March 2021

~~ a calendar quindecim ~~

by tkbrown
March's April . . . 
As we float into March midst swollen banks
the forecast calls out for more days of rain.
Snowing and freezing of recent past ranks
among the worst recorded earthly pains.
Now, thawing, raining, and flooding ramp up;
predictions of severe weather winds wrap
coming days in showers and springtime temps
resembling April much more than March winds
to which we have become more accustomed.
The plowing and planting we want to tend
must wait for those winds to dry things a bit
when the soil for tilling will be more fit.
The winds with less rain blow in days of spring
when the crocus buds and the blue birds sing,
dusk temps are suited for the front porch swing.

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Photo Above: by AndreyKonstantinov@Unsplash.com.

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Hurricane

~~ a haiku ~~

~~ by tkbrown
The hurricane blows,
a big limb spikes through the roof --
squirrel babes need home

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Haiku The traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count format The haiku often focuses on images from nature. It emphasizes simplicity, intensity and directness of expression.

Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of ‘Renga’, an oral poem which generally was one hundred stanzas in length — also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from the renga in the sixteenth century. It was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote the following classic haiku:

An old pond!
A frog jumps in.
The sound of water.

As the haiku form has evolved, many rules have been broken. However, the philosophy of haiku has been preserved: the focus on a brief moment in time, a use of provocative, colorful images, an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of sudden enlightenment and illumination.

The haiku philosophy influenced poet Ezra Pound, who noted the power of its brevity and juxtaposed images. He wrote, “The image itself is speech. The image is the world beyond formulated language (The Academy of American Poets).

Source: The Academy of American Poets. (29 February 2016). “Haiku: Poetic Form.” (10 September 2019). https://poets.org/text/haiku-poetic-form.

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Photo Above: by skeeze @ pixabay.com.
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