Welcome!

Happy Poetry Friday, everybody! Time to pile up the poetry like turtles lounging in the sun.

This meme ruined being able to say that I hope this post finds you well:

So let's just say I'm glad you found this post! Today we have a pussy-willow poem and a call for the holiday poetry swap, as well as the round-up.

The Willow Cats
by Margaret Widdemer

They call them pussy-willows,
But there’s no cat to see
Except the little furry toes
That stick out on the tree:

I think that very long ago,
When I was just born new,
There must have been whole pussy-cats
Where just the toes stick through---

And every Spring it worries me,
I cannot ever find
Those willow-cats that ran away
And left their toes behind!

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It seems too early to be thinking about the holidays, but I didn't want let this chance to catch everyone pass me by! If you are interested in sending one poem and gift to a poetry friend, email me at tabathayeatts(at)gmail(dot)com. I will collect names until Halloween, and then in early November I'll send out swap info.

Paula Modersohn-Becker

I am becoming somebody – I'm living the most intensively happy period of my life. ~Paula in a letter to her sister Milly Rohland-Becker, May 1906

For Art Thursday, paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). When I chose her works, I didn't realize she died tragically of a postpartum embolism at age 31. I'm glad she caught my eye.

Mädchen am Ententeich
by Paula Modersohn-Becker

Old Peasant Woman
by Paula Modersohn-Becker

Elsbeth Modersohn on a red pillow
by Paula Modersohn-Becker

Old poor woman with a glass ball and poppies
by Paula Modersohn-Becker

Lee Hoetger and her sister
by Paula Modersohn-Becker

Faith, Hope and Love

As might be gathered from his music, Dvořák had an attractive personality.
~David Mathias Lloyd-Jones

For Music Monday, Antonín Dvořák's Mass in D performed by Brixner Initiative Musik Und Kirche. To me, it feels perfect for autumn. Time to warm up with layers of music.

Blessed cogs

Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?
~Lily Tomlin

Happy Poetry Friday! Man, did I have a hard time choosing a poem for today. I finally settled on "About Standing (in Kinship)" by Chippewa poet Kimberly Blaeser.

Cat Foot by Kevin Dooley

About Standing (in Kinship)
By Kimberly Blaeser

We all have the same little bones in our foot
twenty-six with funny names like navicular.
Together they build something strong—
our foot arch a pyramid holding us up.
The bones don’t get casts when they break.
We tape them—one phalange to its neighbor for support.

read the rest here

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Imagine the Possibilities has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Rose!

Fossilized Tree Resin

The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron), are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ (ēlektōr) meaning "beaming Sun". According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron, amber. The word elektron gave rise to the words electric, electricity, and their relatives because of amber's ability to bear a charge of static electricity.
~Wikipedia

Amber for Art Thursday! The Amber room makes me feel a little queasy, to be honest, but I couldn't leave it out.

Amber necklace from 2000 to 1000 BCE
Rijks Museum voor Oudheden, Leiden, the Netherlands

Amber apple
photo by Pierre André Leclercq

Tree of Life
by Irina Gnatenko or Lyudmila Sakharova
photo by Kaliningrad Amber Combine

Amber Telephone, Vilnius, Lithuania
photo by Zairon

Amber ship
photo by Kristian Frisk

Amber room, Catherine Palace, Russia
photo by Jeanyfan

The same ship above, but with different lighting. (It looks completely different!)
The Amber Museum in Krakow, Poland
Amber Museum in Copenhagen

Roll the Bones

They say someday everybody dies alone
But hey
Who knows
Yeah, hey who knows
~Shakey Graves

I posted this song by Shakey Graves back in 2013. Today YouTube asked me if I wanted to hear Shakey and I was like YEAH.

For Music Monday, Shakey Graves with Roll the Bones:

Paws in the air

Every person, no matter what their wealth, is equally capable of practicing generosity.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

I thought about writing a generosity "chart poem," like I mentioned last week, but I am not sure how to rank generosities. Is forgiveness the greatest one? I could think myself into a muddle about this.

Instead I am pulling out Mary Oliver's generous Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night. Could there be a sweeter arrangement?

Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night
by Mary Oliver

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.




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Kathryn Apel has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Kat! I will be heading off on Friday to celebrate my dad's 75th birthday on Saturday. Catch you later!

