As we stand on the brink of summer, I find myself looking back at the spring season, my favourite. Rejuvenating spring energy bursts forth every year, both in Nature and in ourselves, don’t you find? Here in my neighbourhood, spring has been slow, cold and dry. Excellent conditions for a leisurely-paced arrival of spring bulbs and ephemerals, not to mention the Ottawa Tulip Festival. Not to mention my own energy, which this year returned quietly and steadily, after a very long winter.
True to form, spring sped up this past week, bringing temps of 30C+ and causing many plants to also hurry their way through the flowering stage. I am determined to stay with my quiet, steady pace, enjoying the turnover in the garden from daffodils to tulips and alliums, and now peonies, irises and Amsonia (Blue Star.) How about you? Have you tuned in to the pace of Nature, taking some cues from her and stepping up the pace a little lately? Or are you trying to keep to something a little slower?
Here’s a poem to encourage us to do just that.
WE ONLY HAVE SO MANY SPRINGS
Savour sunlight slowly warming favour raindrops over snowflakes
count the queen bees’ sleepy bumbles mount a bike.
Breathe in hyacinths sweet as popsicles weave a dandelion necklace
Last week marked the official change from winter to spring. Really?
Lee Ann’s back yard, March 20
Well, here’s my poetic response to that:
RELUCTANT SPRING
Red flash within tangled branches a cardinal’s quest for mate or meal. Bright hope though buds still clench the brambly twigs tightly in this reluctant spring.
And in case your neighbourhood looks the same as mine, I thought I’d dedicate this post to all things gardening, to support you getting in the mood for Spring, whenever she decides to show up.
I have three things for you. First, to help you with planning for this year’s gardening season, an article I wrote for the Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton (MGOC): “Five Things I Wish I Had Been Told as a Beginning Gardener.” May this save you many years of trial and error in your garden!
And since we may still be restricted from actually digging in the dirt for a while longer, why not read a great book? One of my top picks this winter is all about trees – those magnificent beings we share the planet with and about which scientists have recently learned some fascinating things. Like: trees communicate with each other, underground via networks of fungi and above ground via chemicals released through leaves. Sound intriguing? Here’s my book review of Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World. (Note you can sign up for free to receive the MGOC Trowel Talk newsletter and get monthly gems of gardening advice and knowledge from Master Gardeners!)
And finally, here’s a poetic** gift for you to savour as the wind blows and the spring snow falls:
Lee Ann
**This poem is a “haiku”: an ancient Japanese form of poetry, three lines long, where the first and last lines contain seven syllables and the middle line three syllables. Now you know!
Riffing is what jazz musicians do when they go “off script” and play variations on the main musical thread. Or what improv performers do to build on an original skit by taking it in a new direction.
Poets riff too, when creating what’s called ekphrastic poetry. The word comes from the Greek and means “to speak out” or “to show in full.”
In an ekphrastic poem, the poet reflects on a piece of visual art, maybe a painting or sculpture, and then responds to it by writing.
You, my faithful followers, will know that this is one of my favourite types of poetry, and that I often find inspiration from photos I’ve taken.
I recently attended a workshop led by the lovely Lorette Luzajic at The Ekphrastic Review. Over two hours, Lorette showed us five different pieces of art – paintings, sculpture and even a hawk mask from the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia. Each time we had 10 minutes to write in response.
I know! I can’t think of anything more fun either!
One of the paintings was “Birthday” by Marc Chagall (1887-1985). You can see what it looks like here. Lorette explained that Marc Chagall was propelled as an artist by two subjects: love, and his Russian-Jewish cultural background. Everything he created was a celebration of these themes. When he painted “Birthday” in 1915, Chagall had just been granted permission to marry the love of his life, Bella Rosenfeld, from her parents. The couple is shown levitating with joy.
Here is my riff on love and culture:
FOR LOVE
Mary Margaret McSorley, who insisted her middle name was Marguerite also insisted, in 1923 she’d marry Stephen Granger for love.
Stephen’s real name was István Gerencsér his Hungarian-ness only one thing he had to hide in 1920s Buffalo – the bigger secret was his divorce rendering him in the state of New York unable to marry again pending a petition to a judge which he never sought.
Instead, they drove to Batavia to marry in secret and then returned to Buffalo the marriage kept secret so Mary could continue to work at the telephone office something forbidden to married women.
My grandparents’ forbidden love defiant love a foundational love in my family.
For me, there’s nothing like the delight I feel when my imagination takes off, sparked by another kind of art altogether!
You can try this yourself, why not? Reflect a bit on a favourite piece of art, maybe research something about the artist’s inspiration or theme then ask yourself what you have to say about this particular theme. What does this piece reminds you of? What do feel when you look at it? What would you add to what the artist has created? Your response could be a story, a short essay, stained glass, fabric collage, a song…
See what you come up with when you allow yourself to riff for just 10 minutes. You may be surprised!
