today about a small observation you make?  Have fun writing.

Right now an opportunity appears, make the best of it.

The House on the Hill

Good Night

Everything is quiet.
Everything is still.
Everyone is sleeping
at the house on the hill.

The chickens are resting.
They don't make a peep.
The cows in the pasture
are sound asleep.

The little boy is tucked
warm in his bed,
a cool pillow nestles
under his head.

Ocean waves lap
down at the shore.
The little boy's daddy
has started to snore.

The palm trees sway,
a coconut drops.
It hits the ground
with a dull thudding
PLOP!

But no one hears it
up on the hill
'cause they're all in bed
and all sleeping still.

The moon smiles down
from the sky above,
on the house on the hill
and the sleepers he loves.

   Some poems just insist on coming.  I woke up in the middle of last night and I could hear the quiet.  I'm excited about this poem because I can see the pictures I want to draw to go with it.  When you wake up in the middle of the night, what do you hear?  Can you write a poem about that?  Have fun writing your own poem.

Today is Poetry Friday, a day to have fun and celebrate poetry.  If you'd like to read more poetry posts and more great poetry Catherine is hosting the round up this week on her blog at https://readingtothecore.wordpress.com/   Thanks, Catherine for being a great host.

Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing... Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner

Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.  William Golding, Pincher Martin, chapter 6.

AH, SPRING!

Egrets take to their wing.
Shama trill and lilt notes ring.
The myna birds do their bird thing.

Cows in the pasture bray their moo.
I'm glad to be here, wish you were too.

The man on the corner
is washing his car
all the while singing
to a distant star.

The weather is better.
Yes, it is spring
and I can't think
of a more enjoyable thing.

Aaaaah, Spring. 

   What things do you notice with spring?  Mary Oliver has a line in her poem The Summer Day, "I don't know exactly what prayers is.  I do know how to pay attention."  Every time I pause to notice things around me, I wonder am I paying close enough attention.  I need to practice--a lot.  How do you practice paying attention?  What have you noticed today?  What have you learned today?  Can you try writing a poem about that?    Then try drawing a picture to go with your poem.  Today I was playing with digital drawing.  My picture was drawn on my computer using a program called Paper 53.  I need to learn more about the program, but for now I had fun playing.  I hope you find time to play today, too.  After all, it is spring.

   A shama is a local bird, only found on Kauai and O'ahu.  Also known as the White Rumped Thrush, it has a red-orange chest like a robin.  It is considered to by the most gifted song bird on our island. It was first introduced to Kauai from Malaysia in 1931 and released on O'ahu in 1940.

Nothing is so beautiful as spring-- Gerald Manley Hopkins