The Cat that Walked by Himself

If I say three words in your praise, you may drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.
~The Woman speaking to the Cat (Rudyard Kipling)

The Woman thought she wouldn't praise the Cat three times, but in the end she did, of course. For Art Thursday, we have Rudyard Kipling:

The Cat that Walked by Himself
illustration by Rudyard Kipling

Bass & Tabla Jam

That was when I realised that music is the most profound, magical form of communication there is.
~Lesley Garrett

For Music Monday, Shankh Lahiri (tabla) and Juna Serita (bass):

Subjective Units of Distress Scale 1-10

College truly saved me. It brought me physical and mental distance from the tightly woven abusive nest. It reflected back at me my gifts, my strength, my empowered femininity. I met people who respected me and were interested in my ideas, my viewpoints. Even if, perhaps especially since, I was eccentric.
~disabled poet Jill Khoury

Another mentor poem today! You know those pain scales they use in the hospital? Make your own scale, any topic. Off the top of my head, I can imagine ones for love and boredom. (I should do one for my One Little Word: generosity.)

Subjective Units of Distress Scale 1-10
by Jill Khoury
(with 5 bonus units for additional introspection)

1 – emotions are just neurochemical swirls happening inside your body

2 – the wind rattles the windows at celeste’s house

3 – the slug and bore in our voices

4 – at the library 100 ringtones go off at once

5 – all of the above but add pain; specify whether the pain is aching, acute, anvil, arrow strike, burning, chronic, clamp, electric, fetal, folding, nebula, neuropathic, nociceptive, panting, pressing, radicular, spasmodic, stabbing, stuttering, tornado

6 – atmospheric disturbance like bees chanting a death hymn

7 – in the terrorwood my anxiety lights a fire

8 – st. dymphna with lilies, holding a sword

9 – time is a monstrous organ that breathes us...


read the rest here

8- Saint Dymphna, prior to being beheaded by her father,
with a demon under her sword

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Beyond Literacy Link has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Carol!

Dealbhan

If I could rise like the wind or the tides of the sea
I would sing you to sleep my love with sweet melody
~Gordon M. Lightfoot

Art Thursday time! Sometimes I pick a theme and then I look for art, but our theme today is "art that I ran across this week."

I am a sucker for windows, animals, fabric textures, and plants. (I don't know if there is a connection between artist Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot and musician Gordon M. Lightfoot, other than they are both in this post.)

Woman at a Window
by Caspar David Friedrich

Study of Two Sheep
by Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot

Red Hot Pokers
by Richard Spare

Morning
by Gregorio Sciltian

L'arbre
by Suzanne Valadon

Marcus King

At the time, I’d changed medications when I was trying to process the death of family members. I was coasting through life like a zombie. When I’d get off them, I’d feel things that happened six months ago for the first time and crash down.
~Marcus King

For Music Monday, Marcus King. There are only three musicians in the band but they rock so hard it feels like there are more:





(To my dad: Echoes of SRV, yes?)

Some Other Names

I view poems as a magic invitation (for writer or reader, adult or child) to sit for a while with a question or sensation, and explore it in your own way.
~Kate Wakeling

D, age 5

For Poetry Friday, what looks like a fun mentor poem to me! Kate Wakeling's Some Other Names for Rain:

illustration by Elīna Brasliņa

Some Other Names for Rain
by Kate Wakeling

I call you the eyelash rinser
and windowpane racer.

I call you cloud soup.

I call you the tongue tickler,
sock seeper,
hair hassler
and ankle surpriser
(when paired with a passing car).

I call you sky spittle.

I call you leaf polisher.

I call you the pavement drummer
and umbrella summoner.

I call you a brigade of micro water bombs
having a skirmish with the lawn.

I call you the puddle artist
who will only draw circles.

I call you a sprinkle of ocean,
far from home.

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TeacherDance has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Linda!

September

Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancin' in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day
~Al McKay, Allee Willis, Maurice White

In honor of the new month (and all its lovely birthdays), for Art Thursday we have September!

As you will see, a lot of September paintings have apple or grape harvesting (or wine making) in them.

Museo della Cattedrale
photo by Sansa55

Septiembre (Libra)
Francesco Bassano the Younger

The Month of September
15th-century unknown painters

September
by Aleksander Tarasowicz (Аляксандр Тарасевіч)

A Garden in September
by Mary Hiester Reid

Stained glass windows at Strawberry Hill House
photo by Jonathan Cardy

Septiembre
by Giuseppe Eugenio Chiorino