Tuesday, April 23, 2019

NPM19 - # 23 - Earth Day - Rara Avis

 This time, still thinking about Earth Day

Tabatha Yeatts has created a link to poems teachers and librarians can print for poetry month, titled "Poetry in The Halls". I'm grateful to be one of the poets!

Jama Rattigan has a post HERE with many poets' goals for April.

The Progressive Poem schedule can be found on the right.






        I was caught up reading various pieces connected to Earth Day yesterday - concerns, wishes and more predictions! And I read this quote from a poet friend taken from a book on my list, wishing I had time to read the whole book now! "I suspect we would pay more attention to trees if we could establish beyond a doubt just how similar they are in many ways to animals.” – Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees HERE is one amazing article about Wohlleben and trees from The Smithsonian. Thus, without proof, I imagined things a bit further as you will see from my poem.




Rara Avis

Poetry mystifies,
especially in spring.
Poet’s words share secrets 
of a small white bulb,
beginnings of violets.
It comforts us to read 
that it will never 
ever
become a rose.
And confronts us to ask
if it comforts the violet?

Linda Baie ©




photo credit: S. Rae Viola sp via photopin (license)

4 comments:

  1. Lovely, thought provoking poem, Linda. Fascinating to think of trees as being similar to animals. Both are alive after all, and there's always been a belief in animism among some native peoples. I know in ancient Hawaii they believed everything had a spirit/soul -- not only plants but stones too. Still, it's quite miraculous that bulbs know precisely what flowers they will become, no questions asked. :)

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    1. Thanks, Jama. I am fascinated by this new thinking, that trees and others do acts that appear to be conscious ones. I will keep reading!

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  2. I loved Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees and think we need a revolution in how we see other species. Have you read Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer?
    Anyway, to return to your poem, I love how it reframes our thinking about the violet. It opens us up to the new kind of democracy that Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about in her book.

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    1. Thank you, Cheriee, for seeing this as a new way of thinking. I have Braiding Sweetgrass on my 'long' list, hope I can get to it soon!

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