Summer Skies

Hello Poets,

It sure is hot! I love summer though. So, no complaints from me. I spent some time with paper, paints, and an old favorite poem this week.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 
By Walt Whitman 

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. 

Illustration of Whitman's poem by Linda M. 7/30/21

Hamish has been up to his usual hijinks...can you say WAHOO!? 

I'll be hosting Spiritual Thursday for August right here. I'll have a post up Wednesday evening. This month's theme is the word, respect.

Many thanks to Rebecca for hosting this week's round-up at Sloth Reads.

Closing Out Clunkers

 Hello Poets!

It's been fun playing with your donated clunker lines. I think I've gotten to all the clunkers dropped off at the shop on June 24th. I've got ink all over my fingers and a spot on my chin. But, there's a smile on my face.

The first line, 'The forest was assuming control’ is from Alan Wright. I've been itching to try a zentangle poem. This was perfect for it.

The next line is from Sara Lewis 

Love portrait and love the world. “Adorable Little Toddler Girl or Infant Baby Drink Water after Eat...” IStock, www.istockphoto.com/photo/adorable-little-toddler-girl-or-infant-baby-drink-water-after-eat-delicious-gm1257039551-368254068.

The last two lines are from Michelle Kogan and Denise Krebs in a double golden shovel...which I learned more about from Kim Johnson in this past week's prompts from Ethical ELA. Here is her nifty youtube video on double, triple and quadruple golden shovels: https://youtu.be/XEKR5pYlLl0.

Original Lines

• Vast as the unseen seas bottom Michelle Kogan
• Sunshine kisses on sea brows/ Cooling fresh on a hot day— Denise Krebs

Sunshine lavishes vast

kisses on shushing waves as

on a sandy beach.  This

sea raises unseen

brows. Oh, the sea…the sea

(c) Linda Mitchell

Make sure you visit Kat Apel at her blog this week as she hosts Poetry Friday. Thank you, Kat!

And, if you've been following Hamish and his poetic travels...he's been to South Sudan this week. This ox's hooves move!

More Clunkers from the Shop

 Hooray for Clunkers!

Thank you poets for all clunker donations. I'm having fun! I cannot fit all the clunkers I'm playing within one post...but here are some. There are more to come next week.

Original clunker from Linda Baie
"showing off like high-kicking chorus lines!" 

Jaques, Bertha E. “Gladiola.” Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers, www.si.edu/object/gladiola:saam_1935.13.446.

Gladiolas

showing off like high-kick chorus lines
dressed in beaded, jewel-toned costumes
July’s gladiolas bow
waving to the whistles

from the balcony

ever shameless

attention

seeking
blooms

(c) Linda Mitchell 

Original clunker from Carol Varsalona: "summer dressed itself "

summer dressed itself
in a thunderstorm with a
rainbow for a hat

(c) Linda Mitchell

Original clunker from Laura Salas: "darkness that shadows a life"

forest floor mushroom

darkness that shadows a life
slow and grow again

Original clunker from Janice Scully: "The creases you cause are long term"

Photo of wallpaper inside Susan B. Anthony House. Rochester, NY. June 26, 2021 L. Mitchell

 Black Sister

Seneca Falls 1848

This poem knows the

number of creases

you’ve ironed as you

 carry the cause
 suffragettes are

marching for. The long-

suffering e.q.u.a.l. endures as a dead term

(c) Linda Mitchell

Hamish and I are humming along with a bossa nova beat that came out of this painting: https://padlet.com/mitchellhubeimom/Ox

Migrant. Potinari, Candido. oil on canvas. 1954.

Thank you for hosting our round-up, Molly. Nix the Comfort Zone is one of my favorite Friday places of refreshment.

Margaret's Converted Clunker

Wheeeee!

This is the fourth weekend of summer that I'm traveling. It's so nice to catch up with loved ones in person. I cannot stop smiling. However, news of the variant keeps me cautious with a mask in crowded inside spaces. 

Stay safe, everyone.

Thanks to Margaret for hosting our Poetry Friday Round-up this week at Reflections on the Teche. She's a writing pal that helps me write more and better. I treasure her friendship.

Margaret offered up a fascinating clunker that I've tinkered with this week. I hope I've shined it up enough to make a poem.

Original Line from Margaret:

"What if my hands turned dust to diamonds?” 

