The Poetry Sisters challenge this month was Wabi-Sabi. I just re-read the prompt and realized that Wabi-Sabi was supposed to be the title of the poem. Oh, well. I’ll claim the third truth of Wabi-Sabi — nothing is perfect!
In his book Wabi-Sabi Simple, Richard Powell described wabi-sabi as a philosophy that acknowledges a lifestyle that appreciates and accepts three simple truths: “Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.” I embrace this philosophy whole-heartedly in my gardening.
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Lawn dappled with clover. Exuberant mish-mash flower beds. One raised bed all fennel — buffet for black swallowtails. Three kinds of milkweed for monarchs. Landscaping by Wabi-Sabi, Inc.
Next month, we’re writing haiku that give away something. Haiku that could be found on your local Buy Nothing FaceBook page, or at the curb during your community’s Free-cycle event.
Molly gave the Inklings our June challenge — a quote from a talk by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Molly reported that essentially he said, “Write something narrative and by narrative I mean something that has story and observation to it…write about the first time you saw somebody who’s become a you to you…a you that you love to say…detail what else could be seen”… and let those other things convey what it all meant to you.
After listing all the YOUs in my life and writing about a bajillion drafts, I decided that my YOU for this poem would be the process of figuring out what to write about. My YOU is inspiration itself.
I’m scheduling this post on Tuesday because on Wednesday I leave for a week spent with family. I won’t be able to comment until it’s almost time for another Poetry Friday, but I still can’t wait to see what the other Inklings do with this challenge.
The Poetry Sisters’ challenge this month was to write in the style of Lucille Clifton’s homage to my hips, and choose our own body parts to pay homage to.
Listen and watch as she reads her poem. That grin (almost a smirk) tricks you into thinking she’s poking fun at herself, but nothing could be further from the truth. She writes against ageism and sexism and racism. Her phrase “I like to celebrate the wonderfulness that I am” became my battle cry. I am who I am who I was who I will be, but I AM HERE! Against all odds, I have come this far, and I’m going to carry on singing at the top of my voice…well, insofar as an introvert can manage, at least.
Here’s what body parts the rest of the Poetry Sisters are celebrating:
Linda gave us our May challenge. After spinning the wheel of chance that paired us up with another Inkling, we sent off a poem and received a poem. Then, we were tasked to “Fiddle with, play with, tinker, tear-apart, be inspired or stumped by the poem.”
Here’s what Heidi sent me:
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. ~Mary Oliver
Golden Haystack
It’s not common, it’s not every day I come across words in which I see sparks or hear a sounding something that opens the locked box of a poem. This one more or less demands that I pry at buried boxes, more or less kills me. This year delight will not stay with me. I can see it, hear it, feel the gauze of delight that surrounds me; I try to hold it but it leaves me like a pin dropping, like a coin rolling, like a sharp momentary needle in my arm. I am vaccinated against joy. I search the haystack daily for shine, ordinary evening stealing the keys of light.
Heidi Mordhorst 2021
Is that not the most perfect encapsulation of what The COVID Year was like? How our creativity was muffled and elusive?
I chose to respond to Heidi’s Haystack with some hay bales (a bit like last week’s pebbles), created from handfuls of straw, first from her poem, and then from the Mary Oliver quote.
Golden Hay Bales
There will always be this – even in a year devoid of delight, when hope will hide its face behind a mask, not letting me remember to cup my hand around its flame – I can stay as malleable as the candle with wax dripping, flowing, creating a new me.
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a loaded paintbrush, a sharpened pencil, a threaded needle – all poised in the hand of the maker – her thoughts a loosely massed haystack of hope, an undulation of light.
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Stymied by introspective search, brushing off the chaff from life’s haystack of daily human indignities, I head for the garden and its abundance of hopeful shine.
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Like a crowd bearing purple-flamed torches, every iris in the bed is poised to bloom. Any day now I will wake to see the torches flaring open like firework explosions or a hopeful chorus of purple joy I can and yet cannot hear.
Buffy Silverman has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup. And because I had a small brain lapse when I put out the call for roundup hosts last December, leaving off June, here is the call for roundup hosts June – December 2024.
The hay bale image is from Wikimedia Commons. (Do you know how hard it is to find pictures of old-school rectangular hay bales? They’re all round now!)
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Edited on Thursday evening to add…a bunch of the torches have flared open. I wish this photo had smell-o-vision!
all those years walking in early-morning dark — does Orion miss me?
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I tend the trillium — oak’s companions since forest-time — do they know me?
