Another surprise marks the near end of the summer season. For last week's Poetry Friday, I wrote about Sweet Surprises. One of the surprises was a meet-up with my poetry friend, Linda Mitchell, who lives about 15 minutes away. While writing that post, I did forget that it was the end of the month and that the Poetry Sisters/#PoetryPals invited all to take a plunge into their August challenge, WHAT THE ________KNOWS poems. The idea was to write in the style of Jane Yolen's eight-line, rhyming poem, What the Bear Knows. This challenge was in honor of Jane Yolen's 400th book.
I wrote two drafts of different poems earlier during the month of August with the topic "What Does Baby Know?" Because we have been Grandma and Grandpa sitting on and off during August, I chose to write about our twenty-month granddaughter whom we just stopped calling baby. My first poem below is slightly different than the suggested form but I wanted to add an additional stanza.
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What does the baby know?
To be curious about all thingsTo find joy in life's flow
To figure out how to throw
What does the baby know?
Be determined to share her sweet grin
To busy herself while having fun
Until each splendid day is done.
©CVarsalona, Summer 2021
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In addition to the poems and digitized images above, I created a haiku to accompany my slice of life about the first birthday celebration we had for my son. This can be found at my blog post, A Rain-Drenched Gift. Earlier tonight, our Spiritual Journey Thursday group under the leadership of Karen Eastlund wrote to the topic, virtue. While I struggled to get started, I decided to write a goal-setting poem on the virtues I would like to work on the rest of this year. That can be found at my blog under SJT Virtue.
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As the stroke of midnight approaches, I turn my thoughts to Poetry Friday. The amazing activitist poet-author-teacher, Heidi Mordhorst, is hosting this week at her blog, my juicy little universe. Heidi has an amazing array of thoughts, poems, and challenges for us to peruse at her poetrypalooza. Join me there.
I am gathering poetic and artistic expressions in the form of image poems, inspirational quotes, digital inspirations, music, artwork, and any other option for my upcoming Nurturing Our Summer Souls Gallery. If interested contact me or send in your offerings related to the topic. I have a Twitter hashtag, #NurturingOurSummerSouls, set up for incoming digital. Please send it to @cvarsalona also.
