, ,

Message on a Log

photo 2-5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message on a Log

Someone’s left a message here,
a swirling, curling missive, clear
in the flesh of this log.

They’ve stripped away the gnarled bark.
They’ve used a blade to leave their mark
in letters I can’t read.

Like hieroglyphs from ancient lands,
or characters by distant hands.
I wonder what it says.

Perhaps it tells where treasure lies.
Perhaps it warns that someone dies.
Or maybe all it says is:
                                     “I was here.”

 

They are probably not so good for the tree, but I do love the beautiful squiggles that beetle larvae leave on wood as they eat their way underneath the bark.

Happy Day 2 of National Poetry Month.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved.

/11 Comments/by
,

National Poetry Month–30 Days, 30 Treasures

photo 2-4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year I will be celebrating National Poetry Month by writing a poem a day about a “Backyard Treasure.” Every day I will go for a walk, take a picture of a treasure I find, and then, write a poem about it. These won’t be polished poems. They will be the day’s best draft.

Today’s poem is about the daffodils blooming in my yard.

 

Dear Daffodil

Thank you for raising
your head in the rain.
Thank you for sounding
your silent fanfare.
Thank you for daring
to wear your bright yellow bonnet
to this endless gathering of mourners.
Thank you for huddling
in clumps like ducklings
chirruping in chorus—
 “Soon we can swim!”
  “Soon we can swim!”
Thank you, dear daffodil,
for coming every spring.

 

Happy first day of National Poetry Month!

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/22 Comments/by

The Art Assignment #3

Have you seen John Green and Sarah Urist Green’s new video series The Art Assignment? During each episode Sarah interviews a working artist (or two). Sarah and John discuss the art and its precedents. Then the artist provides an assignment for anyone who’s interested. Here’s my response to the third assignment: The Intimate, Indispensable GIF. Despite Toyin Odutola‘s claims that a lazy 5 year-old could do the assignment, it took me three days and lots of help from my indispensable daughter.

animationreallyslow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My inability to use photoshop was frustrating but it was fun to work together and try something new.

 

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/12 Comments/by
,

Haiku Friday

I've been working on a haiku about these seedpods but I don't quite have it. Want to give it a try?

I’ve been working on a haiku about these seedpods but I don’t quite have it.
Want to give it a try?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every so often, I set aside a day, or a few, to write haiku. I love that they require me to slow down and attend to the world around me. Haiku are about our immediate experience of the physical world. They are different from so many other forms because they don’t generally use rhyme or metaphor or other poetic tools. The writer is not supposed to interpret the experience for the reader—just transport the reader, so the reader can have the experience too. In a way the writer is supposed to make herself invisible. But, not really. The writer is, of course, present in the moment she chooses to share and in the way she constructs the experience for the reader. I’m not even sure it’s quite correct to say haiku doesn’t use metaphor—sometimes the metaphor seems to lie in the unstated connection between the two parts of the poem and sometimes the whole poem feels like a metaphor.

My very favorite aspect of haiku is the inference. The reader must infer the meaning, which the writer does not state. It is the unsaid that I find endlessly intriguing.

 
Today I thought I would share some of haiku of mine that have been published recently. Another nice thing about writing haiku is that there are a handful of journals that accept and publish them regularly, so haiku poets have opportunities to share. I highly recommend all of these publications for reading and for submitting. The Heron’s Nest and A Hundred Gourds are available on-line. Frogpond and Acorn are gorgeous, paper journals.

 

icicles…
keeping time
until the end

The Heron’s Nest, Vol. XVI: No. 1, March 2014

 

snow field
the earth marked
by fallen angels

Frogpond, Vol. 36:3, Autumn 2013
Third Place, Harold G Henderson Memorial Award, Haiku Society of America

 

measuring
  the length
    of my solitude
inchworm

A Hundred Gourds, Vol 3:2, March 2014

 

sending ripples
through the clouds…
water strider

Acorn, Fall 2013

 

 

For more Poetry Friday, visit the rogue anthropologist!

/13 Comments/by
,

Paper Dolls

photo-231

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Girl in the Catalog Speaks

Please, I beg you,
find some scissors
and set me free.
Release me
from this empty space,
this frozen moment.
Help me put down
the pink paisley cinch sack
I’ve had in my hand since
long before the season.
Let me have my own
edges. Cut carefully
around my limbs,
my fingers, the strands
of my fan-blown hair.
Once I’m out, please
don’t let me flop.
Give me some cardboard
backbone—a bit of box
will do. Paste it on.
Snip my feet. Slip a tab
into the slots and help me stand
on my own. I wouldn’t mind
some different clothes—
long jean shorts in lime or peach
a ruched knit tank in ultramarine,
or maybe a pine green taffeta skort.
I think you’ll find
they all come in my size.
How I long to drive around
in a shoe box of friends
from other pages,
other companies.
Perhaps we could pose
for a picnic on the lawn,
but please, I beg you,
don’t leave me
in the rain.

