DAMSELFLY: An Original Poem

Here’s another poem from my unpublished collection Docile Fossil. It’s a mask poem in which I speak in the voice of a fossilized damselfly.

Damselfly

I was trapped in time!

Enrobed in sticky resin

that hardened over the ages.

Now you see me

preserved in amber--

a perfect specimen

of the me I was

millions of years ago.

Here I will remain forever

a prisoner of the past,

my wings outspread

in a semi-precious sky.

What a Pit-ty!: An Original Mask Poem

Several years ago, I embarked upon a new poetry project. I decided to write poems about fossils, dinosaurs, and other extinct animals. I spent a lot of time doing research on a number of animals—including the woolly mammoth, pterodactyl, dodo bird, Beelzebufo ampinga, megalodon, Euoplocephalus, megatherium—as well as a couple of places—the Petrified Forest and the La Brea Tar Pits. I’m kind of a science nerd—so doing the research was fun for me.

I’m offering one of my poems about the La Lrea Tar Pits from that unpublished collection titled Docile Fossil for this first Poetry Friday in National Poetry Month.

What a Pit-ty!

I’m a…

Boiling pool of gummy goo,

Bubbling pond of asphalt brew,

Black and icky pit of pitch

Not concocted by a witch.

One of my intriguing features:

The horde of hapless Ice Age creatures

That stepped into my greasy guck,

Got trapped and were forever stuck.

Horses, smilodons, and camels,

Woolly mammoths, other mammals,

Birds and mollusks…insects, too,

Stumbled into my sticky stew.

Once engulfed in my thick sludge

The helpless creatures couldn’t budge.

Now here they lie entombed in tar--

And here, preserved, their fossils are.

Find out more about the La Brea Tar Pits by clicking here.

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Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Poem Farm.

SKY: An Original Acrostic

I’ve been away from blogging at Wild Rose Reader for far too long. There have been many changes that took place in my life during the past few years. My attention has been diverted elsewhere. I haven’t even been writing much poetry. I’ve got to get my creative juices flowing once again.

For the first day of National Poetry Month, I thought I’d post the poem SKY from an unpublished poetry collection I wrote a few years ago titled Spring into Words: A Season in Acrostics.

Suddenly Earth’s blue dome springs to life, catches careening 

Kites, fills with the face of a smiling sun, the music of

Young songbirds and geese honking homeward.

UNDER THE TREE: An Original Poem

It has been many months since I last posted anything on Wild Rose Reader. I have missed the kidlitosphere--especially participating in Poetry Fridays. There has been much going on in my life...and I have had to focus on those things. Still, I couldn't let the year end without sharing a poem or two with you.

Several years ago, I began working on a collection of poems about candy. The collection takes one through the year with sweet treats. While writing the poems, I collected information on many different kinds of candy by reading books and by doing research on the Internet. I included short informational paragraphs about the candy along with the poems.

I have loved chocolate since I was little. One present that I always found stuffed in my Christmas stocking when I was a child was a small sack of chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. How I enjoyed unwrapping them and letting the dark brown disks melt on my tongue!

UNDER THE TREE

Here’s a gift to savor…not save:

A sack of candy coins

Wrapped in gold…

Milk chocolate medallions

That melt on my tongue.

I won’t stash this sweet cash.

I’m putting this money

Where my mouth is!

  

Milk Chocolate

Milk chocolate coins wrapped in foil are given to children as Hanukkah gelt and are also often stuffed into children’s Christmas stockings. The giving of chocolate Hanukkah gelt is a European tradition, which most likely dates back to the late 18^th or early 19^th century. The giving of chocolate coins at Christmastime is believed by some to commemorate Saint Nicholas who gave bags of gold coins to the poor.

NOTE: It appears that my granddaughter Julia has inherited her “Gammy’s” love of chocolate!

You’ll find the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.

PUDDLE MUDDLE: An Original Poem

I apologize for announcing the winner of PUDDLE WONDERFUL two days late. We're in the process of selling our house and things are moving along quickly at this point. I've been trying to get lots of things done. I've been packing up my children's books and poetry books and cookbooks and other books and taking them to my new house and organizing them in my new built-in bookcases. It seems like an endless task. I think I'm going to have to give more of my books away!

I'm happy to announce that Linda at Teacherdance is the winner of Puddle Wonderful: Poems to Welcome Spring. Congratulations, Linda! Email me your address and I'll send the book to you.

Note to the other book winners: I apologize for not getting your books in the mail yet. I hope to do that in the next week.

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Here's one of my puddle poems for this Poetry Friday:

PUDDLE MUDDLE

I’m in the middle of a puddle…

in the middle…

in a muddle.

The puddle’s much too deep.

It spilled

into my boots.

Now they’re filled

with muddy water

to the brim.

I hope my feet

know how to swim!

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Liz Steinglass has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.