Welcome to OpenLinkNight everyone! As you know OpenLinkNight is your opportunity to link 1 poem of your choice as this is no prompt-day. For those who missed the Mr. Linky deadline this Tuesday’s poetics or any poetry prompts that you have missed in the past, this is the opportunity to share your poem. Out of courtesy, please link back to dVerse Poets Pub if you are sharing your poem.
It is spring season here in Ontario, Canada and we are marvelling the beauty of our cherry blossoms in our parks. The blooming time is very short – only 2 weeks at most, and after that, the trees are bare throughout the year. These trees are a gift from Japan.
Spring
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
****
By Mary Oliver
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her -—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
From: New and Selected Poems
Copyright ©: Mary Oliver
Welcome everyone to OLN. And congrats to those participating in the daily writing for this month. It is almost over. We have some pies and cakes with coffee or tea today. Have fun reading and visiting other poems.
Good evening dVerse Poets and thank you, Grace, for hosting OLN. It;s raining here this evening and it’s chilly. We’re hoping for the weather to improve next week. I look forward to reading poems.
Good afternoon Kim from sunny Ontario. It is a bit cool at 11 C, but there is sun. I look forward to reading them too.
Today we have had very changing weather, sunshine one minute, and hard rain the next. Right now I notice that despite it being 9 PM it is not entirely dark… spring is actually coming.
Hi Bjorn. Weather here alternates between rain and sun, but sunset is still at 8:15 pm. Wow, if there is sunset at 9pm, it would be our summer. Enjoy the spring season.
It is still just at 8:30, so it is clearly dusk… but in another couple of weeks it will be at 9.
Bring on the summer heat. It is only a short season here, so very much appreciating the warmth.
I just got in the lake for the first time of 2023. It’s a bit bitey, but after mowing, it felt good. It’s amazing what a couple days of sunshine does for my mood.
Yes, morning sunshine works wonder for me too. Thanks for joining in.
Hello everyone! Love the spring poems you have selected, Grace. It is summer time here but the weather is pleasant like springtime.
Hi Punam. You have the best of both seasons.
Hi Grace. Absolutely beautiful poem samples posted. Here in Nova Scotia spring tends be rather long and drawn out, but things are certainly beginning to bloom – the magnolia included, any day now!
Hi Chris. How lovely to marvel that new beginnings, that first bloom is exciting to me (like the cherry blossoms here). So nice to read a poem from a fellow Canadian. Enjoy spring!
Agreed about reading a fellow Canadian, we seem few between in the world of WordPress (though a wonderful world it is!). Wishing you a great spring as well Grace. I’m originally from Thunder Bay – they’re still buried under snow!
Thank you Grace for the two poems – GMH’s thrush’s egg and Mary Oliver’s black bear excite and re-invigorate me from a languid wet day.
Reframe: after the refreshing rain here the cherry trees will likely burst into full blossom tomorrow.
If you have any cherry pie I’ll take that with vegan cream, and a mug of fennel tea. And I’ll be back tomorrow to sift through the poetic petals, with pleasure.
Hi Kathy! You are very welcome. Nothing like reading poems to excite me too. How exciting to see the full blossom. Here is a cherry pie and mug of fennel tea. Enjoy and see you along the poetic petals.
The pie that you left me was delicious … I also gobbled up the poems so far delivered to Mr Linky … what a treat!
Hello Grace, Our family met a black bear on a trail in Canada once…i did not respond as poetically as Mary Oliver 😉 Thankfully, we stared at each other and then moved on in different directions!
Hello Lynn. That must have been a scary experience. I have only seen deers and moose in Alberta, not yet bears. Enjoy the weekend!
We were in British Columbia when we met a bear.
Hi, Grace! Thanks for hosting, I’ve submitted my poem which I wrote today.
Thanks for joining in. Wishing you a good week ahead.
Thanks for hosting Grace. (K)
Thank you for joining our OLN. Have a good week!
Hi Grace! Thank you for hosting. I’ve missed so many prompts, so I’ve combined them here. 🙂
You are a super swordsmith to do this. I missed some too but I have incorporated some in my spring theme. Have a good week!
Thank you! I hope you have a good week, too!
Thank you for hosting OLN Grace, and thanks for two of my loved poets – bonus 🙂
Hi Paul, thanks for joining in. When I am looking for inspiring works, I always look back at their poems. Enjoy your week.
There are, however, some drawbacks to Spring: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2023/04/29/spring-picnic/
I know but still spring is a beautiful season. Have a good week!
Beautiful poems Grace! ❣️
Thank you Cindy. Have a good week!
You’re so welcome Grace! ❣️