Okay, I confess, I have no idea what to write about today. I am scheduling this in advance, as I am on the honeymoon (which I already mentioned – check back a couple of days, I can’t give you a link remotely!), and I am battling a cold and I am simply not feeling terrifically idea-full. I have pages of suggestions of writing exercises and topics, but none of them are calling my name in a voice that refuses to be ignored, so I’m going off the reservation on a light-hearted bit o’ fun instead of doing something serious.

I have decided to take some of the pictures that The Husband has taken (he’s a fabulous photographer with his own website business with his dad, by the way, check it out!) and use them to write some poems. Poetry is unlikely to ever be a publishing thing for me, but I find it fun and easy and a good way to practice writing within strict (usually stripped-down linguistic) parameters. So I hope you enjoy these – and even if you don’t like the poems, well, the pictures are cool!

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The Rhythm of the Rain (an English sonnet)

Drip, drip, drop – the rain does its work here,
Turning the garden into an orchestra, Mother Nature’s own band
The sounds are queer,
Water plopping, mud squelching, leaves swishing, turned by an invisible hand.

It is music of a sort,
Even if not the kind you are used to.
The pieces can be soft or pounding, long or short,
The players can be many or few.

The only requirement, the only need,
Is at least one cloud – a simple ingredient, white or grey, fluffy or lean,
Cumulus or stratus. The cloud provides the lead;
The heart of the band. Nature may write the song but the cloud makes it play.

It has its own meter, its own rhyme.
The music of the rain keeps its own beat, masters its own time.

***

Nothing (a cinquain)

Nothing.
That’s what I see.
Nothing going past me,
Nothing waiting for or on me.
Just me.

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The Flame (a haiku)

The leaves are on fire.
Fall changes everything here,
Setting leaves aflame.

***

The Snail Graveyard (a mirror cinquain)

They know –
Somehow they know.
They know where to end up,
Where they are all supposed to die.
But how?

They’re here –
All of them: alone, together.
Each found his way, his place,
His spot to die –
In peace.

***

A Blur (a tetractys)

It all goes so fast.
How, why, where, what, when – who knows?
All that I do know
Is that it comes and it goes
In a blur – life, passing by.