Day 15: The Sin of Spring (the full sestina)

If Autumn is the age of gluttony

‘Twixt Winter’s sloth and Summer’s glorious pride,

No sin, you think, can sully childlike Spring

For there is nothing on which vice can feed –

This is the season soil brings forth the seed.

Oh, but the sin of Spring is surely Greed!

Give me more, more, more! says Greed

My eyes are bigger than my garden. Gluttony

Whispers from the left, just one more seed;

And from the right – bold, over-ruling Pride

Encourages me: feed, feed, feed.

I can’t deny my plant lust in the spring.

Oh, what a joyous revolution, Spring!

This season when I have the luxury of Greed –

It finally seems possible to feed

My frame and fancy both. (Note: Gluttony

Begets the fall oft credited to Pride,

For nothing grows well when I crowd the seed.)

So strong, and yet so delicate, the seed

That pushes through the cold dark earth to spring

In one great burst for sunlight, as if pride

Were felt as well by plants as men. No greed

Can grow enough for Autumn’s gluttony –

I have a perennially hungry soul to feed.

But first comes learning how to feed

The soil, which must then nourish the seed

With its insatiable hunger (is this gluttony?)

I feel I must know everything in Spring –

A thirst for wisdom, too, can be deemed greed

If in my knowing I take undue pride.

My vegetables will be my garden’s pride –

If only I can grow enough to feed

Both family and wild creatures’ greed,

Then – then – I will have planted enough seed.

I want to live up to this promise (tease) of Spring –

This more, more, more! demand, this gluttony.

With humbled pride, I plant this prayer, this seed –

From this age of Greed, may bounty spring

To feed a family’s autumn gluttony.

Day 14: Tea Party

Gladiolus,

glad to see you,

said the cricket

to the flower.

Hyacinth is

‘round the corner,

Let’s have tea in

half an hour.

(Just don’t slip it

to Narcissus –

she might turn

the party sour.)

Lady Tulip,

barely blooming

might sleep through

the whole affair,

but we’ll show her

photos after

and she’ll wish

she had been there.

Bring your friend

Miss Dahlia –

of course we’ll have

enough to share.

We’ll put our Sunday hats on,

sit demurely on the lawn,

and drink our tea

with petals raised

until it is

all gone.

Day 13: The Sin of Spring (the start of a sestina)*

If Autumn is the age of gluttony

‘Twixt Winter’s sloth and Summer’s glorious pride,

No sin, you think, can sully childlike Spring

For there is nothing on which vice can feed –

This is the season soil brings forth the seed.

Oh, but the sin of spring is surely Greed!

* This is the first stanza of what I hope to flesh out into a full sestina at some point before the month is out. 

Day 12: Piety in Springtime*

The piety tree is legendary

for its beauty,

unfortunately cultivated primarily for the same –

the fruits of piety are both tart and sweet,

but so few seem to taste them,

preferring instead piety’s showy petals

and bright green leaves.

Piety is found

in almost every part of the country,

its flowers prized for elegance

and likened to the suffering

of Christ – but

who among the many

who adore piety in springtime

find themselves still pious

in the fall?

*This post was in response to the day's prompt from napowrimo.net, which was to write a "replacement poem" - replacing a tangible noun with an intangible one. I chose to replace "dogwood" with "piety."

Day 11: Looking Forward

I wonder when (I hope not if) I will stop

counting the stages of motherhood by

how much I can accomplish during the day

and how much sleep I get (or not) at night.

When I will cease looking forward

in exhausted anticipation

to things like nighttime potty training,

preschool, getting yourself dressed,

and a time when all of the characters

in all of your story books are not,

by sheer force of your will,

named “Dada.”

When I can cease to hover

and let you climb the jungle gym alone;

when “I can’t hear you anymore”

is no longer cause to run and find you

because you’re surely up to something;

when I can sleep in on Saturday morning

because it’s the weekend, and you understand.

By that time, of course, I will look back and wonder

why I was looking forward all those years.

Day 10: Free Verse

One of these days, I think,

I am going to write a poem

with structure –

a sestina, perhaps, or

maybe a villanelle –

something with rhyme or repetition,

something recognizable and

fully formed.

But this requires discipline,

and I have none of that in April

(are you kidding me?)

when I cannot help but heed

the garden’s constant call –

dismantle here, build there, sow these seeds

just so, and all day

bear witness to the glorious riot of springtime.

How can I write a poem with form

when the world is formed anew each day,

each moment?

There is no rhyme or reason to springtime,

certainly no repetition –

only loosely orchestrated chaos, forming itself

(most un-subtly, and in a cornucopia of colors,

sounds, smells, textures)

into free verse.

Day 9: Waiting for April

To wake each day expecting

to find a poem in it, like a treasure:

this is April.

The world is so wide open

And my heart is as big as the sea.

Poetry rises and falls ceaselessly within me,

Tumbling the words, softening the rough edges.

I once found a driftwood question mark on the beach,

and my mother used to keep a jar on the windowsill filled

with brightly colored glass, smooth

and polished by time and waves,

washed ashore when the time was right

(or thrown back to sea if it wasn’t).

These words have always been there, just

waiting for April.