A Comparative

This was my poem that I posted on February 13, while we were having our snowstorms.  Our bird feeder was covered and filled with snow and snow was building up below while snow on the branch lowered the feeder even more.  I felt bad for any birds thinking there might be some sustenance there in the storms.

No Drive-Thru

The drive thru is closed

Don't even try it

Don't even come out

And take a fly by it

It's filled up with snow

Right up to the brim

There's no seeds inside

The pickings are slim

If you had been smart

You would have flown south

Where there's plenty of food

To stuff in your mouth.

Instead you are here

Where everything's white

And nothing to eat

Not one little bite

Come back tomorrow

Try us again

I'll put in more seeds

We'll be open at ten.

by Donna JT Smith, 2/13/17

And this is the birdfeeder the next day....

and a few days later after some sunshine...

 I could not make good on my promise to open the diner at 10 o'clock...

 Closed for Renovations

I'm sorry dear birds

but the diner's shut down,

There must be another

Somewhere in this town

a place where a bird 

can get a cold seed

a place to perch feet up

and order some feed

Renovations are needed

so just keep on flying

There's no sense in circling

and calling and crying;

Until further notice, 

We're closed to the public;

We'll see you when snow

Is not a hot topic - 

(have you thought of trying

The seeds in the tropics?)

So ruffle those feathers

Make downy your vest

Find other provisions

While we do our best

To set up another

Fine Diner with view

Where everything's shiny

And spotless

and new.

(and yes, 

there will be 

tropical seeds 

offered, too).

 

©Donna JT Smith, 2/24/2017

And now 2 notices!

1.  I am sending out Peace Postcards, and if you have not gotten one (because I don't have your mailing address or have misplaced it) and would like one - I will send one to you.  Just email me your address here (this is my "junk" email address, for those who are saying, "hey, that's not what I thought her address was!")  So it won't get picked up by bots, and other lots, here it is in code:

D^J^T^S^1972+@-Y^A^H^O^O^.^C^O^M

Take out the ^+- and you have it!  I don't know how effective it is to do that, but it is fun!

 

The poem is 20 stanzas, and I have broken it up into its 20 "pieces" for sending out "peacemeal".  So if you would like a piece of peace, let me know asap and I will send it out likewise!  NEXT FRIDAY, March 3, I will assemble the whole poem here for Poetry Friday, and you will see where your piece fits in.

Now:

2.  Ed DeCaria is once again doing the maddest madness event... "Madness! Poetry brings the excitement of the NCAA March Madness tournament to the world of kids’ poetry. 64 poets from around the world participate in the event; together, these poets write 126 new kids’ poems in just four weeks: IT’S MADNESS!"

The challenge is to write a kid poem within 36 hours using an outrageous word they have been issued.  They are pitted against another poet, and voting ensues!  YOU get to vote, CLASSROOMS get to vote, AUTHLETES (the poets) get to vote, and a winner is named for that bout....and it goes on with other pairs of poets - um, Authletes - until there is one winner.  Go to Ed's site and read all about the Madness! Poetry tournament.  I am doubly excited, because I have been chosen as an Authlete to compete in this epic event!  This is a month-long competition, so visit OFTEN and vote OFTEN!  It starts March 4!

 

It's Poetry Friday and time for MORE POETRY!  

Visit the poetry offerings that our hostess, Karen at Karen Edmisten* has for us!

No Drive-thru

Well, there's no going out today.  The blizzard started yesterday afternoon and has gone through the night.  The winds aren't as bad yet as I thought they'd be.  It is gusty, but snow is able to cling to branches and bird feeders still.

The snow is over the dog's back where it is fresh, and where it is deeper from the last storm, she has to keep her nose up pretty high!  Fortunately we have a canvas Frisbee for her to fetch, but even that gets buried in the snow and is hard to find.

It is still snowing and will be continuing today into the afternoon sometime.  Then it says the winds will pick up.  It's hard to tell then whether it is snowing or not and the snow will be redistributed making drifts in spots perhaps already shoveled once or twice. 
It's a good day for soup and a few movies, coffee and a book, tea and a crumpet or two.  I'm substituting jello for the crumpet...but I'll be doing everything else.

