Gratitudes to John Masefield for my mentor text for this poem, Sea-Fever.
Irene has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Live Your Poem. Please note a change in the roundups next month — I will be taking the November 5 roundup to help out Tabatha. Also, a team of PF Peeps are going to be organizing the Winter Poem Swap, so stay tuned for more information about that!
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Oh, love this Mary Lee – so many details that only someone with dirt under her fingernails and wonder in her heart would write. Loved reading the inspiration for your form, too! Happy Fall.
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Mary Lee, your poem is so lyrical in quality. It makes me so happy reading your poem because gardens are one of my loves. This week a beautiful yellow plant blossomed. I can’t remember what perennial it is but it does look like a variation of the black-eyed Susans but much smaller. When flowers bloom, everyone around me notices. Oh, what stories the gardens can tell and you managed to beautifully capture your own story. I hope my post will be ready tomorrow. My hope was to unveil the next section of the gallery but my youngest granddaughter got ill and I did some grandma sitting online for a bit each day.
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I recognized the “sea fever” rhythm which you’ve now made your own, Mary Lee. This time of year, like spring, there’s joy in the gardening with all the wonders you mentioned. I planted my bulbs last week, still warm and lovely out here, though as you probably know, still too dry. And, probably you know as others will, your poem begs to be read aloud!
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This is wonderful Mary Lee! I love the sensory details – the sound crickets, the smell of basil (one of my favorite smells!) and the rich visual images. In another phase of my life I was an avid gardener and this poem captures the joy and pull of a garden perfectly – nothing reminds us to look to the future better than a garden.
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I kept thinking…this sounds like, this sounds like…but it’s so you and so yours. I love the movement and insistence in this. The need to go in this bright, short season. Yes, seed packets to last the winter. Brilliant poem-ing.
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The rhythm of your poem is perfect, Mary Lee. I was just thinking how even now, in early fall, the garden is still giving joy in its transformation. “…for the end of summer joys”—yes!
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Mary Lee, I am sharing this poem with my Master Gardener peeps! I absolutely love it, and I know they will, too. Thank you! xo
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So good, Mary Lee!! Lovely cadence and sensory detail. Masefield is probably smiling down on you. 🙂
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Ooh, this is a lovely star to steer by as well. I do love both poems — I’m on swallowtails and monarchs this week, too, as I don’t have monarch lures in my garden but one drifted by anyway. Pure joy, indeed!
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This is beautiful, Mary Lee–so many specifics. I’m glad you named your mentor text, because I was saying to myself, “the seas, the seas!” But I couldn’t remember anything else about that poem, so I was happy to see the Masefield. Lovely rhythm!
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Recognizing your mentor text added to the fun of this one! Amazing job! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
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Hello gardening friend and fellow monarch lover! Your poem is gorgeous and captures the fall gardening spirit perfectly! I have over $100.00 of spring bulbs to plant as my asters and milkweed fade. I’ll be thinking of you and this poem when I plant! Thanks for sharing!
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Enchanting poem Mary Lee, thanks for bringing me into your garden… I can hear that lovely “wild call—Gorgeous pic too, thanks, and for the mentor poem!
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I ‘dig’ your poem, Mary Lee. 🙂
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Oh bravo, bravo. My mother’s favorite poem that I heard again and again growing up and I think fed my innate love of poetry. You did a wonderful job of it all, Mary Lee. I love it all, but that third stanza, wow. So spot on. “passionate fellow-gardener” and “spring dreams enough to last the winter.” Wish I had thought to write this poem. I am going to try this form, too, not the garden theme, but something else. Jotting this idea now in my prompt journal (thanks Margaret Simon!).
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PS Thank you for writing! Honestly.
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Mary Lee, I love this! I must have had to memorize the Masefield at some point because the rhythms are so familiar. Your poem is inspiring me to take another look at our garden and see if I can’t dig up a poem.
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Mary Lee, what fun to read your flawless poem, and then to see your mentor poem. What a nice form and to see where you took it was delightful. I love “to the goldenrod and the sky” and “And all I ask is a monarch” – They are such interesting constructs, and I liked seeing the inspiration in Masefield. It’s really neat how we can write magic with a good mentor. Beautiful garden poem.
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