It's just after Valentine's Day... the Presidents have had their birthday cake, it's before St. Patrick's Day...Christmas is well behind us and Fourth of July well ahead of us.
And for your enjoyment - Because You Asked About the Line Between Poetry and Prose by Howard Nemerov narrated and explained here, text to scroll below it:
This is a day. But why not make it a celebration? Shake out the poems! Trim the poet-tree, make some hearty homemade Haiku, decorate a diamante, lift a lilting limerick, sing a sonnet solo, and snack on a soothing senryu or two. But whatever you do, link it here so we can join you in your February 19th Day Between Other Celebrations Celebration Day!
(and I'm sure someone out there must have a birthday, right?)
Half Way to Somewhere
Between the weathers
and the nights
Between the nevers
and the mights
Are the nows and
in-betweens
When only pines
display their greens
Before the springtime
and the showers
Before the summer
brings the flowers
After colors
of the autumn
After winter's
hit rock-bottom
Is the now of
in-between
with its ever
changing scene
when the snow
can turn to rain
and the rain
can freeze again
Between the sowing
And the harvest
Between the lightest
and the darkest
Where all and nothing
stops and stalls
As here we sit
between befalls.
©2016, Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved
Have a happy half-way to somewhere day! And don't forget to link your post! Mister Linky likes it when you remember!
Don't forget to visit the rest of the links displayed throughout the week.
And if you have more yearning to read poetry - head on over to Laura Shovan's to see and read poems about Found Items. The 18th image was a Magic Eraser. Today is day 19, and the image is a skull. Enjoy! Add to the fun! If you come up with a poem why not post it there today?
Hi Donna! Thanks for hosting and allowing me to post a wee bit early. I can't tell you how happy your poem for today makes me feel--it is so lilting and upbeat! I love it! And didn't we experience this earlier in the week?:
ReplyDeletechanging scene
when the snow
can turn to rain
and the rain
can freeze again
Oh, it has changed from bare brown to mound of white and back again a few times it seems! And from cold to warm to cold and round about again. It's a wonder we aren't all sick!
DeleteHey, Donna. Thank you for hosting! I'm posting the giant eraser (Day 18) for Poetry Friday -- won't get the Day 19 object and poems posted until tomorrow evening. Still, it's a party no matter what object we're writing about, so everyone's invited to check it out.
ReplyDeleteI loved that picture! I've not done 19 yet. Don't know if it will happen...I want to, so we'll see!
DeleteI absolutely loved this!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Faith! Nice to see you!
DeleteWhat a wonderful, positive poem! Thanks for hosting this week, Donna. Have a more than halfway-decent weekend. ;0)
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm aiming for a totally awesome weekend! Glad you could help celebrate!
DeleteI am doing a jig to your between-time celebration. Throw some confetti! It's poetry party time!
ReplyDeleteOooh! What a great idea - conclude with Clerihew confetti!
DeleteThanks for hosting, Donna. What a busy week you've had! I love your poem, and Nemerov's too. We've had such erratic weather lately, over 70 today, and snow coming Monday. "As here we sit
ReplyDeletebetween befalls." is exactly right.
Very up and down temps here lately... like it's trying to break out into spring, and then it gives in to winter again!
DeleteFirst, SO SORRY for the snafu, Donna; message was the link didn't link; tried again, and then there were two. Could you please remove one? I tried and couldn't....So sorry… SO HAPPY that you've gone all the way welcoming us, so wholeheartedly, to the halfway poetry party you opened early. Main(e)ly, you've made this a day to celebrate. "Between the nevers and the mights": what a universe you've given for exploring. God bless you; thanks!!!"Between the nevers and the mights": what a universe you've given for exploring. God bless you; thanks!!!
ReplyDeleteI got you all set! No problem. I'm glad you could come celebrate!
DeleteYes, it's definitely the time of in-betweens, half way not quite there yet. :) Like your upbeat poem and idea of making today a celebration!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the warm and welcoming post, and for hosting this week.
(My link will go live Friday at 6 a.m.)
I can hardly wait to take a peek in the morning. You always have a delicious treat!
DeleteThanks for hosting, Donna...I'm celebrating your celebration in-between celebrations! And also celebrating that ol' New England weather tradition, the January Thaw. Enjoy your weekend!
ReplyDeleteThis has been quite the winter. I guess we had our winter last year. I'm not going to complain! Happy to have January thaw all the way to spring!
DeleteI love the "now of the in-between" -it gives me hope, exactly what I need right now. Thanks for hosting! =)
ReplyDeleteSo glad you could join the party!
DeleteWhat a wonderful celebration of in-betweens, Donna! Love your poem– IMHO, you made it ALL the way to awesome. I'm celebrating celebrations at Today's Little Ditty too– Monday is World Thinking Day. Were you a Girl Scout? You strike me as the Girl Scout type. :)
ReplyDeleteHa! How could you tell? You know what just came to me when you asked that? I wrote a short essay once on why I wanted to go to Girl Scout Camp and won a 2 week overnight!