Questions

If my hands turned dust to diamonds

Would we buy a ring--
            and, in what size?
Will our fingers grow--
            weave into a family tree?
Can we beat that three-legged dog
            racing to get out of the rain--

            shake off the wet
            before streaking the floor
            with storm?

What if floorboards warp --

             so we trip and fall
             turning again to dust
             and need my hands
             to turn us into diamonds
             once more?

Question Poem by Linda M. (draft)

Hamish and I found this adorable photo of an Ox and friend. The caption on gettyimages is: “Farmer and Buffalo Have Very Happy in Sunlight.” We just had to turn this photo into a poem. Have a peek here

“Farmer and Buffalo Have Very Happy in Sunlight.”  Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/farmer-and-buffalo-royalty-free-image/505658896?adppopup=true.

 

Clunker + Challenge = Fun!

Have a cookie.

I'm packing the car with homemade cookies to take to my extended family I haven't seen in three years. 

It's been a looooooooooooooooong pandemic. 

Thank you, Laura Shovan, for hosting this US Independence Day holiday weekend! I'm saving some red, white & blue cookies for you!

I have such a crazy mix of things that went into today's post I can only explain it as an equation post.

These are the bits at the start:

Last week I gathered some outstanding clunkers in the comments from visitors to my post (Thank you!). Laura offered the one in the first orange square above. And, since she's hosting this week, I thought....surely I can twist her clunker into an original poem. Right?

But wait, it's July! Heidi challenged the SWAGGERS to write in the style of Gail Martin from a poem Tabatha posted on her blog last week (see image #2): What Pain Doesn't Know About Me.

Could I combine the two? I thought I'd try.

I googled "unpainted conical body" and got the result of the third image in the equation, a manlave (type of Filipino timber) carving of the Madonna and child titled: Our Lady of the Snows. 

Ever heard of Our Lady of the Snows? Me neither! I looked this Catholic saint up....see the fourth image.

The sum of all these parts is a poem. 

What Our Lady of Snows
Doesn’t Know About Me

How surprised I was to find his unpainted conical body online. Carved out of manlave wood.

My fingers. How still after my last rosary lifetimes ago
but they still know the chain of prayers.

I can walk miles in the dark. It’s how I solve for X.

She never did deify my faith...more feminized it.

My history with field hockey.

My savvy at cutting paper gemstones. I have decades of love letters
ready to fit into anniversary settings.

We’re both mothers. Although my children eat earth,
ash, and blood. And, my tears fall constantly.

Even as the crown of the hill awaits falling snow
I buy tickets for Rome.

If turned upside down, all my words will fall out
around the outline of this sink where I fill a vase for lilies.

Linda Mitchell 2/7/21

Hamish is trudging through summer. He thought he'd work with Mary Lee's offered clunker, "bicycle grease on my calf." But, when we googled "ox on a bike," we got this photo -- which resulted in a giggle fit for the both of us. 

Photo: Anthony Bianco - The Travel Tart. “How To Ride A Bike With Ox in Vietnam: The Travel Tart Blog.” How To Ride A Bike With Ox in Vietnam | The Travel Tart Blog, 28 Sept. 2018

There is a poem of sorts that we cobbled together on his padlet.

https://padlet.com/mitchellhubeimom/Ox 

See how Margaret, Catherine, Molly, and Heidi met our July challenge.

Nurturing Our Summer Souls

There's always far more to do in summer than time to do it in. Still, the top of the list for me is nurturing.

Fortunately, this summer, I am vaccinated and so are my college friends. I was able to visit my college buddies in Rochester, NY for a long weekend of talking and walking, and eating at fun places.

L. Mitchell

I wanted to get together with my girlfriends...but I didn't realize until we were together how much I needed a get-together with them. It's been a long pandemic. 

Truly, my soul was nurtured. We laughed at how we now do things like walk around cemeteries and take photos of flowers as we discuss life's big issues. This is fun for us these days. 

L. Mitchell

It's not revolutionary or miraculous...but our time together is so very nurturing we've already planned next year's get-together. I am grateful for the soul-nurturing medicine friends are.

        The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume.

        Proverbs 27:9

Thank you, friend Carol for rounding up our Spiritual Thursday posts today at Beyond Literacy.  I am scheduled to host next month. I've chosen respect as our theme.