Our Community Poem (Park and Recreation Month Challenge)

July is Park and Recreation Month, a time to be grateful for the service provided by parks. During the pandemic, parks became places of comfort to roam freely in the open air, congregate with others, and satisfy the urge to travel to local scenic places without worry. This month, the National Recreation And Park Association is partnering with renowned poet and bestselling author, Kwame Alexander, to create "a community poem - one poem compiled from many voices". They would like to hear "community's stories about what their local parks and recreation mean to them".

I decided to join in the fun and write a poem in appreciation for the service offered by my local park in Long Island where I lived prior to moving to Northern Virginia in mid-March. As one voice among many, I offer my thoughts for the poetry challenge fully described at Park and Recreation Month: Our Community Poem. From the many poems and inspirational thoughts offered, Kwame will craft an original community poem to be shared online at the end of the month. The challenge requires using the prompt, "Everything  around you is." Submissions are due by tomorrow, July 9, 2021.

Our Community Park

Everything around you is bathed in beauty.

Gentle morning light shines across majestic trees.

Visitors perambulate through expansive spaces.

A whiff of smoke scents picnic grounds.

Ducks wade across a diamond-studded lake, 

Glistening in the breeze while birds circle the sky.

As a place of comfort, you welcome travelers to your grounds to

Breathe in the scent of pine, find peace and solace, congregate

With family and friends, walk through scenic woods, and commune

With nature in the great outdoors. You gather untold stories. Discard

Thoughts hindering spiritual growth, and leave visitors refreshed. 

Everything around you is soon to blossom from a deep pandemic sleep.

©CV, 2021

While searching for inspirational thoughts, I found this quote by Toni Morrison that offers a new perspective for pondering: At some point in life, the world's beauty becomes enough. I paused. reflected, and wrote another poem using Marilyn Nelson's poem, Weir Farm, as a mentor text. In a short video that can be found here or on YouTube, Kwame Alexander suggested researching Marilyn's poem. Her line "Feel the welcome of small particulars," resonated with me as a self-care recipe for living. It suggests taking a closer look at life by observing the small details and savoring the moments, a notion particularly suited for today's return to a partial normalcy  way of life.  

Nature's Touch

Everything around you is nature-scented.

Step onto earth's welcoming paths.

Feel a closeness with life: 

the felled log, a home for small insects

the leaves strewn across the horse trail.

With a fresh look and perspective, see 

orange bittersweet and berries popping,

daylight shadows playing in the sun.

Find a detour along the trail.

Walk down a small slope to the lake

where a log becomes a bench.

Listen to the quiet laps lulling earth,

Let nature paint a world of tranquility

bringing back a sense of calm to life

Be at peace in a new normal world.

Everything around you is touched

by nature's ever-loving hands.

©CV, 2021

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

Please join me in celebrating our local parks. 

Tell your community's story about what your local parks and recreation mean to you. 

Be sure to submit your poem here by tomorrow, July 9, 2021.

If inclined, also post on social media.

Twitter: @NRPA_news, #OurParkAndRecStory, @kwamealexander. Instagram: @NRPA

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

I'm off to post at the Poetry Friday Roundup where teacher-poet-author, Margaret Simon, is hosting at Reflections on the Teche. Margaret shares her good news about her contributions to the new anthology, Bridge the Distance. Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance, An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems.

The Color of Kindness

Each Monday the educational Twitter community brings inspiration in the form of the hashtag #CelebrateMonday thanks to the leadership of Alyssa H. @ABEducational and Sean Gaillard @smgaillard. I began this week with thoughts on kindness and developed this theme through a digital inspiration and poety for National Poetry Month. Below, you will find my Buncee creation for this week's celebration of Earth Day 2021 with its call to action, #RestoreOurEarth. Spreading the seeks of kindness is important more than ever as hate crimes are 

It's Poetry Friday with our host, Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core. Catherine spotlights poet/children's author, Padma Venkatraman and shares her original poem based on Padma's challenge to write a "short poem dedicated to hope in defiance of hate". 

My micropoem in response to Padma's challenge:

Earth Day Message

This week, I also created another Buncee for Earth Day. You can find that here.

