mignon ledgard - A Daughter's Touch
 

A Daughter’s Touch

Stones in her back patio
sit around blue water
that lights up at night.

I should say boulders,
in honor. Solid, stately,
smooth enough to caress.

They look like animals
—sea lions, perhaps.
Big ones, small ones,

serene. Meditations
from the desert,
at home in the tropics.

Close, but not mingling,
terracotta vessels stand
on sand-color slabs;

silent soul-huggers,
they gather in pairs
and gracefully wait

for a promise of plants.
My daughter lulls them
with her green eyes.

~ml

Thanks, Nigel; it's good to know that I'm not entirely useless, lol. I mention Ann and Mark in the opening post, but I've read Maryann and I admire her poetry too. All the background threads are in GT: blog, New Formalism, fresh poetry 👍

John and mignon, welcome and thanks for your contributions. Here are your strawberries 🍓🍓🍓 and a magical gift bag for each of you 👜👜

John, many thanks for this fine introduction to the Jelling Stones. I think 'shed the meaning' is particularly interesting, especially so close to the snake 🐍

mignon, thanks to you too. I very much enjoyed reading your poem. appreciating 'sea lions' and 'silent soul-huggers' particularly 😍

Here's another sonnet, written this morning. It's a coming-of-age attempt and the 'I got it!' is from Judy Blume's Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (1970).


Sonnet 13

The Hodgsons' garden gate was slightly stiff,
00like me, I thought, arthritic at thirteen.
I made towards the sheds and caught a whiff
00of rabbit pee and poo; I'd come to clean.
The guineas needed mucking out as well;
00I placed their carry-case inside the hutch.
They trotted in, dear Goldilocks and Belle;
00I stroked their hair; they chuckled at my touch.
The second task was tending Lady Winch,
00the rabbit, dark and often in distress;
I crouched, the effort causing me to flinch
00and cramp, then spot some blood upon my dress;
'I got it!' I exclaimed. And Lady leapt,
escaped across the fields. I stood and wept.

- - -
Tomorrow: a duet.

Hi Fliss,

Yup, the Jelling Stones (pronounced yelling I think) are cool. I'm glad you caught shed at work, and thanks for the strawberries - they went well with a banana I've just eaten mid-afternoon, back from the sights of San Antonio. The goodie bag I shall file away for after travel, con permeso.

I thought your sonnet was good and the subject matter underexplored. The closing couplet packs a punch.

Cheers,
John

For what it's worth, I really liked your sonnet, too - and there are some beautiful poems to read in this thread. It's lovely! A celebration of summer indeed.

As metrical poetry is not my forte, here's a freshly minted image as my contribution to the festival. I'm in another erasure phase. It's a bit soggy.

The source text is Wood and Sowerby (1859) The common objects of the sea shore : including hints for an aquarium.

At midnight we watched carefully for signs of Spring

http://sarah-janecrowson.com/wp-cont...vegetation.gif

A non-moving higher res version here.

Thanks for the background pointer, Fliss - but I had read most of that already. However, I remain unconvinced of the attraction/use of categories - in which case, (note to self) I really shouldn't waste others' time by questioning their existence or utility.
More to the point, your poems are all commanding of attention and have, for me, a quite startling facility with image and expression, so that I am left wondering, 'What, if anything, can you not write about?'
Labels - who needs them?

Word-Bird is excited and starts throwing strawberries 🍓🍓🍓 and gift bags 👜👜 at people in a random manner :>)


John, the Jelling Stones are indeed cool. You're welcome for the strawberries, which would have been very pleasant with the banana. I hope the trip to San Antonio went well. Re. the gift bag, propio (we hope that's correct).

Thanks for enjoying the sonnet, particularly the closing couplet :-)

- - -
Thanks, Sarah-Jane; your appreciation of the sonnet is worth a lot :-)

Thanks very much for the freshly minted image; yes, images are welcome at Freshtival, as are videos, music, etc. The mixture of text and images is striking; and we're always glad to see the deer!

- - -
You're welcome, Nigel. By all means remain unconvinced, if you prefer; I'm not inclined to crack a whip about it. Thanks for enjoying the poems. There's lots of stuff I can't write about, for psychological reasons. But I do my best with what suits, using the term 'fresh' as a light to guide my way. 'The poet's progress,' Word-Bird coos :>o


Here's the duet I mentioned, inspired by the Temple Greenhouse at Croome. I haven't set it to music yet; it's on the task list, as is adjusting the lyrics here and there ('scions', 'train'-hops'). Flora is a soprano; Ceres an alto. There'll be piano accompaniment and background humming.


Flowers and Fruits

Flora
I am Flora, the goddess of youth and of flowers
00and mine is the season of Spring;
I am buds bursting open in meadows and bowers
00and here are the gifts that I bring –
dainty daisies, bold buttercups, loud dandelions,
00sweet roses, forget-me-nots too,
all in bloom in their keenness to raise thousand scions
00in white, yellow, scarlet, and blue!

Ceres
I am Ceres, the goddess of fruits and of grain-crops
00and Autumn is mostly my time;
I am trees clad in baubles and fields full of train'-hops
00and here are my gifts in their prime –
fragrant grapes, comely cabbages, juiciest cherries,
00plump pears, wondrous wheat-ears as well,
all fresh ripened, displayed amongst fine beads of berries
00in purple, green, red, golden swell!

