Author: kvsalisbury

September 22

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Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

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The day autumn descends

On the northern hemisphere I wander

My favorite trail noticing the autumn colors just emerging.

Native wildflowers abuzz with bees and bugs and birds. Equally beautiful

Are the strangers to this forest, this meadow, this trail.

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They’re beautiful but they’re destructive

*

These plants distract wildlife from the sustaining meal.

They colonize our woodlands.

Dominating our disturbed soils left after progress

Moved through. They’re controlled in their homelands

By soil fungus, airborne disease or leaf eating insects

But here along this trail as far as the eye can see they are unchecked.

To that eye untrained they are part of this splendid autumn landscape.

*

They are destructive but they are beautiful.

*

Cannot stop global trade introducing

These plants to our nature. Cannot

Eradicate the unwelcome guests like so many ants

To a spring kitchen. Cannot stop the birds with a new found taste

From feeding and dropping exotic seeds.

Cannot just breathe and take in the beauty?

*

They’re beautiful, but they’re destructive.

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(A Bop Poem)

September 19

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6 Poems 1 Picture

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What did we do while waiting

Time once spent ruminating

Now cell phones are dictating

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(An Englyn Poem)

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Eyes lowered, sneakers tapping, chairs creaking

Speaking is not what we do

Waiting to be called by you

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(An Englyn Penfyr Poem)

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I will risk a shrunken face

Just to get out of the place

Like the movie Beetlejuice

To vamoose to a new space.

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(A Englyn Cyrch Poem)

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This large number I have found

Now has me waiting around

Until the magical sound

Of my name fills the compound

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(An Englyn Lleddfbroest Poem)

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Proximity to the door

Will not reduce my time here

Almost more than I can bear

My number is close I’m sure

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(An Englyn Proest Dalgron Poem)

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It’s fine – don’t call my name yet

So I can get out of here

I am strangely thrilled to get

Time to finish this chapter

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(An Englyn Proest Gadwynog Poem)

September 23

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Urban Gardeners

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Swiss urban green thumbs

Go green for food, social, health

Reasons, wealth matters

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(A sciku Poem)

A poetic synthesis of the conclusions of the research article

“Digging for the roots of urban gardening behaviours”

August 13

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Surprise Snack

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Our for a paddle finding wild fruit

Kayak hulls knock against rocky shoreline

When we see the shrubs we make a beeline

Summer adventure with a snack to boot

Everything tastes better fresh from the source

And these small sweet dark berries hit the spot

It’s difficult not to grab the whole lot

Have to remember they’re all the birds’ got

One for us three for them without remorse

St. George Lake offers scenery for days

And many small islands to circumvent

Didn’t even need insect repellent

On Maine’s water with fruit we are content

Until the next time we paddle and graze

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(An American Sonnet)

September 21

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Reactor Reaction

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If I heard this siren on a time and day

Other than 2pm on the month’s first Monday

Would my flight or fight or curiosity kick in?

How will I move in a world approaching ruin?

Will I head away from troubled curved cooling towers

Sharing the car filled with furred, feathered, and handsome on a road trip for hours?

Do we hole up in the basement with the camp stove, well water and canned goods

Protected by cinder block walls, clay soils and doors of wood.

Or does the suction of the fridge door opening proceed the crack of a couple beer cans and the creak of the deck chairs

Flair and glare reflecting in aviators, life somewhere between psychedelic dream and nightmare.

To some this may seem devil-may-care

(Curiosity wins again)

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(An Azby Poem)

September 2

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Real or Reality

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Blank screen

Without it on I notice

The screech owl cooing in the dark quiet morning woods

The flimsy barrier of the screen door no resistance to the sound

And as the slightest hint of indigo

Begins to change the morning sky

Before any touch of golden sun appears

The barred owl also makes herself known

Echoing through the damp and still dark forest

As the dark, silent screen of the television

Reflects back to me my position

on the couch with morning tea

I can hear the faint content purr of Tom Cat

And feel his soft fur against my thigh

A small warm spot on this mild

Late summer morning

Another day beginning

As the golden enters the sky

A gentle breeze briefly causes the heavy dew to rain down

To the driveway from large leaves nearly ready to fall

With the spark of morning sun begins a chorus

First one loud clear voice above the constant din of katydid treble

Announcing the day has begun

Dozens more follow until the entire house and yard is filled with beginning

No power button just powerful.

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(An Idyll Poem)

Image from public domain

August 4

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Nature Distilled

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This scene is like something I’ve seen

Just look there’s a hare under there

And a tree with Medusa Hair

A sapphire diamond sky gleams

Soil layers serpentine

Giant blooms sent high in the air

Amazing life when roots aren’t there

It’s nature but there’s no green

Is that a partridge on the limb?

Not a pear so chances are slim

The wild we see distilled to shapes

It’s nature at the artist’s whim

Perhaps as the sun starts to dim

A fractured and compelling landscape.

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(French Sonnet)

August 19

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Vernonia noveboracensis

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Tall purple bloom of New York Ironweed

Perched atop towering stiff eight foot stalks

Up at the level where butterfly feed

Safe far above where the deer family walks

Providing so much that native bugs need

Putting small birds near the pathway of hawks.

Vernonia noveboracensis

Flower clouds loom over garden fences.

The perennial grows wild in fields

Flowering in late summer’s shortening days

Feeding migrating butterflies and birds

Pollen and nectar this native plant yields

And seeds upon which the songbirds will graze

Useful and pretty describe in two words.

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(An Italian Sonnet)

August 21

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Rainy Day

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All this month’s rain has my flowers flopping

Poorly drained soils now a slip and slide

From humidity there’s no place to hide

There’s fun to be found in puddle hopping

Endless gray skies show rain is not stopping

Cut sagging blooms sit in a vase inside

The radar show the storm’s coverage is wide

And outside just everything is sopping.

The cut flowers brighten the gloomy day

Providing sunshine when nature does not

Sound of the rain on the roof eases

For some the rain creates a time for play

And other time to get soup in the pot

For so many the gentle rain pleases.

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(An Italian Sonnet)