ARTSPEAK! 2016: Poem #18 "Gardening Basics" & Our Progressive Poem!

Hello, and welcome to day 18 of my National Poetry Month poem-a-day-project ARTSPEAK! in which I respond to images found in the online collections at the National Gallery of Art. Please join me, if you feel so inspired!

But first, it's Progressive Poem time! I gotta say: I am really loving our poem this year! I appreciate how everyone has taken up the rhyme scheme challenge started by Laura and Joy... and how many have used previous lines and stanza structure to inform their own lines. I've also loved reading about efforts to make one's line a good jumping off spot for the next person. Such a kind, compassionate community of writers... I love it! We're really in a groove this year!

ETA: As for my line, we had a bit of a shake up! I started with "My heart speeds as I climb astride," as I thought our speaker was surely ready for some action after all this dreaming of action! But then Kim let me know somehow Violet's line got lost when Kim wrote her line... so we had to get Violet back in there, which shifted things! But not to worry: words are moveable, changeable, and that's a big part of the fun! No wrong answers here, and we're all accounted for. What will our speaker do now? I leave it for the next poet(s) to unravel. It's all yours, Charles!

A squall of hawk wings stirs the sky.

A hummingbird holds and then hies.

If I could fly, I'd choose to be

Sailing through a forest of poet-trees.

A cast of crabs engraves the sand

Delighting a child's outstretched hand.

If I could breathe under the sea,

I'd dive, I'd dip, I'd dance with glee.

A clump of crocuses crave the sun.

Kites soar while joyful dogs run.

I sing to spring, to budding green,

to all of life -seen and unseen.

Wee whispers drift from cloud to ear

and finally reach one divining seer

who looks up from her perch and beams --

West Wind is dreaming May, it seems.

Golden wings open and gleam

as I greet the prancing team.

-------------------------------------------

And now for that other poetry project in my life this month. :) This year's ARTSPEAK! theme is "Plant. Grow Eat." It was inspired by the release of my latest book FRESH DELICIOUS: Poems from the Farmers' Market.

Here are the poems so far:

"Mary in the Garden" after Reading in the Garden by Pompeo Mariani
"This Wheelbarrow" after A Woman Emptying a Wheelbarrow by Camille Pissarro
"A Dream of Sheep" after Warm Afternoon by Winslow Homer
"Harvest" after The Last Days of Harvest by Winslow Homer
"Anticipation (in the Garden) after George Moore in the Artist's Garden by Edouard Manet
"Gathering Fruit" after Gathering Fruit by Mary Cassatt
"Bread's Lament" after Boy with Basket of Fruit by an unknown American artist
"After the Fire" after Ruined Farm by Hubert Robert
"Cow at the Gate" after Landscape with Open Gate by Pieter Molijin
"I Am the Plate" after Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit by Paul Cezanne
"Courtship (According to the Cat)" by Winslow Homer
"Courage" after Planting Corn by Stanley Mazur
"Orchard Barber Shop" after Gardener Pruning a Tree by Jacques Callot
"Gardener's Companion" after The Watering Can by Georges Seurat

"Man, Reading" after Denoisel Reading in the Garden by James Tissot

"At the Vegetable Market" after Vegetable Market at Pontoise by Camille Pissarro

"Triolet for Planting Day" after The Artist's Garden at Eragny by Camille Pissarro

I selected today's piece by Roger de La Fresnaye for it's wild depiction of all the garden tools. I approached the subject several ways before I decided that maybe the wildness of the garden was the thing I wanted to write about. We like to think we have so much to do with the success of a garden, and yes, our efforts can make a difference, but the biggest thing I've learned as a gardener is that you can't stop growth. You can do everything right, and given rain and sun, the garden will GROW, often out of control. The earth explodes, in spite of our best efforts. And isn't that the miracle?

Gardening Basics

Even without

trowel

and scythe

the garden

gets dressed

in a fuzzy

green vest

that soon

               pops

its buttons.

- Irene Latham

Listen to the poem on Soundcloud!