Flora et Ceres
Here's our Croome cornucopia, basket of plenty
00as carved on this temple of stone;
if you count up the contents you'll find over twenty,
00there's also some lichen fresh grown –
and on each side of pillars that look Roman Doric
00we goddesses gaze over routes
to the grand court of Croome, looking mighty historic
00and proud of our flowers and fruits!

- - -
Tomorrow: sculpture.

Image of sculpture :>)

Performance note: this might be one for YouTube.
Language: 'rorange' = combo of red and orange


As there is no hunting tomorrow

All
Whee-hee! We're free! Partay, partay!
We saw the hunters leave today!
Tomorrow we shall skip and play
and roam the woods at ease; hooray!

Deer 1
Without default to mode of dread,
I move to whimsy-ways instead:
I stand, abandon cautious tread,
a bright blue fish upon my head!

Deer 2 (mother)
I too bear fish, upon my back;
he rides in rorange over black,
directing us to river track
to drink and hear the ducks say 'Quack!'

Deer 3 (son)
I'm carrying a greeny bird,
who sings the sweetest song I've heard;
my mummy says she sounds 'absurd' –
I think that is a funny word!

Deer 4
A lizard snoozes on my tail:
he's earthy brown in skin and scale
and likes to race along the trail,
surpassing slug and snake and snail!

Deer 5
I wear a party hat, a tree
in yellow-gold, as you can see;
it's standing sunlit over me,
providing shade so pleasantly!

Deers 6 and 7
We sisters have a human man
on mind and flank in black and tan,
but small for our tomorrow-clan;
let's shake him off as best we can!

All
Whee-hee! We're free! Partay, partay!
We saw the hunters leave today!
Tomorrow we shall skip and play
and roam the woods at ease; hooray!

🍄🍄🍄

Tomorrow: worms.

Here is stone poem I think I posted in the planet thread. But, since this thread has a few stone poems, I figured I may as well put here.

Stones

Stones huge as moons can yet strike any planet
that goes around the sun. Even a giant
like Jupiter’s at risk. So what of Earth,
our tiny water world where there’s no dearth
of plants and ants and people, all reliant
on Gaia’s bounty and of utter luck?
Our solar home, since gravity began it,
has lived through impacts thoroughly stupendous,
which made the Earth and moon yet still could end us.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had struck
a whopper world, witnessed by humankind
July of ’94. A wake-up call.
A punch in the gut! Colossal comet bits
the size of mountains gored that gassy ball
which gulped them in its atmospheric rind.
Let’s scan the skies round Earth before one hits!

(Appeared in The Oldie.)

Sometimes I wonder if there's anything I haven't written about, whether I have scribbled things down and torn them off one by one like sheets of toilet paper. Used. Gone. I recently aired my wobbly knowledge about a punctuation mark (on The Deep End) and then remembered I'd written a poem about it that turned into a poem about something else entirely. As they do.

Interrobang

Inside my belly is a tiny man
trapped upside-down. He is a question mark;
an asking-for, a please, a lust for food.
I feed him fishes who will swim beside him
keeping him company. I feed him crusts
so that his hair will curl, and kale
so his small eyes will see me in the dark.
I feed him coal because that’s what he’ll need
when he firstfoots his way into the world
and begs a welcome at a stranger’s door.
I feed him onions so he will be strong
and learn how not to cry. I feed him yeast
so that he will uncurl and stand up straight
when he becomes an exclamation mark.

(Appeared in Soundzine and Equinox)
.

Yes, Martin; I remember this one. By all means post stuff from other threads. Among the many highlights here are 'plants and ants', 'whopper world', 'gulped'. And congrats for the poem's appearance in The Oldie :-)

Ann, yes, I can imagine you have an impressive archive. I like this poem; it evokes several thoughts, some bizarre. Congrats for publishing successes!

Now, worms. Yesterday a poetry-pal suggested I might like to write a response-poem to Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'. I didn't feel particularly confident at the prospect, but I thought I'd give it a go. I researched previous responses to make sure I would come up with something different. This is the first draft, written this morning and tweaked throughout the day. It still needs work, in many ways.


From His Coy Mistress (draft 1)

Ah, world and time, sir. My, how grand!
The pen you wield within your hand
must surely be a weighty thing,
majestic as the finest ring
a jeweller might produce from, say,
a ruby from the Ganges' bay.
Your ink must rush like Humber's course
as he parades from eastern source
to swirling sea. The flood, indeed!
At this I feel an anxious need
to gather all my clothes and books
and board a ship. Come, maids and cooks!
The water rises fast. Oh, woe!
However will our veggies grow?
Perchance this may require some work
from men most disinclined to shirk
their duties, thousandfold at least.
You must recruit from west to east!
Invest an epic kind of cost
before the world and time are lost.
00The flood recedes; I come ashore
in hope of finding, please, no more
disturbance to perplex my brain.
Oh, sir. You seek to harm again
with wingèd chariot of Time;
I fret anew. I start to climb
a ladder deep within the mind
that leads to comfort, where I find
oases and a cheerful song
of life and laughter, not so long
and, fortunately, free from worms;
your lines quite overwhelm with squirms.
00Now in this mode I cannot think
to sport with one who spills such ink,
which, far from rousing, causes ill:
the preying birds are shrieking, shrill;
the dew is dirtied on my skin;
my soul resists, grows pale and thin
until I have no strength for games
and certainly no instant flames.
The ball we roll was once a sweet,
but now it is decaying meat;
I pick it up, I raise it, sir,
and toss it out to yonder cur;
our sun is sick from violent verse
and romance rots within a hearse.

- - -
Tomorrow: something shorter, perhaps about a stone.