Some blogging things I tried lately didn’t suit me or my current life, so I shifted them aside. Oh the other hand, I re-immersed in poetry writing and publishing. Today, taking National Puppy Day as my poem prompt, I created this to share:
Puppy love applies outside the canine realm, so shift this poem message wherever it suits.
~ ♥ Jo
Photo Credits:
Dog by Alice10 at Morguefile
Puppy Poem by Jo Lightfoot
Nature walks are naturally intriguing. There are always new, surprising, gorgeous, or outlandish wonders to encounter—so many things to look at, and so many things looking at you… or seeming to.
Like Fair Ophelia, the daisies are drowning. Daisies! —the very symbol of freshness and life. Recent rains here transformed a patch of daisies into something more like a lily pond. The daisies are valiantly trying to survive—some managing to hold their heads above water; others standing no chance at all. In the nearby lake as the waters rise, fish are investigating newly expanded territories… splash, splash! … and herons are investigating the fish. Question…
So does he. I take this to be a bull, anyway, grazing at some distance from the cows in the background. This charming scene was one of many I encountered on my walk this morning. And that walk may have been the longest I’ve ever made from my home here in Lowell.
I was invited to answer that question recently. After a decade of writing poems, I could honestly answer, “Any which-way.” Today’s “Trading Partners” is a good example. It derived from the crow tracks pictured above. Other influences can be tracked as well…
It was this kind of a day…
Except for mesh-top athletic shoes, I’d bundled up warm under a green umbrella. The cold front’s wind had passed earlier, but drizzle and low temperatures remained.
Okie is our orange tabby. His name has nothing to do with the Sooner State and Ethan is the only true Oklahoman in this house. When Okie adopted us in Texas, we dubbed him “O.K.” for “orange kitty” and that was all right with him. Since then, the name has shifted slightly. Okie shares the house with us, our finches, our two other cats (Scout and Ragget) and whatever wildlife temporarily comes in. Ethan and I rescue what we can. Here’s our latest adventure… involving a chipmunk and told in poem form:
The more I try to avoid my neighbor, the more often we seem to cross paths—literally. This woman is older than I and smaller. Her two terriers are about the size of my cats. Twice a day or so, she walks the dogs along the road by her house—the same road I walk at least three times a week. If the dogs catch sight of me, it’s all she can do to restrain them on their leashes, so, naturally, we try to avoid each other. Trouble is, neither of us has a set schedule of when we do our walking.
It didn’t seem like a very promising afternoon for a walk. I turned back just after leaving the house to grab an umbrella. But it never rained. In fact, the gray clouds lightened and lifted, and the sun almost broke through by the time I reached the lake. No one else was at the boat ramp, so I found a sizable rock to sit on and silently fell in with the scene.
I put my mother to work again, meaning the doll that my niece Valerie made for me. Once again, she manned a small poems-for-sale booth (designed to resemble Lucy’s in the Peanuts cartoon strip). This time the booth related to an Arkansas Authors event at the Springdale Public Library.
For several hours Saturday afternoon, I promoted my writing and my poetry group, Poets Northwest. About 40 authors participated, each with table display space. It was my pleasure to share “fortune cookie” poems with visitors and fellow authors. A poem overture is a good icebreaker to further conversation.