Wish I'd Been There

The spirit of Christmas 2020, as unusual as it was, still lingers in my heart. For the first time since I moved into my Long Island home, I did not place a Christmas tree in my living room. We closed on the house in Virginia during Christmas week so instead of an in-house tree, my small outdoor trees and the front porch were decorated for the season. In addition, we enjoyed the beauty of the magnificent Nassau County Christmas tree. But the smell of Christmas trees continued to make me pine for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

WRITING CHALLENGE

While pining for a whiff of an evergreen tree with its fragrant, balsamy smell, I came across the Poetry Sisters challenge for the last month of 2020. I remembered that I wanted to write a blog post on the theme, "Wish I'd Been There". Since there was no time in December, I decided to add it now after researching a special time in history. I turn back the clock to 1931 when the first New York City tree was "decorated with handmade garlands made from the tinfoil ends of blasting caps used in the excavation" of the site. 

In 1933, Rockefeller Center held the first lighting of the tree and made it an annual tradition.  

🌲

Wish I'd 

Been There

Take me 

back in time.

Smell of pine wafting

through city air. Men

huddled together. 

No social distancing,

nor masks needed.

Excavation debris,

backdrop for tree 

lacking festive lights.

Handshakes set the stage.

Holiday phenomenon born.

🟩🟩

©CVarsalona, 2021

🌲

For decades, my family hopped in our car and drove to New York City to be inspired by the Rockefeller Center tree. With a nostalgic wish for those days to return, I bring back the memories in verse. Virtual is the only way to do so since New York City still stings from a deadly pandemic.

Marek Rygielski

⭐

🌲 

Eight

decades later,

Rockefeller Center's tree 

proudly stands illuminated

in festive gold. Brilliant star topper,

accenting a glistening, holiday legend.

Voices from winged angels announce peace.

Wonders never cease, even in the most unusual of times.

🟩

🌲 Happy New Year to All!🌲

Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

Summer Evening Recollection

When the Poetry Sisters add a challenge to the Poetry Friday Roundup, it is fun to try out a new move. Today their theme is hindsight and the directions read: "Pick one of your old poems to revise and/or write a new poem in conversation with it...(any form)." 

Thinking of a recent trip to Jones Beach, I reflected on how the darkness of evening could immerse the shoreline in stardust.  Since no one can linger on the boardwalk past 8 pm, I could only imagine the effect. In a serendipitous moment,  I found a scratchings of a could be a poem from 2019:

reflecting on

nature holding court 

in its sanctuary 

of stillness becomes

an early writer's recollection

(I am not sure what I was thinking of by inserting the word early.)

The above thought moved me to write a last line, lit by fireflies, but then, I made another decision.  In my latest blog post, I photographed an empty bench and Rose Cappelli commented. "I especially loved the image of the empty boardwalk bench. I think that could be a photo that needs a poem." With that I decided to transform the poem and photo into an image poem illuminating what a starlit night might look like at the historic Jones Beach on Long Island.  You can see the finished product below.

I chose a poetic form, 15 words or less poem, that Laura Purdie Salas, one of the Poetry Sisters, has used many times to prompt writers to create.  This exercise made me wonder what I had in mind last year when I penned my original thoughts and tucked them in my notebook.  Does nature change our perception of an event after it has happened or make us understand its ever-present magic when reflecting?

Now, I am off to join Heidi Mordhorst, poet, teacher of little ones, and climate activist, who is the Poetry Friday Roundup host for this week.  She is sharing news of a California shoe strike that symbolized a unique protest against climate change and showcases an original poem, Back to School with memories of 2001.  The end of the year is going to be one filled with many different emotions and this is why I need to bring positivity into focus and add poems that bring a sense of tranquility to my busy days.

Note:

With summer around the globe estranged in many ways due to COVID-19, I am gathering a collection of image poems for my #EmbraceableSummer Gallery Collection.  If so inclined, join in the fun of creating image poems on the topic, Summer 2020 in the Midst of Quarantine Life. I am hosting Poetry Friday at my blog on September 4, 2020 where I will share creative work to showcase the beauty of summer even during trying times.  My image poem above is an example of what you might try if you are inclined to use digital art to convey your message.

Balancing My Days

The heat is oppressive today but a quick lunch outdoors on my patio brings a new sense of balance. Flowers are popping, spreading their own brand of sunshine while some long for a cool shower from the watering can or a quick rainstorm. I move from air-conditioned rooms to outdoor living, admiring the summer plants, and their vibrant colors.

Returning indoors, I find a new post and challenge, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, by Margaret Simon, in my email. It centers around a mesmerizing, long-ago photo from the Library of Congress' G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, titled "The bride" and invites us to write a small poem of 16 words or so.

Still'
  eyes.
Those hands.
This woman knows work.
She is there
gazing into the future
hoping.
Margaret G. Simon, found poem







I chose to write a golden shovel poem, The Young Bride. Look at the ending words of each line to see the strike line, gazing into the future, emerge.

