a little spring poetree

March 22, 2024March 21, 2024 ~ jama ~ 40 Comments

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

It’s spring, it’s spring! At last, at last!

We must celebrate, of course.

The robins have returned from their winter vacations and our daffodils are showing off their cheery yellow bonnets. But to me the most dramatic part of the spring show is when the dogwoods bloom and the trees green up. One day, tiny little buds on bare branches, and the next, a rejuvenating leafy canopy. Somehow, this sudden transformation always takes me by surprise. No matter what kind of winter we’ve had, the leaves always come back, truly nature’s gift of hope.

Today I’m happy to share three poems from Allie Esiri’s anthology, A Poem for Every Spring Day (Macmillan Children’s Books, 2021). John Agard’s charming poem features a tree’s point of view, Larkin pauses to reflect on spring’s promise, and the way Nesbit whimsically personifies different tree species is sheer delight. They’re all a welcome balm after the cold, a good way to celebrate this season of growth and renewal.

*“Happy Tree” by Mary Price (acrylic on canvas, 2020).*

A DATE WITH SPRING
by John Agard

Got a date with spring
Got to look me best.
Of all the trees
I’ll be the smartest dressed.

Perfumed breeze
behind me ear.
Pollen accessories
all in place.

Raindrop moisturizer
for me face,
Sunlight tints
to spruce up the hair.

What’s the good of being a tree
if you can’t flaunt your beauty?

Winter, I was naked
Exposed as can be.
Me wardrobe took off
with the wind.

Life was a frosty slumber.
Now, spring here I come.
Can’t wait to slip in
to me little green number.

~ Copyright © 1983 by John Agard.

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all we are saying is give peeps a chance

March 8, 2024April 4, 2024 ~ jama ~ 40 Comments

*“Peeps” by Leigh-Anne Eagerton (oil on panel).*

PEEPS 
by Judy Fort Brenneman

If Peeps are in the store, can Spring be far behind?
My hand, reverent, traces the crackle of cellophane
That shelters conjoined confections.
Soft shapes in bright colors—
Yellow, pink, and this year, blue—
(Yellow is the best, anyone could tell you.)
Colors of spring more true than the purple crocus
Frozen in its bulb under the snowbank at the end of the drive.

My hand plucks them like seed packets.
One, two, three four five.
Odd numbers are best—no one notices
If you eat the odd one before you get home.

The register beeps the red total.
The clerk says leave them out overnight
In the open, without cellophane;
That's the best way, she smiles.
I smile back; who am I to tell her she's wrong?
Naked Peeps are soon as hard and dry as sun-baked dirt
At the end of August.

My five small packs nestle in the sack
Like boxes of tulips minus the stems.
My thumb punches through the cellophane of the one on top—
Better than any groundhog's shadow,
More pure than the first robin's song,
A promise of pollen shakes loose with sugar spilled on my lap.
I pull the yellow blossoms apart,
And eat Spring.

~ Copyright © 2023 Judy Fort Brenneman as posted at Your Daily Poem.

The thing about Peeps is that you either love ’em or hate ’em. Kind of like candy corn at Halloween, Peeps are undoubtedly divisive.

Made of sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, food coloring, carnauba wax and a preservative, Peeps aren’t exactly the healthiest treat. Yet for many of us, it’s all about the nostalgia — memories of childhood Easter baskets, debating over which color or shape is best, whether to eat them fresh or stale.

What can I say? I’ve always liked marshmallow: chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies, mini mallows in cocoa, s’mores. ‘Nuff (or should I say ‘fluff’) said. 😀

Yes, eating straight sugar is bad, but once a year, I don’t mind throwing caution to the wind. Note I said “once a year,” because those orange Halloween pumpkin Peeps or green Christmas tree ones are just wrong. Everyone knows Halloween = chocolate, and Christmas = cookies. Right? Some things, after all, are sacred.

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poetry friday roundup is here!

May 2, 2019 ~ jama ~ 37 Comments

“You are as welcome as the flowers in May.” ~ Charles Macklin

*Did you know May is National Strawberry Month? Please help yourself to some berries and a ginger shortbread cookie.*

Hello and Happy May! Welcome to Poetry Friday at Alphabet Soup.

It’s a new month — the month of flowers, buzzing bees, birds building nests, and nature-loving free spirits dancing around a maypole with gay abandon (are you one of them)? 😀

I loved May Day as a child. We wore muumuu and lei to school, and in fifth grade, we learned the maypole dance for the school program. So fun to see all those colored streamers weave together.

Here are two short poems in celebration of this lovely month. Hope your days ahead are full of joy with lots of time to savor the blossoming beauty.

*“Vilma Picking Lilacs” by Tavik František Šimon (1910)*

MAY NIGHT
by Sara Teasdale

The spring is fresh and fearless
and every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing,
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

FROM THE BOOK OF TIME
by Mary Oliver

I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it’s spring,

and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.

And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down onto the grass.

I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.

And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.

Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.

~ from The Leaf and the Cloud (De Capo Press, 2001)

Now, please leave your links with the dashing Mr Linky below. Enjoy all the poetic goodness being shared around the blogosphere this week, and as Kahlil Gibran once said, “Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.”

💚 A SUITCASE OF SEAWEED & MORE GIVEAWAY WINNER! 💜

Thanks to all for your heartfelt comments and condolences about my dad’s passing. I enjoyed hearing about how your parents met, as well as your thoughts about race relations in our country.

Just so happens there were four Michelles among all the beautiful and brilliant commenters. Though M. Random Integer Generator was starry-eyed over all of them, he managed (with great difficulty) to select just one Michelle to win Janet’s book. And she is:

🌺 MICHELLE TURNER OF GOURMANDISTAN! 🌷

🎉 CONGRATULATIONS, MICHELLE! 🎈

Please send along your snail mail address so we can get the book out to you lickety split!

an e.e. cummings poem for april

April 20, 2018August 24, 2025 ~ jama ~ 63 Comments

“Then it was spring; and in spring anything may happen. Absolutely anything.” ~ E. E. Cummings

*“Bouquet in White Vase,” by E. E. Cummings (1947)*

Spring, April, Poetry Month: a welcome trifecta of hope, beauty and possibilities. It’s a time of birdsong, thoughtful reading, invention, and above all, celebration. We celebrate and marvel at words, which, according to Wordsworth, can capture “the breathings of your heart.”

Nobody does Spring better than my favorite poet E. E. Cummings. It’s fitting that my first encounter with Cummings was his iconic “in-Just/spring” — I remember meeting the “little lame balloonman” in high school and I haven’t been the same since.

In college, his “sweet spring” was on continuous loop as I read, read, read, wrote, wrote, wrote, and learned how to learn:

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

As a young teacher, I shared “Spring is like a perhaps hand” and “O sweet spontaneous” with my students. We discussed the inherent musicality of language, with Cummings the prime example of a poet who reveled in experimentation and innovation. Words are living, breathing entities, after all — why not make them sing?

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