NaPoWriMo – April Thirtieth Already

Lots of wind, my first growler (go ahead, you can laugh, I live to entertain), and other things. What an April it has been and now onto May. You may continue to see some poems here for awhile until the pandemic winds change things around again. I’ve blended this year’s NaPoWriMo into some early cards for August PoPo so more to come.

Or until the DSL lines come crashing down altogether.

The end of April. Long month of grey days
with golden double lines – stay where you are
it warns as it dips and winds around town.
Wind is pummeling the house. Isn’t that
more like March with its half-remembered kites?
And yet, here we are, blown around like
teenagers with an abundance of so
much everything but no experience
to hang it all on, flailing, some flying
lightly, scooping the sky, slurping up
the tough cord, stringing it as clothesline
doing a windy tango of its own
How’s the weather up there, the cord-paying
hand telegraphs, hoping for a tugged reply.

NaPoWriMo – April Thirtieth Already

Today’s Best Thing – Maybe of the Whole Month

This might be the best thing I’ve done in months. Went out to the mailbox this morning as I do and there was a letter – from the IRS. Now, if you’re waiting for a refund, this isn’t exactly what you want to see in your mailbox. Walking back to the house I opened it. I knew, folks, what had to be done, and I did it.

I’m proud of it. I would and will do it again. And I’ll laugh now every few days over this.

Yes, I fed him to the worms, at the risk of corrupting or damaging my new worms in my composting bin, I ripped him up and buried him in there with all my other compostible bits.

Next time Jerk, don’t waste my tax dollars sending me your signature in re to something that’s already freaking happened.

---

Moisten and prepare your addition to the compost box:

Ensure the paper is adequately damp before shredding:

Prepare a place in the box and add in the new addition:

Cover and let the worms feast and do their thing:

Today’s Best Thing – Maybe of the Whole Month

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Nine

The penultimate day of April and so the almost-last poem of NaPoWriMo. Hopefully it’s been a good month for you all too wherever you’ve been laying low and waiting for COVID-19 to pass over. I was out and around looking at things and painting and took some photos of what I saw and one of my helpful co-workers and myself, trying to work and of course, some clouds.

April is almost over. This morning
I went out with my first coffee, wondering
has there ever been a better time
for daffodils than this year?
We suddenly have time, and reason,
to look and look again. To see
the no-color brown-grey hillside
fill up with frothy green brush.
One day, the pond has a haughty goose.
A week later, several yellow goslings
hurrying to line up behind two strict
but apparently caring parents.
We had several rounds of snow this April,
but nothing stayed the hand of spring.
We were there when the maples bloomed,
watched as peonies leapt out of the ground,
four, six inches at a time from nothing.
When the peepers sang, we stopped to listen
and knew another checkbox had been ticked.
Every day the hand of April is seen
in places you’ve looked before, suddenly,
throwing a fistful of green, now pouring it
along roadways, sneaking out of hedgerows,
following the farmer turning the fields,
that telltale green waiting til he heads home,
jumping up out of the surprised earth
No one cares if it’s weed or timothy
Only that April came and now comes May.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Nine

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-eight

A day with work and sun and clouds and a tasty lunch and dinner. Breakfast wasn’t bad either.

You seem concerned and ask if I’m all right
But see, we don’t really know each other
And if we did, we probably would not.
So I nod and say I’m good as do you
and we turn to work which is what we share
People talk of their feelings all the time
I wasn’t raised that way, but to get through
Never let them see you cry, be polite,
be respectful and work hard to get ahead
All the things that make a civil world,
a smooth landscape where nothing sticks out.
And so I’ve kept myself to myself a lot.
Perhaps we could start by saying who we are
But if we did, we wouldn’t choose to know.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-eight

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Seven

LOL. It snowed! It rained! The delivery guys came! I had online meetings with work! I had a tuna sandwich for lunch! It was, my friends, quite the Monday.