DeleteDonna, thank you for being the hostess this week. I have spent a record week tweeting and writing alongside you and it has been wonderful. Since I am working on the ISTELitChat for Sunday night I did not complete the next poem in Laura's challenge. Your poem is DELIGHTFUL (word of the day, right)? These lines resonated with me: Is the now of/in-between/with its ever/changing scene/when the snow/can turn to rain/and the rain/can freeze again.
ReplyDeleteThat is the #truth.
I've noticed that you've been tweeting up a storm! I'm not too adept at Twitter yet. Hope your chat goes well.
DeleteDonna! Thank you so much for hosting today. Like Bridget, I love the "now of the in-between"...and the spicy danceablity of the meter...and the shape of your poem!
ReplyDeleteTo celebrate the upcoming World Read-Aloud Day, TeachingAuthors will be riffing about, well, reading aloud.
My post is called Just Listen, and in it, fabulous author Eric Silverman reveals one way she learned how to write picture books.
And I've written a poem for Poetry Friday. It's called Don't Listen.
My post goes live on Friday morning:
http://www.teachingauthors.com/2016/02/just-listen.html
Don't Listen was great! Trying to get everywhere today and everywhere in-between!
Delete"Is the now of
ReplyDeleteIn-between"
What a fun poem to read...and so much darn truth. I adore how you capture this... Thank you for hosting this week with such joy. Happy Poetry Friday! xo
I never quite get the hang of Mr. Linky- seem to do it wrong every week! Anyway, I love how you linked all of these "betweens." Clever and true. I did a little linking myself this week, combining Poetry Friday with the Nonfiction Picture Book 10 for 10, which is also occurring today. http://carolwscorner.blogspot.com/2016/02/poetry-friday-meets-nonfiction-10-for-10.html
ReplyDeleteDonna, thank you for this reminder to celebrate every day! Here the temps are climbing into the 70s today, so that is one thing I will be celebrating! Thanks so much for hosting! xo
ReplyDeleteIt's 33 and sunny, so we are loving the heat! Brown oak leaves are peeking through the snow in places! It can make one giddy! 70's will happen in June for us...
DeleteDonna, Thanks so much for hosting. I love your poem. It's perfection from the title to all the in-betweens!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Penny! I have to get over to your site soon and see what your guests have today.
DeleteHi Donna! <3 your poem! It has a Phantom Tollbooth-y feeling to me :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
Oh, Tabatha, I meant to tell you I matched up Paul Simon's "She's Got Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" with my Day 17 Found Object image and poem "Waiting for the Right Foot".
Deletehttp://mainelywrite.blogspot.com/2016/02/found-object-day-17.html
Thank you for hosting today. I love your poem "Half Way to Somewhere" Sometimes it feels like life always happens in the nows and the in-betweens.
ReplyDeleteYes, life is very likely to be found exactly in the nows and the in-betweens!
DeleteDonna, wonderful poem! I love the rhythm and rhyming and celebration of in-between. Thanks for hosting this week!
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting! Have a great weekend, everyone!
ReplyDeleteDonna,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your lovely poem. I love the notion of in-between, particularly your opening lines between the nights and weathers. So much truth in this one!
Today I'm sharing a poem by Debora Greger entitled The Poetry of Bad Weather.
Thanks too for hosting!
I will have to get on over to your place shortly. I don't think I know that poem.... yet!
DeleteThanks for hosting.
ReplyDeleteMy selection is "In the Land of Words: new and selected poems" by Eloise Greenfield with illustrations by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.
Thank you for hosting today, Donna. I love Nemerov's poem, and yours, about "the nows and
ReplyDeletein-betweens." Here in CT we are definitely stuck in-between; everything is drab and gray. Thank goodness for the blue jays!
Today was beautiful sun - still only 33 degrees, but seemed warm!
DeleteThank you for sharing that video, Donna! And your poem is so lovely--with its ceaseless surging forward and then that wonderful ending!
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, and thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteOh. I left a comment yesterday, but it mustn't have posted. I thought it did... I love your up-beat poem. Such a perfect celebration of now. (And so much to celebrate!) Thank-you for making us take time to reflect and be grateful. And thank-you for hosting!
ReplyDeleteWe've had another mild winter, no snow, which I always find disappointing. I got you poetry postcard. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWe Seattleites would revise your final lines:
"Between the lightest
and the darkest
Where all and nothing
stops and stalls
As here we sit
between RAINfalls."
Have a wonderful weekend. Looking forward to some sun next week!
Here I come late on Saturday morning as usual, to say that kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkoookkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
ReplyDeletethere was something sticky on my K key, AND that this poem of yours, related to Nemerov's in quite a few ways, is one of the best things I've read in a while! It masquerades as a cute rhyming verse but carries a truth that we can never hear too often in too many forms--especially those of us who have a tendency to ill-attend the present. Thanks for this, and thank you for my poetry postcard, and thank you for hosting!
Both such beautiful poems.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding has always been that poetry has a rhyme, rhythm and shape, whereas straight prose can have no shape all all but presents poetic elements. Thus the reason you find prose in novels periodically, but they're not books full of poetry.