My poem for today:

No Drive-Thru

The drive thru is closed

Don't even try it

Don't even come out

And take a fly by it

It's filled up with snow

Right up to the brim

There's no seeds inside

The pickings are slim

If you had been smart

You would have flown south

Where there's plenty of food

To stuff in your mouth.

Instead you are here

Where everything's white

And nothing to eat

Not one little bite

Come back tomorrow

Try us again

I'll put in more seeds

We'll be open at ten.

by Donna JT Smith, 2/13/17

No Rest for the Weary

There's a lot on my plate lately it seems, and rising very early has become the norm.  Remembering to breathe deeply and regularly has become something I feel I need to prompt myself to do.  Don't worry.  It sounds dire.  It is not.  I am just not feeling the best I've ever felt in my life, but I'm not going to discuss it here.  Just know that I'm not sleeping much, nor eating much.  Yesterday was my first solid food in 18 days - and that was a scrambled egg and some chicken with rice soup.  Yay.  Jello and Italian ice are getting tiresome!
I've kept up with my poetry most days, and am completing the World Peace Poetry Postcard exchange.  There were 20 people on my list to send to, and I doubled+ the number of cards to go out, duplicating postcards for bloggers who would like one.  If you would like a card, send me your address, and I will get one to you!
I broke, twisted and adapted the suggested rules for this exchange.  Instead of writing a poem a day, I took a couple of days and wrote a 20 stanza poem and broke it up into 20 pieces - one stanza on each card.  March 3 will be a total poem reveal day on my blog.   Instead of sending a card a day, I sent the World Peace Poetry exchange cards all at once, and will send the other cards out as requested.  So let me know where to send one!  You keep me breathing! (Not literally...don't panic!) LOL (This is literally...)!  I'm excited to share!

Breathe In

let those boulders
breathe out
drop, your shoulders
breathe in
relax, your grimace
breathe out
fade, your jawline
breathe in
ease, your fingers
breathe out
slack, your arms
breathe in
float, your eyes
breathe out
close, your mind
breathe in
rest, your heart
breathe out
open, your soul
breathe in
rejoice,
breathe out
breathe in
repeat

MEANWHILE - the blizzard is going to be starting around 9 am today for us and continuing through the evening on Monday.  Looks like it is shaping up nicely out there.  Where we are, when we get snowed in, we really get snowed in.  It's a mile of unplowed road to get to the slightly plowed main road to town.

Snow Globe Morning

These are my evenings: Ginger (the dog) lounging in a chair of her own, my husband watching tv with remote in hand, Noah (the cat) on his lap,and I in my chair beside them.
Sometimes the cat is in the empty chair, sometimes on my lap.  But when it is tv time, we are all together settled in, and life is good.
The windows afford a snowy view in storms, give the dog entertainment when squirrels, deer or turkeys cut through.  She gives warning to the cat that there is something to attend to or that she is protecting him from the UPS man or the snowplow.  And sometimes they both just sit and watch.
I guess this house lends itself to lots of watching.  It's a comfortable house.  And I will miss it when we move.  Our contractor tells us it is now going to be the middle of April when our house in Friendship is done or at least livable and finishable with us in it.
But I will miss this place and the memories it holds in its cedar logs, in each knot that stares at me with soulful eyes.  I will miss the feeling of being in a reversed snow globe in winter storms.  I will miss the privacy of a front yard where I can go outside in nightgown to stand and look at stars or take the dog out one more time.

It is getting close to the time though, that I must realign my thinking to the practical, to the possibilities, to the moving ahead-ness of life.  We are retired.  The new house is smaller.  It is WAY closer to the ocean - though we are close and on an island now, the renovated home is just across the street from the ocean and a mile to the beach.  It is something I've always dreamed of.  It is time to have a dream come true.  Isn't it funny how you can wonder if the dream is REALLY what you want?  Is the dream what you REALLY need?  Are dreams ever real or meant to be real?  So maybe that is not what I need to focus on.  It is more the moving ahead and being practical.  I am afraid though that the taxes will be too high and we will end up selling it anyway.  So then where are we?  Good question.  Another adventure.

