True to the spirit of collaboration and community here in Poetry Friday Land, Irene Latham started the National Poetry Month tradition of a crowd-sourced Progressive Poem, and then handed the baton to Margaret Simon this year. Margaret put out the call and thirty poets quickly filled the schedule. (See bottom of post.) This year, #1 Donna Smith started things off by giving #2 Irene Latham the choice of two lines, and so that's the way the poem's flowing this year. You get to pick a line, and offer two possibilities to the next person.
Here are the choices Heidi offered me. I got to choose between "slow and mesmerizing, or brief and energizing."
Here's the poem so far:
Progressive Poem 2020
Sweet violets shimmy, daffodils sway
along the wiregrass path to the lake
I carry a rucksack of tasty cakes
and a banjo passed down from my gram.
I follow the tracks of deer and raccoon
and echo the call of a wandering loon.
A whispering breeze joins in our song
and night melts into a rose gold dawn
Deep into nature’s embrace, I fold.
Promise of spring helps shake the cold
hints of sun lightly dapple the trees
calling out the sleepy bees
Leaf-litter crackles…I pause. Twig snaps.
I gasp! Shudder! Breathe out. Relax...
as a whitetail doe comes into view.
She shifts and spotted fawns debut.
I want this moment to last a little longer, so
I choose...
We freeze. My green eyes and her brown
Tag, you're it,
Tabatha!
Your two choices for the next line are:
meet and lock. Time slows down.
OR
connect in a moment so profound
Here's where the poem's been, and where it's going:
2020 Progressive Poem
1 Donna Smith at
Mainely Write
2 Irene Latham at
Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch at
deowriter
4
Liz Steinglass
5
Buffy Silverman
6
Kay McGriff
7 Catherine Flynn at
Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at
Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at
Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at
Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at
Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at
A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at
Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at
Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at
A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at
Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at
My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at
A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at
Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at
Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at
Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at
To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth at
There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
24 Christie Wyman at
Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at
The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at
Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at
Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Bigi at TBD
29 Fran Haley at
lit bits and pieces
30
Michelle Kogan