For a moment while gazing,
my eyes wander into
a sea of endless thoughts in the 
desert days of my future.
©CVarsalona, 2020

Turning my thoughts back to a hot day in July when I married, I found a beautiful poem, To Be With One Another, by George Eliot and penned another golden shovel poem. This time, it is for my husband to celebrate another anniversary in our lives.

To Be With One Another

by George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls

than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen

each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,

to share with each other in all gladness,

to be one with each other in the

silent unspoken memories?

Using the strike line, silent unspoken memories, I wrote the following.

Now I turn my attention to my far-away friend, Ruth Hersey, who is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup from Haiti. I was excited to gift her with a digital journal, Finding Balance in Troubled Waters. May we all balance our days during our Quarantine Life. Stay safe. Love and Peace to all!

Instructions For My Digital Notebook

When Michelle Heidenrich Barnes invited Liz Steinglass to Today's Little Ditty, an intriguing ditty challenge evolved. One of Liz's favorite poems, "Instructions for the Field", in her new book, Soccerverse, became the mentor text for the project.  For the writing challenge, each writer was asked to write a poem giving instructions to an inanimate object about how to do its job.

Since I am designing several digital galleries of artistic expressions, I decided to write a poem about an interactive digital notebook. My digital notebook in Google Docs is a companion piece to my poetry journals. It is my sacred space to record thoughts, add images, and create digital inspirations as a risk taker of thought. It is the place where I ponder, reflect, and "find my voice". Because it is an important part of my writing life, I have created templates for other writers to hone their writing skills during professional development.

Stage 1: Create the poem after many drafts in my digital notebook. 

Stage 2: Create a digital inspiration, an image poem, to add a different perspective.  I decided to change the name of the title and add one of my nature photos as a signature logo.

Digital Tools Used: 
Google Docs-Interactive Digital Notebook, Blogger, FotoJet, PicMonkey, iPhone, iPhotos, Preview

Question:
Do I keep the simple design in pink or the swirled background digital inspiration with the signature logo to submit to the challenge?

✎

Not only will I offer this post and poem to Michelle Heidenrich Barnes' challenge at her May 2019 Padlet but add it to the Tuesday Slice of Life at Two Writing Teachers.

My other blogs on digital design that I referred to when writing this post:

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/05/digital-design.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/08/digital-poetry-in-classroom.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/08/digital-expressions.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2016/08/crafting-digital-media_18.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2016/09/play-think-write-digitally.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2017/04/digioetry-is.html

On a Spring Day: Poetry Friday Roundup

Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! I am hosting the last Poetry Friday community gathering of National Poetry Month. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and the earth is green. Let's celebrate springtime and poetryliscious poetry!

I live on the south shore of Long Island, a short distance from the beautiful south shore beach, my family's go-to place to visit in any season. There the ocean roars makes lapping sounds, and its boardwalk invites all to walk, reflect on nature, and be inspired. On Palm Sunday, my husband and I traveled to Long Beach, a dense fog settled on the beach, making it impossible to see the ocean. We have never seen such a thick fog settle on the beach in this way. It was an intriguing phenomenon of nature that inspired me to write. You can access my post and poem here. A couple of days later, I created a wordless, nature video and placed it on YouTube and on the Wonderopolis Wonder Ground. 

For days I continued to think about the foggy day. How could I share my collection of nature photographs? To remind me of my unique spring walk at the beach, I gathered an assortment of gray paint chips (gullwing gray, wish, silver satin, gray clouds, sweatshirt gray, anchor gray, overcoat) and drafted a paint-chip poem. 

        
Sweatshirt-Gray Day

Gray clouds hover

upon my silver wish.

Gullwings of satin-

gray dip and swish.

Silver haze coats

sweatshirted skies.
Gray clouds linger-
nature's surprise.

My heart flutters.
Gray gullwings fly.
Fog sits in majesty,
wonder of the sky.
©CV, 2019

INVITATION:

I invite you to view my wordless, music video, Into the Fog Seaside Walk, created with the Lomotif app. If interested, write a poem to accompany my video?  (Click below to view the video.)

I look forward to reading through all the offerings for this week's Poetry Friday Roundup! 

PLEASE NOTE:

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets' link-up moved to a new address.

Please see this week's Poetry Friday Roundup poetic offerings HERE.

(If you are trying to link-up, please click on the word HERE to add your blog post.)