Snowy Morning

Sifting flakes floating

White erasing evidence

Of other seasons

Silver Birch Poem

It's Poetry Friday, so that means today is all about poetry.
After your visit here, go check in on more poetry with Katie at The Logonauts.  She is hosting today.

High School graduation photo

Today I want to share my poem that yesterday was published online at Silver Birch Press. On January 30, I was searching around and thought I'd check and see if Silver Birch Press had a new call for submissions.  And - voila! - they did.  The deadline for submitting was January 31 - the next day!  I debated about 30 seconds and decided I was wasting time doing that. Fortunately, I usually see a short deadline as a motivator.

So I plunged on in and wrote a couple of really awful things that day.  Then at the end of the evening this one started to come together.  I had it mostly finished, but needed to get my Bio, writing description and pictures together.  On the deadline day, Jan. 31, I put the final edits and revisions to the poem, and sent it all off.

So it is here, an Etheree, "Rude Awakenings" at Silver Birch Press, a poem about ME, at 17.  I'd love it if you could comment on it here or there or both, if you don't have anything better to do with your time.  How was your "Year 17"?

Teen years were not always easy ones back in the 1960's, but we survived - and I'm kind of happy I didn't have to do them in the 2010's.

And now a happy haiku in the midst of our snowstorm.  I'm watching the slowly settling flakes mount up on pine and spruce branches, and then the wild wind comes along and swirls them off in, I would say small tornadoes, but they are pretty big ones today!
And suddenly there's a foot of fresh snow...time to shovel off the car.

Snow Squall

Serenely drifting

Nestling in spruce boughs, still till

Whistling whiteout whoosh!

by Donna JT Smith

Poetry Friday with Poetry Postcards

What a great shower of postcards this month!
Here's my stash!

All the cards together

Thanks for organizing this exchange extravaganza, Jone! 
We are definitely a devoted and reliable bunch...or even over reliable because I sent out 10 and got 11 in return!  10% return on my expenditure.  I'd say that was pretty good!
Here they are with the exception of Sylvia Vardell's, as it is a copyrighted one, and I wasn't sure if I should do a close up of the poem.

Joyce Ray

Peggy Parker Klostermann

Linda Mitchell

Tabatha Yeatts

Jone Rush MacCulloch

Ramona Behnke

Robyn Hood Black

Diane Mayr

Joy Acey

Kim Urband

What an awesome collection!  I am going to have to start a postcard scrapbook I guess, so I can keep them all safe and viewable.  My 10 postcards went out on the 23rd to my recipients, so they should be there now at last.  I wrote a different Haiku for each card, so that should count for a few poems a day in January!
I have been writing every day, whether or not it shows up on my blog.  Sometimes my poems are in comments on a blog, sometimes they just get filed for my collection.  I'm finally making a collection of poems that are not yet published.  My One Little Word this year is REACH, and I am trying to reach my goal of at least 365 new and unpublished poems for the year.  So far so good.

Here's a Haiku from a postcard I sent this month...let's count it as my poem for today!

Happy Poetry Friday!  Time to go read more poetry by clicking on links at Penny Parker Klosterman's place, A Penny and Her Jots.

Reach out to someone today - make it a nice day!

Rise and Shine

This first Thursday in February is centered on the word RISE, offered by Leigh Anne, who is hosting today's Spiritual Journey First Thursday.  Go to her blog His Turn to read more posts on RISE.

My thoughts:

I kept bringing the word Rise up in my thoughts this week.  It would literally - though really figuratively, I guess - rise up and take over my thinking.
It didn't rise well, though.  So many thoughts went through my head.

• Bread rises
• Sunrise
• Rise and shine
• All rise
• Rise to the occasion
• The rise and fall of the Roman Empire
• Rise and go - found so many times in the Bible
• Oh, and so many more....

Then I saw this video.  I was looking for a song I'd heard with Rise in it.  This wasn't it.  It was so inspirational though. I'd never heard it before.  The video is especially moving, and makes me want to be a better person - to rise above what tries to hold me down - to rise and shine.




Proverbs 31
15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

******************

My poem today, as I am writing at least a poem a day for this year:

RISE

Rise in winds on wings
Curved ever slightly cupping
Currents of freedom
*******************
RISE and SHINE for someone today!