Poetry Friday - Love Is In the Air!

        It's Poetry Friday, and Robyn Hood Black is hosting HERE on her website,  Life on the Deckle Edge! She's sharing some new creations from her Etsy shop and some advice to remember when living your days!  

          I so loved that prompt that Molly Hogan gave her Inklings this last week. You can read her post here! Each poem shared was delightful! So, I thought I could write one for this Saturday, Valentine's Day. I tried a number of things, even a reverse one, for hate, and was then inspired one afternoon as I browsed up and down my grocery store's holiday aisle. (They still have winter holiday things up, too!) I fell in love! (One remains open to ideas everywhere, right?)

      For Valentine’s Day

Suppose we gifted stuffies

Like parents, sweetly, lovingly,

Leaving no one out.

 

Linda Baie ©

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

Poetry Friday - Finding a Break

       It's Poetry Friday, and Molly Hogan is hosting HERE on her website,  Nix The Comfort Zone! She's sharing her own delightful poems after Wendell Berry's "Like Snow". You may want to try one, too! Be sure to visit to read them! 

         Thanks for hosting, Molly!

      It's been a week, full of little to celebrate, but I am trying to help where I can with the political storm filling our days. Best to all of you wherever you live, but especially Laura Purdie-Salas in Minneapolis. I saw your post about the protesting, and Randy and his group playing music for Alex Pretti. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Thank you and them for me! 

Warmed under the sun,

I watch crows hang out in my yard

Wheedling at each other 

To see where to peck

 

Linda Baie ©

Poetry Friday - Finding What's Needed

               It's Poetry Friday, and Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske is hosting HERE on her website,  The Opposite of Indifference!   

            Thanks for hosting, Tabatha, hoping you aren't snowed in, yet! 

         I've been reading some short pieces by John Muir recently, and then a few days ago, I was looking through some of the poetry books I own to see if I could give up any of then to the bookstore where I work. Then, I came to a book titled Home, A Journey Through America, illustrated by Thomas Locker, edited by him and Candace Christiansen. It was published in 2000, and has a special introduction by Locker, who shares that his idea of home can be so many things, "For everyone, the place we call home becomes a part of our lives." My colleagues gifted me this book when I moved into Denver back in 2012, with very mixed emotions. The poems range from poets still writing like Jane Yolen, across our history to those well known in the past, like Abraham Lincoln, Willa Cather, Joseph Bruchac, and the poet I chose to share today, John Muir. And Thomas Locker illustrated each poem.

   I'm connecting to what I shared last week, a poem finding solace in the imagination when outside in nature, when many of you shared how much peace and joy came when you went outside! See what Muir wrote! Note: some online says this is not a true poem, but well-known lines by Muir. Still, Locker presents it as a poem. See what you think! 

        Hope you are doing okay if impacted by the storm coming across the US! I'll be watching the news. It was 11 degrees when I rose this morning with a light dusting of snow. We are not supposed to have any more, just cold! 

                   Climb the Mountains

                                        John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 

Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. 

The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, 

while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

My Pleasure -

              It's Poetry Friday, and Jan Godown Annino is hosting HERE on her website,  Bookseedstudio!  She's hosting with a "Love Day 2026" post!

            Thanks bringing the love to us, Jan! 

        I'm sure most of you are watching the news, then shouting out and cringing at what it brings to us, nearly by the hour, and in reality, every day. I watch, or listen. I know I need to keep informed, to learn more ways to act! Yet, having a break is helpful. It's good to put other things on my mind. As some of you share, you go outside. Even around the block is helpful. When I visit the cemetery where my husband is, I talk with him, missing him, telling what's happening in my life, the one he left, the one where changes are happening, grandchildren growing up, and on. 

        On the edges surrounding this lovely place are wooded areas where I walk, looking and listening, feeling they are there just for me! The other day I heard a rustling, saw what I thought was a couple of birds hopping around. I could see movement, but little else showed in the shadows and tangles that the trees and downed limbs made. 

Nature’s tangles bring shelter.

Small creatures find homes.

People create stories

as imaginations roam.

                Linda Baie ©

Poetry Friday - What I Learned

             It's Poetry Friday, and Ruth is hosting HERE on her website,  There Is No Such Thing As A Godforsaken Town!  She's sharing a poem that seems as if it's for our Colorado wintry day, the first after multiple warm days, breaking records! It feels just right, so be sure to read her post!

            Thanks for hosting, Ruth!

The Pleiades 

             

      What I Learned Growing Up

Sometimes I would climb out a window

Onto the roof to watch the stars.

My grandfather taught me not to be afraid –

To look for goodness no matter when or where.

It waited to be found. 

 

Linda Baie © 

Say her name! Renée Nicole Macklin Good 

Pleiades Stock photos by Vecteezy