“Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more to day than dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” Henry David Thoreau
I admit it. I’m a morning person. There is something about the quiet before anyone is up. It seems a delightful time of day to me.
Sitting with my dog in silence on our back porch, watching shadows, listening to birds, makes me feel at peace. Sometimes, thoughts and story lines float through my mind. Other times, I sit and nurse my coffee, just experiencing the sights and sounds in my garden as the day slowly unfolds until I can’t delay coming inside any longer.
It’s lovely, especially in spring. Then every day new life awakens amid the faithful pansies that have bloomed all winter.
Daffodils dance in the breeze with cheerful aconite. Lenten rose pushes up purple bells in the fairy garden along with bashful violet. Then, bushes and trees are wreathed in blossoms overnight, it seems.
But as much as the flowers and the foliage draw my eye, what most fascinates me is the interplay of light and shadow, the progression and change in the shine on the leaves, or the light that highlights the curve of the Japanese magnolia petal, heightening the waxy ivory and pink in the center and intensifying the magenta on the outside of the flower.
Now, I know that this is a really different post for me, but I hope you will find something in it to enjoy…the above is the context of my love affair with light, and to what happened a week ago when we stayed at our son’s home.
That morning, as usual, I was the first up. I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee cup working on my blog. And I had a beautiful moment of light coming through the French doors. And for the first time in many years, it led to expressing my thought in a poem:
Especially in Spring
My love is inexorable,
Especially in spring.
Stealthy, silent…and slow,
Slinking through the cracks,
Slipping beneath the shades,
Creeping across the floor,
She covers my eyelids and whispers,
“Come for a walk. I’m playing in the wood.”
‘There’s work to do,” my mind protests.
Up, coffee cup filled, trying to concentrate,
A tendril reaches me through the window,
Shadows the panes, breaks into rainbows,
Sliding across the table till it highlights the keys.
My love is irresistible.
She always draws my eye,
Especially in spring.
There she is, playing with the wind,
Fingering the new leaves,
Dappling the edges,
As the wind lifts the tree limbs to her touch.
Suddenly, fractured, she falls,
Slicing the canopy in shafts of gold and grey.
My love always breaks my heart,
Especially in spring.
Just something a little different…enjoy the light, especially this spring.
joanneeddy's blog 
Enjoyed that very much. Do more.
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That is lovely. I’m doing the same with my morning coffee, so it was especially fitting! I agree with Bernadette! Do more!
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A journey with you is like a buffet, lots of nibbles to go around, a bit for everyone who comes to your table. It is seven am in England I have been scratching the paper for two hours. My ears are soothed by the rumble of air coming from the bedroom, where my heartbeat sleeps. A morning person who adores to be married to her night owl. This has been a great step on this white crisp Hare bouncing morning. So I thank you for allowing my feet to wipe your threshold. 😇
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Yesterday was my husband’s birthday so I started the morning cleaning and between that and adjusting to having “sprung” an hour ahead last Sunday I just got to my porch to have coffee in the garden with Nessa. It’s already “eight” (my internal clock still thinks it’s seven) but I am sitting here with you while my night person dreams (of me!) I am glad you enjoyed my post. I studied poetry as an English major undergrad and used to write a lot of verse, more recently investing myself in an effort to get a novel published. It is set in Poland in 1446 with folklore and fantasy wrapped in politics, so I guess I specialize in buffets! Thank you for tip toeing with me in the garden this morning. Jo
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I am currently procrastinating on here and twitter. Hiding from the “E” word as if I really can. Editting my MS as I am trying not to do, is stiffling my erge to wander down the Rabbit hole and pen my way to The End. Pleased to stroll come over some time and read some whimsy. 😇 Have a good weekend.
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Loved the poem! ❤
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Thanks, Ann. I used to write poetry all the time in college, then sort of stopped. This spring, for some reason, poetry has been singing to me again.
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Nice!
I have some “poetry” (as I like to call it…no training, just a “feel”) here too, if you feel inclined to check it out sometime. Some is under a poem heading and the rest is sprinkled through….
I like the idea of poetry “singing” to you. I often find the words just tumbling out as I try to get them written down.
AJ
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Henry David is very proud of you , I’m sure. Your poetry is comforting and revitalizing. Sunshine is surely your Muse.
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Syracuse is the 2nd cloudiest major city in the US behind Seattle. I really felt sun deprived until we moved here! In college, I wrote a lot of poetry…but not much anymore. Henry David is a favorite…Whitman, Emerson, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Keats, lots of those folks! Thanks, Clare!
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I love all of them and Auden. Poetry is a demanding form of writing, but I like the compactness of thought.
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That is part of what I love about it, as well. To capture thoughts, feelings, with an economy of language and thought, with a rhythm that speaks as strongly as the words is so powerful. Are you sure you don’t have any Polish relatives?
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Irish/English. I decided to write a story in rhymed verse and it wasn’t easy, but I’m really pleased with the result. It’s about a little carnivorous, pitcher plant in a Botanical Garden that decides he doesn’t want to eat meat any more. It causes much stress for his mother until a solution is finally reached.I’ve illustrated it with amped photos and I’m making it into a power point presentation.
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Doug is mostly English, some Scotch, and a touch of Irish. Sure love the sound of the pitcher plant story! Wait..surely she can’t have become a vegetarian! That’s almost like being a cannibal for a plant! And flies, well, eating flies is such a good thing to do for the world!
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Carnivorous plants can live on nitrogen in the soil. They evolved into meat eaters because the soil became deficient. And there are tree shrews in the tropics that defecate into pitcher plants to share nitrogen with them. The toad explains this to the pitcher’s mother, Dee. and she responds:
“That’s all well and good
Dee replied to the toad
But no child of mine
Will become a commode.”
I bought a little Venus Fly trap at EPCOT.
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Still laughing! But also a COOL story! I didn’t know any of that! Love it. Though perhaps Dee needs to know munching on flies still shares commodes, just through the intermediary of the fly!
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Yes, flies are dirty little creatures. The poem ends with the thankful fly and his family in a garbage can saying grace. I’m making the poem into a power point with Botanical Center photos I’ve taken and Apped. I’ll use the presentation in a class I’m teaching this summer called Writing to Share.
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Just getting better and better, I bet your class will Love it!
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I hope so. Most of them will be senior citizens as OLLI stands for Osher Life-Long Learning Institute. This is the first class I will teach for them. You should check your local college and see if they have an OLLI group. Lots of interesting courses offered including writers’ groups.
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