If the garden is planted ( Read more... )

Signs

Forget the calendar, the sun, or moon--
their report of spring's arrival works elsewhere,
but 'round these parts, the seasons come in firsts,
this one marked as much by ear as sight--
the morning the gossip of grackles awakes us,
the noon a robin decries, "tut tut tut,"
until, one warmer evening, we step outside
to be greeted by a chorus of courting ( Read more... )

Ignorant of History

Daily
a panic
of mourning doves
                                        bursts
from the lawn
with the lift
of the latch on my old-fashioned door.

By the time I return,
mere minutes later,
so have they,
for a repeat performance.
Is this avian dementia,
or is Santayana's dictum for the birds?

--Katherine Quimby Johnson. All rights reserved.

No ( Read more... )

April

Semifreddo raindrops cloud the skylight

and smear the view of tossing branches tipped

with leaves in reddish bud; they’re furled so tight

against the chill, it’s hard to believe in May

the world will once again be green and bright.

--Katherine Quimby Johnson. All rights reserved.

Iambic pentameter again, this time with rhyme. I'm not thrilled ( Read more... )

I am from rounded hills
    and ankle-aching cold clearwater
    brooks tumbling the roughest
    granite smooth, grinding
    quartz to sand.

I am from church steeples
    rising above ever-changing trees,
    bells tolling the hour,
    echoed by the lead cow
    headed barn-ward.

I am from make it do
    or do without, and pennies pinched
    so hard ( Read more... )

I don't know about you all, but when I was in school and heard about occasional poetry, I first thought it meant poems written by someone who only wrote poetry once in a while. I think I was in college before I found out what it really meant. I think Tennyson's biography is what clued me in.

Today I became an occasional poet.

Forty Years

( Read more... )

Any knitters out there will understand if I say that getting  "Chapter II" of THE GROVE in shape has been like knitting, pulling out, and re-knitting an Aran Isle sweater. It was a solid afternoon's work to write several poems and then make sure each poem was placed in the right order. But I think Sections 1 and 2 are in order and I know where to ( Read more... )

I'm definitely not going to get 30 poems written this month. But I'm not going to stop wriiting them, either ( Read more... )

The poem of the day is on break while I report on the New England SCBWI conference, where I just spent the weekend. Lots of people are blogging about it, so I'll just say this--if you have a chance to hear Laurie Halse Anderson speak, take it. Even if it means eating  boxes of macaroni and cheese for weeks. Even if it means getting up before the ( Read more... )

By the Lake 
Although I know snow
is falling
in the hills,
here by the lake
rain splatters
on lawns,
teasing hints of green
from the beige of matted grass
one deep breath
and ah!
petrichore
after winter's drought
another promise
spring has kept.

--Katherine M. Quimby  (all rights reserved)