To bid goodbye to August…
I explored what has been written about observation and came up first with volumes of poems, the focus on this one word/engagement, as well as many single poems. It feels like many who penned them did so with joy and whimsy in the process.
So to end August with lightness, enjoy a few.
Also, a photo of my father, perhaps on an August day.
He was the quietest of observers of his land and of life. I wish I could have plumbed the depths of his, to use one of his favorite words, cogitations.
Perhaps you will choose to write a poem of your own, as I am now inspired to try this week. Whether it will be shared or not is anyone’s guess!
All the writing in many genres…on just one word…one word that is a way of engaging with the world.
Like all of the wells, there is so much to discover in the dipping!
by Grace Butcher (Ohio Poet of the Year 1992 – I see she lives very near where I lived in OH!)
List of Seemingly Unrelated Observations
Distance, like snow, melts
Walking in deep yellow leaves
Drowns out your voice
Thinking, like a deep river,
Eats canyons in your mind
Everything blossoms that can.
Everything blossomed that could
Stars move if they are airplanes
Wish fast
You can live as many places
at once as you need to
For some places you don’t go anymore
You still have a key
A dream brings you into morning
One way or another
By an unknown author
The Observer
She always stood in the shadows
Quiet and invisible
Yet watching and listening
Looking at the sky, the people
Everything
Observing
Wherever she went she noticed things
Little details
Colors
Smells
She watched how people moved
How they talked
Observing
Sometimes something would strike her
Trigger an idea or a poem
Other times, she would store it away for another time
She almost lived in two worlds
One as a participant
The other, observing
When she sat in a café she usually sat alone
She preferred it that way
It was her time just for her
To watch, create, ponder
Write
Observing
by Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967)
Observation
If I don’t drive around the park.
I’m pretty sure to make my mark,
If I’m in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I’ll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
by Josephine Ensign, a professor of nursing in Seattle – after taking a Saturday environmental writing workshop
“After observing this dandelion, I wrote this poem. Happy Earth Day.”
An Ode to Dandelions
labeled a weed
noxious, non-native species
scorned, uprooted, exterminated, poisoned
labeled a tonic
food, medicine
harvested leaves, flowers, roots
eaten raw, cooked
steeped in hot water for tea
fermented for wine
elixer of dandiness
—dandilicious
What is a weed?
What is a tonic? A label?
Laughing yellow button
turned to whisp of fluff
blow away
fly away
spread your tonic weed seed!