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insect on the car — we’ve never met before now — did you choose me?
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leaf-footed bug — Leptoglossus oppositus — what name do you call yourself?
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full moon wakes me — my face, briefly bathed in moonbeams — do iris buds feel it, too?
(c) draft, Mary Lee Hahn, 2024
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The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for this month was inspired by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard’s, Welcome to the Wonder House. Our mission was to write about “unanswerable questions.” And though life seems often to be one unanswerable question (or unfathomable event) after another, I found it INCREDIBLY hard to write to this prompt. Luckily, Jane Hirschfield was able to offer assistance. In her new book, The Asking, she has several collections of small poems she calls “pebbles.” I’ve found these “pebbles” in several sections of the book, and it must have been more than coincidence that when I turned the page for today’s reading, there was [THIRTEEN PEBBLES]. Thank you, Jane.
Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters are wondering about:
I gave the Inklings their challenge this month. I asked them to “Write a haiku sequence that talks about poetry without mentioning it by name. Here is your mentor text.”
I initially approached the challenge in an entirely left-brained way. Not surprisingly, my attempt fell flat. Once I got that out of my system, I was able to write poetically about writing poetry.
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met my challenge:
I was as mesmerized by the story of this unlikely hero as many New Yorkers were. And I was as devastated by his death. The necropsy report was recently released, showing that he had high levels of rat poison in his system, along with a severe pigeon virus. Both of which likely contributed to his demise.
Is the vandal who slashed open Flaco’s enclosure at the zoo responsible for his death, or for his incredible final year of life? Would as many people have pondered the importance of The Wild if Flaco had remained in his cage? How can we refocus this attention on the plight of a single bird and help people to understand the cataclysmic extinctions of entire species every. single. day. (up to 150 species per day, according to some estimates)?
Maybe the human brain is incapable of wrapping itself around the big picture, and the best we can do is to love and care for The Wild in our own yard, neighborhood, and city. On that note, I’m going to go check to see if the milkweed in my garden has poked its head up yet. Maybe this summer, I will have monarchs again. If not, I will have done my best for them.
Here’s how the rest of the Poetry Sisters met the challenge of a pantoum to, about, or including an animal:
Surprised to see you all offshore this spin. Headed east towards that other continent? Good luck and safe travels – I wish brisk winds for you! What’s that you say? You left this continent clear from coast to coast? What a treat! Thanks!
Spin away, Earth! Let’s do this!
First up, the marsh. I hope Camera Lady is ready for me. I’ll give her some misty rays through the dead trees and reeds.
Next, I’ll light some south-facing windows as if on fire to give Breakfast Woman a show.
After that, I’ll lure Woman in Bathrobe halfway down the block to take pictures of my art.
Keep that spin going Earth!
I’ve got to glow awake Early Rising Writer and then shine in a kitchen window on Watercolor Doodler.
I can’t be late to join Morning Walker under the oaks along the bayou.
All through the flat middle, I’ll illuminate farmland until I flow through an east door to warm the bones of an aging Tea Drinker.
Then I’ll light up peaks and eventually their valleys until I get to my last window where I peek in on Talented Twins
before the other ocean suddenly appears below.
Behind my line of sight, it’s noon, then night. Ahead, perpetual morning. I like looking forward, creating all those beginnings over and over again.
Margaret gave the Inklings our challenge for this month — to write persona poems. For Laura Shovan’s birthday month poetry group on FaceBook, Molly challenged us to write poems inspired by the game I Spy. This poem is for both challenges and for my fellow Inklings. (Can you each find yourselves?)
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this challenge:
The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for February was to write a Valentine or love poem. A plethora of people, places, things, and ideas are objects of my affection. Why, then, was it so hard to pick one and write a poem?!? Thank you, Irish Breakfast Tea, for helping me crank out an eleventh hour haiku.
Here’s how the other Poetry Sisters met this month’s challenge:
Shh…the Inklings are getting ready to whisper secrets to you. Our challenge this month came from Catherine, who borrowed a prompt from a list Molly shared with us. Unlike the Go-Gos, our lips are NOT sealed — we’ve written poems about secrets.
To help us write about secrets, we had this poem, “Family Secret” by Nancy Kuhl to use as a mentor text.
“When in Doubt” by Sandra Cisneros showed up mid-month in the Poetry Unbound podcast, and it seemed to be in conversation with my poem, which was written to answer the stem which became the title.
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met Catherine’s challenge:
A(nother) Year of Reading 
