Day 20 NaPoWriMo - Sijo to Spring

Sijo to Spring

I slipped on my sandals to take the garbage out to the curb.
There, on the stoop, sat a fat bumblebee, powdered in pollen.
It groomed itself with spring, I too wanted a taste of yellow.

Day 13 NaPoWriMo - Fields of Tulips Refuse to Stop Blooming

Today's prompt instructed us to write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow. I wrote about tulips that will not stop blooming. Because we all need a little spring in our life, no matter what season.


Fields of Tulips Refuse to Stop Blooming

The tulips won’t close.
Their petals haven’t fallen
two months after blooming.
They collect dew and sun.
They hold the moon.
Tulips in salmon, lipstick,
velvet, cloud, butter yellows.
Their stems won’t droop,
their leaves won’t brown.

They won’t return to the earth
instead they are open like eyes,
watching the sky for a sign.
We don’t know how long they’ll last,
through the heat of summer
or the chill of autumn.
Through the seasons, their flowers
will hold so much sun and moon light,
they will be pregnant with sky.

The flowers will not die,
we need them in constant prime.
We need them to hold up the earth,
keep the sky from falling around us,
the fires from torching our ignorance.
We need them to keep watch
as the seas rise and threaten to drown us.
We need them to watch
for the next era of our passing,
witness our souls moving upwards.
Our guardians, they will not close, they watch.

Day 21 NaPoWriMo: Petals in Wax

I followed the prompt and decided to riff off of the Narcissus myth a little bit.


Petals in Wax

She watches her face in the mirror

stares at her body, nose, and eyes

and sees her cheeks turn to roses,

her tears form into spring bells,

and her lips kiss into the first tulips;

her arms grow into lilies and trumpets

her buttocks hydrangeas in bloom.

But her petals begin to pucker

So she presses herself into a book

all of her youth captured in

between wax and paper

now lain into a relic and flat

brown and wrinkled

all the time wasted

in the mirror she did not

seek out a love that will last.

Poetry Prompt Saturdays - Spring

Cherry blossoms in full bloom outside of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.
Wikipedia.org

My husband and I are in Washington DC this weekend and spring is in full swing here. We have seen magnolias in bloom and a few cherry trees, but not the famous cherry trees gifted from the Japanese Mayor of Tokyo City in 1912. Unfortunately, our long weekend didn’t fall on the Cherry Blossom Festival in March and we’ll miss the full blossoming of the cherries by just a week or so, but our weekend has been a success. It’s been a warm, sunny and historical filled trip.

Hyacinths and tulips are popping up out of the ground in DC and I actually got a sunburn. An actual sunburn! I never knew I would be so happy to actually have a sunburn. 

And why? 

It’s a sign. A sign that spring has finally come. Winter’s grip is loosening. The frosts are thawing and the lakes are breaking ice.

It’s been a long winter, full of negative degree weather, boilers breaking down, snow shovels and deicer. I’m done with it all, and I was never happier when the first couple of days of warm weather (high 40s) started coming around in Connecticut a couple of weeks ago.

And every year it's the same. When I finally realize that spring is wiggling its way in, I always smell it first. That wonderful earthy smell. The smell of long frozen dirt and leaves unthawing and sweetly rotting. It’s a smell that grabs you and whispers in your ear, “I’m back.” 

So on that note, I thought that our Saturday writing prompt should be in honor of spring.

Write poetry or prose, any form that you wish to choose on the following prompt.

What are the signs that tell you spring has arrived? Do they excite one particular sense? Taste, smell, touch, sight or sound, or all five?