Spirits In Peace Blog

Photograph Courtesy of BigFoto

There is something about spring that, for me at least, gives rise to quick burst of energy. Winter is long and slow, and I sometime set myself to work on time-consuming tasks, but at the first whiff of spring, my energy level kicks up a notch. I want nothing to do with anything long and labourious, and prefer to work with more speed and intensity. Perhaps I simply want to abandon the computer and head outside, even though the air is still a mite chilly. Perhaps, like the nature I see around me, I am reborn in some sense and more childlike in my attention span.

But, in any case, spring always brings forth a burst of poetry. I like to experiment with forms, and one of my more recent forays has been into the area of tanka, with the assistance of Richard Doiron, a definite expert in such matters. I had attempted this form in the past, but from him I learned a great deal.

The changeable weather and emergence of spring flora together with the inevitable backward glimpses of winter at this time of year inspired some recent tanka.

her poem painted
- tanka x 5-

silently cursing
the apparently endless
blizzards this winter
surely an indication
of a planet in distress

her spirits sinking
on noting the ankle-deep
early spring snowfall
as good as fertilizer
for emerging daffodils

her concept of spring
does not in her books include
unwelcome snowfall
considered an obvious
redundancy in her mind

april erupting
in glorious colours she sees
her poem painted
with saffron of crocuses
staining each verse and stanza

colourful darwin
tulips earning her praises
their scarlet cheerful
unlike bloodstains of battle
wherein darker sides revealed

©Carol Knepper