 

Lately I’ve been reading blog posts and internet essays about the tradition of making paper dolls. Girls (and boys?) used to wait for the new Sears catalog to arrive knowing that meant it was safe to cut up the old one. The girls would cut out figures, clothes, furniture, and household objects. They would paste them to cardboard and fold the bottom edge back so the pieces could stand. Some girls made box houses for their dolls. Others made cars out of shoeboxes. After the catalogs had been cut to shreds, they went to the outhouse for their third and final use.

For more Poetry Friday visit Anastasia Suen at Poet!Poet!

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/23 Comments/by
,

A Sonnet for My Valentine

IMG_4038

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Love

Should I compare our love to this full moon?
No way! Each month its light takes off alone.
A rose? The petals swoon and fray too soon.
Our aging love is like an old, gray stone.
We share this ever-present weight, too great
To move, too there to notice much, unless
You stumble into it. Your toe’s poor fate
Reminds you to regard what you possess.
The endless sometime flow of rain and tears,
Unfinished kids, dishes, bills, day and night,
The moments snatched from sleep for all these years,
Has rubbed our stone until it’s smooth and right.
Who cares that others don’t discern its shine.
This old, gray stone is only yours and mine.

 

So many songs, stories, and poems are about the excitement and/or despair of early love. What about lasting love? Does anyone have a favorite text about love that stands the test of time?

 

For more Poetry Friday visit Linda at TeacherDance.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved

/39 Comments/by
,

Song and Dance

photo-227

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Song and Dance

 
Dear Miss,
she seems to say
with her gentle mews.
Dear Miss,
she croons,
as she slips through my legs,
skimming my ankles
with her silken fur.
Dear Miss,
she mews again,
I’ll happily sing and dance
for just a small turn
of the doorknob.

 

This is our beautiful cat, Scout. I don’t really think the name suits her, but we named her after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird before she joined our family. She’s an indoor cat, but she thinks she wants to be a hunter. We love imagining what Scout might say if she could talk. Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it: Write a poem from an animal’s point of view. What would your pet (or some other animal) say if s/he could speak? And, how would s/he say it?

For more Poetry Friday, visit Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/25 Comments/by

Snow!

photo-226

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the Snow

Under the snow the grass lies smooth and even.
Under the snow the road returns to the land.
Under the snow the bushes sit like stepping stones,
the trees sparkle like rock candy crystals stuck to a string.
Under the snow the picnic table rises like a baking cake,
the chairs with criss-cross bottoms offer waffles to the sky.
Under the snow the barbecue puts on a peaked stocking hat,
the flowerpots huddle like big-bellied gnomes.
Under the snow the swing wears a gleaming smile.
Under the snow our footprints disappear.

 

We finally got some real snow this week–enough to miss school and go sledding! My favorite thing about snow is the way it completely transforms everything.

The repetition in this poem is an example of anaphora, which was Miss Rumphius’ challenge this week.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Tara at A Teaching Life.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/18 Comments/by

Sunshine

photo 1-3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clementines

Mama packs them
in my lunch
all winter long.
They burn my eyes
after so many days
of dull gray clouds.
They flare
and singe my fingers
when I tear away their skins.
In my mouth
they explode!
refreshing me with promises
of summer.

 

Michelle Barnes at Today’s Little Ditty sent me some sunshine this week. She nominated me for a Sunshine Award. Thanks, Michelle! I needed that. The skies have been dreadfully gray. I hope no one will mind that I decided to pass along the sunshine with the poem above.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Keri at Keri Recommends.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

/21 Comments/by

Winter

photo-221

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter

The sun comes late or not at all.
The clouds lie thick and low.
Bony fingered branches crack
in winds that sing of woe.

The earth is sealed with ruthless ice.
The daisies hide below.
The most that we can hope for is
a blossoming of snow.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

 

Monday I visited Miss Rumphius and noticed that on Thanksgiving she shared Emily Dickinson’s poem “Autumn.” One look at that and I was tangling with winter. It seemed the perfect subject for a week with frigid temperatures. In St. Louis, my hometown, they had a foot of snow but here in Washington, all we had were cold winds, horrid gray skies, and poetry.

For more Poetry Friday, visit Donna at Mainely Write.

/23 Comments/by