In Praise of Springtime Blooms

“Spring adds new life and new beauty to all that is.” 

-Jessica Harrelson 

Every spring, nature offers a gift to the world, an explosion of buds in an array of colors.  Even though there is a pandemic still raging and the sky is gray on many days, spring's new life signs are continuing to bloom and flourish.  I take a walk into my garden and my heart is lifted.  The hosta plants are a bright green and the peony bush is starting to bud. 

On the other side of the globe, my slicer friend, Terje Akke, is also admiring springtime blooms growing in her Estonian landscape.  She often shares photos from her native land and I add them to the galleries I create. The following blue flower spread is one of the pages from my upcoming new gallery, Nature Nurtures 2020.  I added a 15-words-or-less poem connecting our love of nature and photography.  Thank you, Terje for your beautiful photos and thoughts.

Nature is a constant source of comfort, the main character in my upcoming new gallery, Nature Nurtures 2020. 

Enjoy Vivaldi's Spring to further awaken your senses.

“The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

It's Slice of Life Tuesday and time to join Two Writing Teachers.

Joyful Poetry

One of my goals for the start of 2017 is to notice and wonder more about the ordinary, the commonplace, and the small things in life, seek joy, my #OneWord2017, on a daily basis, and share thoughts and feelings on positivity. By searching for joy, I hope to send it out into the world as a reminder that a "joyful heart is good medicine..." (Proverbs 17:22)

What better way to fill my heart with a joyful experience, than to write poetry with Poetry Friday friends and receive gifts of poetry! 

Photo: Laura P. Salas

Every Thursday, Laura Purdie Salas invites all to write alongside her in 15 Words or Less Poems. The photo she took while we were at NCTE in Atlanta was so intriguing and the invitation such "a low pressure way to wake up my poetry brain", as Laura says that I decided to put pen to paper. 

curved passageways

lead me toward

life's careening journey-

hither, thither, 

forward

©CV, 2017

The poem above connects to my 2017 journey with my one word, joy, as my guide. To continue my thinking on one little word, I hosted Spiritual Journey first Thursday, a community of writers that Irene Latham now leads. My topic was "One Word to Guide Our 2017 Journey". You can view my post and the writing of others who linked up here.

I continued writing poetry with PF friends under the hashtag #haikuforhealing created by Mary Lee Hahn and #commonplacemarvels designed by Catherine Flynn. 

 


I created a poetry postcard for Jone MacCulloch Rush's New Year Postcard Exchange. All cards have been sent out in the mail. I will post the original at the of this month because the recipients have not received their poetry postcards yet. You can view Images and tweets at the hashtag, #PostcardXchange, that Jone created for the project.

Next week, I will showcase the poetry postcards that I receive. Thank you Brenda Davis Harsham and Diane Mayr for their lovely postcards. I was so excited when I received them. the exchange is a real treat and a throwback to the days of postcard writing.

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." 

-Jalaluddin Rumi

May the love of poetry bring a joy to your winter months. Please visit my writing friend, Linda Baie's blog here to read her New Year greetings to the Poetry Friday community. Her link-up is already filling up with wonderful posts from many PF friends. Happy reading to all during this cold winter weekend. Note the logo Linda created complete with snow coming in from Linda's corner in Colorado.