Pandemonium

According to my believable source*,
this word was coined by Milton
combining the pan- of everywhere with
the -demon-ium that can only mean trouble
Imagine hearing this new word whiz by
in a crowded market place one morning
your brain perking up to parse it as
‘everywhere demons’ while your eyes
were talking to your feet about
where the closest exit was and your
hands were scooping up some extra garlic,
as you started suddenly for home,
your mouth tasting the pure dryness of ‘oh’
Or maybe it was more a tang of ‘oh oh’.

First: my lunch today, inspired by some wonderful celery:

and even though it had snowed before I got up, it poured during my lunchtime park on Darrow Rd.

I was just admiring some twelve over twelve light windows in the Shaker settlement buildings along Darrow Rd when I saw this:

I always admire this little building along Rte 20 near the school.

The UPS Man came just as I was coming back, with two packages: Watercolor paper, a new wool sweater and a car organizer for the front seat.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Seven

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Six

Grey and rainy. Well, beyond rainy: hosing down rain and grapple and hail. Went to Hand Hollow and caught a glimpse of the same bit of heron head in the nest. It is hunkered down probably wishing it had a roof! Had to rummage some for a poem idea. I think we’re all about here now. I did manage to slap some Krazy Glue on my computer glasses this morning. And I did mess around with gouache while watching for the heron. It worked ok, but I didn’t have much of a plan going so the contrast and spacing isn’t all there. But hey, that’s what a sketchbook’s for right? trying things out? capturing things? OK here’s a poem.

Things I could have done
Should have done, must do
even those I’d like to do, well,
I stand in the quiet house
and they gather all around me
follow me down the hall
but I’m out the door
and down the steps before
any of them can grab me
not by the wrist or ankle or hem
I’m gone to who knows where
I sure don’t know or why but
today it is just not any of that.
And likely to be nothing at all.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Six

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Five

I laughed at myself for writing out a postcard with this and then realizing tomorrow’s Sunday so of course no mail, but then I almost forgot that the interwebs is still open for business as normal. It was a beautiful day here and so I went out and painted, gradually reducing the layers I was wearing. Then I had a grocery pickup and discovered I had a cotton shirt in my car so I changed when I got to Mom’s with the shopping.

The daffodils have risen
up to the bird feeder
as May approaches;
the sky is full
of yellow fluttering.
A theory of them
being there year-round
and leaping up
to meet the spring
so elegant and yet
each year met with
my joyful surprise.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Five

NaPoWriMo – Day 24

It was another rainy cold day and again the sun came out again at sunset time. No big sunset or anything, just sun and not much time to enjoy it. Well perhaps it’s part of the plan to keep us home and self-isolating.

Truth be told, this poem was twice as long as I wrote it and sent it off, but I remain unconvinced about the second half but felt pretty good about this half so here you go. Afterwards a few photos, one from yesterday and three from today.

I imagined a survey asking how I felt:
politically hopeless
but my painting is going well.
Because, frankly, we’re messy
all of us and all of this
so if I’m speaking honestly
if not to you then to myself
(that is what you’re wanting, right?)
I can truthfully admit
yes, I was dressed for that
online meeting but my hair
was uncombed and I
wanted to finish my oatmeal
so I kept it audio-only.

We become what we think about all day long. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

NaPoWriMo – Day 24

Clouds and More Clouds

Clouds and More Clouds

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-three

Windy, cold, sunny, cloudy – just another late April Day in the shadow of the Berkshires.

Something about sitting in the car
apple and cheese slices and some
peanut butter crackers on the dash
with a cup of warmed-over coffee,
window open to let the clouds in,
someone else is talking somewhere
else about everything else
about all this stuff while
the sky is blue streaked
and grey in turns with birds
that fit the curvatures above
while I am perched here below
mere mortal, lunch arrayed before me
I should be working but I forgot.

The best way out is always through. — Robert Frost

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-three