Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Biodiversity

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

--Eden Phillpotts

“Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty.”
  ― Albert Einstein 

source

 Definition From Wikipedia: "Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life. This can refer to genetic variation, species variation, or ecosystem variation within an area, biome, or planet."

General meaning of biodiversity

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Midweek Motif ~ Biodiversity

Today I am trying to wrap my mind around the diversity of life.  How do we fit into the family of life on our home planet?  

Here's one viewpoint: 

 “The extraordinary thing we now know, thanks to Crick and Watson’s discovery of DNA and the decoding of the human and other genomes, is that all life, everything, all the three million species of life and plant life—all have the same source. We all come from a single source."

―Jonathan Sacks in Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise

Your Challenge:  In a new poem bring us a little way into one aspect of biodiversity, helping to make visible our part in the whole.

How farmers produce biodiversity.

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry
 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd

By Walt Whitman

 

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,

Return in peace to the ocean my love,

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated,

Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,

As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;

Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,

Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love.

 Book of Hours II, 16 

By Rainer Maria Rilke

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing –
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly. 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

              (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Gift.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Emily's Quotes

“And the sun and the moon sometimes argue over who will tuck me in at night. If you think I am having more fun than anyone on this planet, you are absolutely correct.” ― Hafiz

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” ― Jane Goodall

“Fun is closely related to Joy -- a sort of emotional froth arising from the play of instinct.” ― C.S. Lewis

 Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Can you list 10 ways you have fun?

Fun for me is ACTIVE, like: licking the cooking spoon, playing a challenging game of Scrabble, drinking tea while visiting, reading a good book, re-reading the good book, praying while coloring, stroking the cats until they purr, writing a poem in an un-rushed time, reading poetry aloud, and taking long walks on cool days.  That's 10 things.  What's the first 10 that occur to you?  the next 10?  

The challenge:  In a new poem, find a meaningful way to have fun fore-grounding fun.

Children’s Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560)

Children’sGames

 by William Carlos Williams 

(I)

This is a schoolyard

crowded

with children

of all ages near a village

on a small stream

meandering by

where some boys

are swimming

bare-ass

or climbing a tree in leaf

everything

is motion

elder women are looking

after the small

fry

a play wedding a

christening

nearby one leans

hollering

into

an empty hogshead

(II)

Little girls

whirling their skirts about

until they stand out flat

tops pinwheels

to run in the wind with

or a toy in 3 tiers to spin

with a piece

of twine to make it go

blindman’s-buff follow the

leader stilts

high and low tipcat jacks

bowls hanging by the knees

standing on your head

run the gauntlet

a dozen on their backs

feet together kicking

through which a boy must pass

roll the hoop or a

construction

made of bricks

some mason has abandoned

(III)

The desperate toys

of children

their

imagination equilibrium

and rocks

which are to be

found

everywhere

and games to drag

the other down

blindfold

to make use of

a swinging

weight

with which

at random

to bash in the

heads about

them

Brueghel saw it all

and with his grim

humor faithfully

recorded

it.

Country Boy in Winter

BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

The wind may blow the snow about, 

For all I care, says Jack, 

And I don’t mind how cold it grows, 

For then the ice won’t crack. 

Old folks may shiver all day long, 

But I shall never freeze; 

What cares a jolly boy like me 

For winter days like these? 

Far down the long snow-covered hills 

It is such fun to coast, 

So clear the road! the fastest sled 

There is in school I boast. 

The paint is pretty well worn off, 

But then I take the lead; 

A dandy sled’s a loiterer, 

And I go in for speed. 

When I go home at supper-time, 

Ki! but my cheeks are red! 

They burn and sting like anything; 

I’m cross until I’m fed. 

You ought to see the biscuit go, 

I am so hungry then; 

And old Aunt Polly says that boys 

Eat twice as much as men. 

There’s always something I can do 

To pass the time away; 

The dark comes quick in winter-time— 

A short and stormy day 

And when I give my mind to it, 

It’s just as father says, 

I almost do a man’s work now, 

And help him many ways. 

I shall be glad when I grow up 

And get all through with school, 

I’ll show them by-and-by that I 

Was not meant for a fool. 

I’ll take the crops off this old farm, 

I’ll do the best I can. 

A jolly boy like me won’t be 

A dolt when he’s a man. 

I like to hear the old horse neigh 

Just as I come in sight, 

The oxen poke me with their horns 

To get their hay at night. 

Somehow the creatures seem like friends, 

And like to see me come. 

Some fellows talk about New York, 

But I shall stay at home.

Nostalgia 3 by Sunil Pookode  (2016)
(Used without Permission.  Forgive me.)

a song in the front yard

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows. 

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now   

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.   

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.   

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae   

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace   

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—                

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Cloud)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ "a bundle of contradictions" (from Anne Frank's last letter)

I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

~ Albert Einstein

In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and are lost. Only in love are unity and duality not at variance. Love must be one and two at the same time.                                                                                                                              ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Anne Frank dated her last diary entry 1 August 1944. Here it is, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, and translated by Susan Massotty.  

This is an excerpt:

"Dearest Kitty, 

". . . Can you please tell me exactly what "a bundle of contradictions" is? What does "contradiction" mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within. The former means not accepting other people's opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I'm known. The latter, for which I'm not known, is my own secret. As I've told you many times, I'm split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. . . ." 

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Midweek Motif ~ 

"a bundle of contradictions" 

(see here a very loud silence)

Your Challenge:  Make one new poem with the motif "a bundle of contradictions."  Alternatively, make a new poem with a motif inspired by Anne Frank.

Anne Frank Huis

BY ANDREW MOTION

Even now, after twice her lifetime of grief

and anger in the very place, whoever comes

to climb these narrow stairs, discovers how

the bookcase slides aside, then walks through

shadow into sunlit room, can never help

but break her secrecy again. Just listening

is a kind of guilt: the Westerkirk repeats

itself outside, as if all time worked round

towards her fear, and made each stroke

die down on guarded streets. Imagine it—

four years of whispering, and loneliness

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)

From Song of Myself 

            BY WALT WHITMAN

51

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

Drawing Hands by M.C. Escher (1948)

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ of poems.)