Poetry Friday: first green flare

Yesterday's page from "A Year of Tiny Pleasures" calendar. 

I can't stop thinking about spring poems and feeling spring-y.

Spring is gloriously, finally, truly-madly-deeply here. We can get outside, walk, breathe, not freeze, feel a breeze, believe in promises again.

Enjoy the promise of this lovely little piece by Sidney Wade, and then visit the Poetry Friday round-up at Carol Varsalona's Beyond LiteracyLink.


first green flare
by Sidney Wade

makes
the air

quiver
and dart

the throat
ache

(Read the rest here, at Poets.org)

Poetry Friday: Resting Heart Rate

This is just a first draft, but I'm having fun playing around with this idea. 

Join the inimitable Irene Latham (who is writing a new poem, paired with a piece of art, every day for National Poetry Month) at Live Your Poem for this week's Poetry Friday round-up! 

Resting Heart Rate 
Karen Edmisten 

My Fitbit knock-off
(face it, I'm cheap ...
no, let's employ the more
poetic, "frugal")
blinks at me: my heart
is racing.

Life.
Worries, health, worries,
daughters, worries,
climate change, worries, friendships,
storms, politics, 
worries.

Is this number off the charts?
Is this number
even on the chart? Or meant to be?

Enter John Ashbery.
John Koethe, too,
(though, face it, he can prompt
existential worry. 
I love him anyway.)

Billy Collins would
dispatch my frugal knock-off
with a wry smile and a shake of his head.
So I open his book and sail alone
around the room.

Wordsworth. Words worth
savoring. Richard Wilbur (Oh!
Be still my heart! How I adore him.)
Wait ... what's that?
It is.
It is still.
It is resting.
It is
still resting.

Balm, salve, sedative.
Poetry, my remedy,
the tincture that calms,
prescription for my overzealous brain,
frugal economy of words,
hushing my heart.

Poetry Friday: I'm hosting!

Happy National Poetry Month! 

Why we write, why we read, and why poetry exists ...

All neatly answered in one short, perfect piece by John Ashbery. 

(I could use a day alone with my madness and favorite flower. 

Wishing you the same.) 

Share your links, please, by way of the ever-helpful Mr. Linky! 

Late Echo
by John Ashbery 

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

(Read the rest here, at the Poetry Foundation.)