Silver Birch Express

It is Poetry Friday, and this post COULD have been done LAST Friday, but I had turkeys on my brain.  I'm calling it a fowl.  And I promise I will be better at getting to more poetry posters.  Seems like lately I'm being pulled in so many directions that it would be easier and more relaxing to go back to work!

I was so excited LAST Friday: I had THREE pieces on other sites.  Two were on Spark27.  I responded to two pieces supplied by other people.  One piece was a photo to which I responded with a poem, and the other was a written biographical piece to which I responded using my new watercolor skills.
The third was a poem accepted by Silver Birch Press, my second poem accepted for online publication with them!

1. Get Sparked - Percolated Date - photo was taken by Alisa Laska and was my "inspiration piece" for my poem. Go there to see her photo.
2. Get Sparked - Pankha-wala - written by Urmilla Khanna was my inspiration piece for my watercolor of their servant boy in the 1940's.  I used only black and browns to try for a sepia look.  This is not poetry, but I am thinking about using more watercolor to illustrate my poems and other written pieces.  Go there to read her story.

"Bahadur, the Servant Boy"

3. Silver Birch Press - "This Girl" -  This was an ekphrastic poem - the one I sent.  Remember the girl picking radishes?  I didn't send that one.   When I saw this painting (oh, not the one above...that's a boy), I was drawn to the hat and the grown up little girl look in her eyes. I was the quiet and responsible one that literally and figuratively wore a grown up hat.
In reading about this portrait, I found that this is actually the artist’s daughter who is wearing a hat that some of his older models had worn. So she is really a little girl in a grown up hat.
I threw off my “grown up” hat as I got older. My “lover’ for life – my forever husband – not only endures, but joins me in my second childhood!

“Jeune fille au chapeau fleuri”  by Kees van Dongen (1907-09

I hope that you can briefly visit to see what these are all about, and check out other poems offered on these two sites, but if you can't...
My Spark27 watercolor response to Urmilla's story is above, and here is "Percolated Date", below, my Spark27 written response to Alisa's photograph.
It would be so awesome if you would leave a comment over at "This Girl", "Percolated Date", "Bahadur, the Servant Boy" or here!

Percolated Date

When we first met
Routine was set
Our late night splurging
For pocket purging
Drive into town,
Was DD where it was
“Time to make the donuts” –
Their sweet
Misspelling –
Our donut baker/coffee maker
Who always remembered
Would counter slide
As we came inside
A coffee,
one milk
and two doughnuts.

Ah, coffee!
Grounds for
Percolating
A cuppa
For life!

A lifetime later,
Still coffee daters,
Our mid day jaunting
With cash for flaunting
Drive into town
Is SB, where it is
“Time to brew the coffee” –
Our sweet
“Spell” missing –
Our lattes done by barista son
Who always remembers
Before bidden
Counter ridden
A decaf,
one latte,
and no donuts –

Ah, coffee!
Grounds for
Brewing
Two mugs
For life!

by Donna JT Smith, for Spark 27

Now, please join other poetry fanatics at the Roundup at Tara's "A Teaching Life" where there's always great stuff all the time anyway!  I'm heading over later this morning!