If I knew where inspiration came from, I would go there more often.
Leonard cohen
sometimes the inspiration for a new poem* swoops in at a most inconvenient time! Like last month while I was driving along a country road, en route to my friend Jen’s for a meeting of my writers group.
Pops of yellow on the road to Jen’s
The road was flanked on both sides by trees and shrubs, all decked out in their glorious autumn tones, and it occurred to me that this fall in particular, I’ve been noticing the yellow. Bright splashes of it and clumps and entire trees spotlighted by the sun, or even in shade, yellow simply outshining the surrounding coppers and greens. Yellow is dominant in my landscape now.
Once I noticed that I’d been noticing the yellow, three more thoughts jumped into my mind, demanding immediate attention. One: I need photos! Two: yellow the colour of confidence and resilience. Three: autumn is about more than just shutting down.
This is how Inspiration works. Rapid onset of thoughts that demand to be dealt with – immediately, like a hungry toddler.
However. There were no shoulders along this country road where I could pull off for picture taking and jot down the initial ideas that Inspiration was throwing into my brain. I wasn’t about to pull over and jeopardize my life, not to mention the lives of any other unsuspecting drivers on this narrow road.
But wait! Just ahead – was that a driveway? No, but a short piece of gravel that gave me a place to pull off the road!**
I parked and pulled out the notebook I had with me for the meeting. I jotted some notes about just what this yellow seemed to say, about what the fall season represents for me and about how I might begin to craft something poetic from this.
After a few minutes, I walked down the road a bit and took a few pictures. After that, Inspiration was able to stand down and allow me to continue driving to Jen’s. I knew what the main message of the poem would be. I knew what I needed to research. Plus I knew I needed to find some synonyms for the word “yellow”!
What Happens Next?
This new poem idea now needed some time to marinate. Meanwhile, I took the time to take pictures of the yellows in my landscape.
I’m about ready to create a first draft!
Lee Ann
*or a story, or painting, or song…
**Sometimes this happens too. It’s like Inspiration will give you what you need to be able to create.
What Else is New?
BIG NEWS! My new book, What You Will Crave has been published! It recently WON a Canada-wide contest for a collection of 24 poems. I am selling this as a fundraiser to support breast cancer programs here in Ottawa. More about the book and how to donate here.
WANT TO HEAR SOME POETRY OUT LOUD? I read new poems regularly on The Common Thread radio show! Listen live or to a recording of this innovative, themed music program. Details here.
LOOKING TO ADD MORE NATIVE PLANTS TO YOUR GARDEN but worried this means your yard will look messy? My article explains Wildscaping, the world-wide trend that brings a wow factor to ecologically-savvy plant design!
The month of June is this wonderful, yet transient gardening time when nothing has gone wrong yet. No bug infestation, no drought, no unexplainable death among prized plants.
Instead, June is absolutely lush: growth is bursting, the greens and the blooms are fresh and unmarred, the air clear of oppressive humidity.
So much so that – are you surprised? – I’ve dedicated a poem to June. An “ode”, actually, which is a form popularized way back in ancient Greece that praises or glorifies a person, object or event.
June is worthy of an ode!
Of course, as the month started to wane, I battled aphids in the burning bush; watched the crab-apple leaves yellow and fall despite a lime-sulphur spray before bud break; and this year the bunnies have been either more numerous or hungrier. I have no Echinacea left. My favourite Helenium has been destroyed. And I’ve cut down one-third of the burning bush, dead because they noshed on the bark during the winter.
All that to say, today’s theme is wabi-sabi. A Japanese philosophy that encourages the appreciation of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. Wabi-sabi might look something like this:
Can you see the beauty here?
Like in this scene, my gardens have imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness galore. But there’s also this:
And this:
When I train my eyes to observe the beauty that is, actually, everywhere I look in the back yard, I calm down a bit. So I’m working on accepting imperfection and transience a little bit more.
What about you? Where are you finding the beautiful these days? Are you able to turn your focus away from imperfections?
Maybe we should all try to bring that June feeling out of the garden and into the rest of our lives. Keep our eyes and minds focussed on the wabi-sabi style of beauty. To get you started, here’s my latest Poetry Art, titled – you guessed it! – “Wabi-Sabi.”
Lee Ann
What Else is New?
My latest author interview. Sue Williams’ new book is her third about the settlement of Australia through the eyes of real-life women. The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress describes the life of Ann Inett, a convict sentenced to the Australian penal colony for seven years. Read my interview with Sue Williams here.
My new radio gig! I’m reading poetry on a local radio show, The Common Thread, where the host presents songs (and often a poem from me!) all to do with a particular theme. All the details here.
