Their petals sparkle
rust-red among still small leaves
a hundred blossoms
breaking spells of winter grey
this fruit, quince, too tart to eat
A stroll through the yard, keeping socially distant while still getting exercise, brings bright joy to the eyes at this time of year. Our lovely quince bush graces us with a brightness missing during winter’s grey days, and I love their the hundreds of blossoms that cluster together all over the yet-to-leaf-out bush. And yet, we never eat its compressed, hard fruit, which is supposedly so tart its inedible raw, and we’ve never tried any type of cooking. I wonder if this year, in August or September, if we’ll try. About Quince.
What do you see in your yard at this time of year?
PROMPT:
What do you see in your yard at this time of year?
Look for the quiet, the loud, the soft, the rough. How will it change over the summer and fall? Will its changes, though, remain the quiet or loud, or does it surprise us?
That’s what the quince is like: such beautiful blossoms delight us in the spring, but the fruit is not edible to just pick off the tree, like our apples and pear trees. That’s a difference, a surprise.
That why I chose to write a tanka poem. In a tanka poem, the first haiku [three lines, 5,7,5 syllables] of the tanka is one story. In mine, that’s the part about the blossoms:
Their petals sparkle
rust-red among still small leaves
a hundred blossoms
But, the second story, is a surprise, a difference from the same hundred blossoms:
a hundred blossoms
breaking spells of winter grey
this fruit, quince, too tart to eat
The last two lines are a twist in the story [and contain 7 syllables each].
Take a picture of your discovery, and add a tanka to share the “twist” in its change story.
About this post:
Be safe out there. April is time for NaPoWriMo — National Poetry Writing Month, try a bit of poetry and art to encourage others to be safe with each other. Something short. Something inclusive. Something of spring and hope. #NaPoWriMo/#GloPoWriMo
The Academy of Poets encourages us to write #shelterinpoems. Get some ideas there and share your own.
Tons of information can be found at Poets.org: National Poetry Month and here: Virtual Programs.
National Council of Teachers of English also offers suggestions here.