Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Cherry Blossoms

photo by Totomai

What a strange thing!

to be alive

beneath cherry blossoms.

― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

In the cherry blossom's shade

there's no such thing

as a stranger.

― Kobayashi Issa

Everyone feels grief

when cherry blossoms scatter.

Might they then be tears–

those drops of moisture falling

in the gentle rains of spring? 

–Otomo no Juronushi

photo by Totomai

Midweek Motif ~ Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms mean springtime and cherries in summer, yum!  They also stand in for clouds, impermanence, beauty and sadness and more.  We can travel on their petals. Today we have been blessed with amazing photos of the blossoms by Totomai Martinez who featured them in his blog last Friday: Sakura.  There you will find his recommendations for Cherry blossom contemplation (Hanami) in Japan.  The poems above are in the Japanese poetic forms of haiku and tanka.

photo by Totomai

Your Challenge:  Build a poem with Cherry blossoms as your central image or recurring motif.  If you use a photograph, be sure to credit the photographer.

photo by Totomai

April Inventory

BY W. D. SNODGRASS

The green catalpa tree has turned

All white; the cherry blooms once more.   

In one whole year I haven’t learned   

A blessed thing they pay you for.   

The blossoms snow down in my hair;   

The trees and I will soon be bare.

. . . .  

(read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

Misreading Housman

BY LINDA PASTAN

On this first day of spring, snow

covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably   

with the new blossoms like identical twins   

brought up in different hemispheres.   

It is not what Housman meant

when he wrote of the cherry

hung with snow, though he also knew   

how death can mistake the seasons,

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundatiuon)

For those who are new to Poets United: 

Post your Cherry Blossom poem on your site, and then link it here.



Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 



If you use a picture include its link.  



Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems.






(Our next Midweek Motif is "enlightenment.")












Oh, yes!  Today is the first day of National Poetry Month in the USA, Canada and a few other countries.  Good luck to all of you who are accepting a challenge to write a poem a day during April.  I am going to try with help from prompts at Poetic Asides, NaPoWriMo, Magaly Guerrero  and Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.  We'd love to know if you are attempting the challenge.  Please share links to the sites you are using for prompts and community during the challenge. Thanks!  ~Susan for Poets United

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Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fashion

“I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, 

the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. 

They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - 

all I hope for in my clothes.” 
― Yves Saint-Laurent

“My role in all of this is very simple. I make clothing like armor. 
My clothing protects you from unwelcome eyes.” 

― Yohji Yamamoto

“I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.” 
― Lillian Hellman

~

Midweek Motif ~ Fashion

Where do each of us intersect with fashion:  haute couture or ready-to-wear? new or used clothing? shoes? hats? jewelry? eyeglass-ware?  bags?  cars?  elsewhere? nowhere?

As designer, photographer, perveyer, buyer or audience?

Do you have a favorite designer?

Your Challenge:  Write a poem that explores fashion in your unique way.

~

from Old Magazine Articles

Couture by Mark Doty, 1953

1.

Peony silks,

            in wax-light:

                        that petal-sheen,

gold or apricot or rose

            candled into-

                        what to call it,

lumina, aurora, aureole?

            About gowns,

                        the Old Masters,

were they ever wrong?

            This penitent Magdalen’s

                        wrapped in a yellow

. . . .  (Read the rest HERE at poets.org.)

For a Daughter Who Leaves by Janice Mirikitani

“More than gems in my comb box shaped by the

God of the Sea, I prize you, my daughter. . .”

Lady Otomo, 8th century, Japan

A woman weaves

her daughter’s wedding

slippers that will carry

her steps into a new life.

The mother weeps alone

into her jeweled sewing box

slips red thread

around its spool,

her daughter’s first silk jacket

the same she used to stitch

embroidered with turtles

that would bring luck, long life.

. . . .   (read the rest HERE at poets.org.)

For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Post your new fashion poem on your site, and then link it here.
2. If you use a picture include its link.  
3. Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
4. Leave a comment here.
5. Visit and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is the role of humor in our lives.)

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