Imagine the Possibilities

Last week I was inspired by Denise at Dare to Care to write an IN ONE WORD poem. You can find out more about it here in a post from April Halprin Wayland.

The backstory:
This week the full harvest moon lit up the sky! Also visible were Jupiter and Saturn, and in my area, a plethora of stars – more stars than I had seen in a while. I don’t use the word “plethora” much either in spoken or written form, but it’s what came to me when I looked at that sky. In addition to the stars, there was a plethora of beauty, wonder, and awe. So I decided to use “plethora” for my poem.

The process:
I used Wordmaker to find 282 words from “plethora.” From there, I chose thirty that I liked, then narrowed that list to fifteen, and ended up using ten of those. Since this was my first time trying out the form, I decided to keep the words at the end of the line as in the original rules, although April suggests acceptable variations. I did make one variation, adding an “s” to “pearl.”

Cosmic Jewels

High above the earth
the harvest moon is an opal—
glistening on a dewy late summer rose petal,
lighting the path of a scurrying animal hero.
Jupiter and Saturn, those planet pearls,
play their part
in the cosmic opera,
inspiring this poet
to find words of hope
in her heart.

Laura has the Poetry Friday round up today, so I hope you head on over for more poetry inspiration and fun.

I’ve been struggling with ideas lately. Some days the words come easily, some days they’re stuck inside me, hiding. I wanted to write something new for today’s Poetry Friday, but after wrestling with my thoughts for an hour, I couldn’t come up with anything quite satisfying enough. So I read and reread – poems from poets I love, poems I wrote, poems waiting to be shared. I found this list poem about my favorite time of year, made a few revisions, and decided to post it here today. Fall is a wondrous season of transition. I’m hoping it brings a restart for me.

For the Love of Fall

the quilt of red and yellow and orange on the hill
the air, cool and crisp, on my cheeks
the smoky scent of a crackling bonfire
everything pumpkin (and pumpkin everything)
warm afternoons that surrender to cool evenings
a harvest moon—big and round and oh-so-close
the first day it’s cool enough for your favorite sweater
honking geese
Halloween
dog vs. squirrel—
Crunch! Crunch!
Scamper! Scurry!
…Gone!

Denise has today’s round-up at Dare to Care. Head over for more poetry fun!