The Sweetness of Summer Poem Swap

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit haiku master Robyn  at Life on the Deckle Edge for Roundup.

Also, in case you missed it: I posted a verb-y poetry challenge earlier this week!
Last week I loved seeing several Summer Poem Swap posts, and this week I'd like to share some of the sweetness I have received this year!

Huge thanks to Tabatha, The Poem Swap Queen, for giving of herself so generously and so often... the world is a better place with Tabatha in it, that's for sure! I'm so grateful. And oh what beauty arrived in my mailbox:

-- from Michelle, some horse-love! Gorgeous horse-y bookmark and notecard along with this poem:

Assateague Horses
     For Irene

Pipe dream or probability --
Assateague Island wild horses,
conjure up images of whimsy and wonder.

Their shapes first revealed themselves
in a "Boxcar" book filled with magical imagery,
drawing us mysteriously into their nature.

Mesmerized by their natural beauty,
they cast a spell over us as they move freely,
forever reminding us how precious freedom is.

Will you venture their way?
View their small Island of freedom,
as they roam, tenderly captured in a time warp.

Rekindle that long ago memory
of kindred kinship with wild horses --
Rally on Assateaugue horses -- run free forever!

- Michelle Kogan

I loved sharing with Michelle my not-so-long-ago visit to Assateague Island. :)
----
- from Karen, a celebration of summer reading or "Season of plenty" inspired by a page from the "A Year of Tiny Pleasures" calendar... I shared Karen's poem with someone else who was so inspired by it that they haven't returned it yet to me (so I don't have it on hand for this post), but happily I recorded in an email to Karen these words: "laugh, grow, think, love, weep, pause, breathe." YES! May books ever bring us such bounty!

We have recently named
our lake house
"Happy Rabbit Hideaway."
Yes, indeed, we "choose happy!"

- from Carol, and inspiring notebook filled with lake poems, images (including flip-flopped lake-loving me!) and lake thoughts... and an invitation to add my own! I've already started adding to it. :)

Here's just one of the poems:

Flip-flopping into morning light,
You gaze upon a tranquil sight.
Glossy ripples cross the lake,
Urging time to contemplate.
                   SO
While wavy patterns quietly flow,
enjoy summer's peaceful glow.

- Carol Varsalona

opening pages...

 

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." - Henry David Thoreau



- from Molly, gorgeous notecards and a posey of poems (some of which were inspired by wildflower pics on my blog!) with such delights as "gossamer skirts," "dizziness of daisies," "button-brown eyes," "tendrils of moonlight"...

and this one:

Touch-me-nots

Seeds packed in plump cases
Springlaoded for far-flung flight
One touch... Explosion!

...and, summer's not over yet! Iphigene let me know that she put something in the mail to me, so I have that to look forward to!
Thanks, all!!
And now I shall leave you with a revision of a poem I wrote at the end of some other Poem Swap, for Tabatha. Thanks so much for reading. xo

Summer Poem Swap

- for Tabatha

Poems flip-flop

           dive

arrive

like yellow butterflies –

swoop, turn

           surprise!

- Irene Latham