“…seek the resonance that enters a poem only when it is touched by the stillness of nature.”
~ Margarita Engle ~
Spring has finally arrived in my corner of Connecticut! The forsythia have been ablaze for the last two weeks, and greening lawns are dotted with dandelions. Everywhere you look, the world is abloom. For this final week of National Poetry Month, I decided to revisit Margarita Engle’s tanka challenge for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s Today’s Little Ditty Challenge. Even though there is nothing still about spring, the beauty of the season resonates deep within me.
Lithe limbs arch and bend
trimmed with a thousand blossoms,
ballerinas,
graced in frilly pink tutus,
chasséing on a spring breeze.
On a southern slope,
columns of bright daffodils
raise their trumpets high
and play a rousing fanfare
heralding winter’s retreat.
© Catherine Flynn, 2017
Thank you, Michelle, for inviting us to your DMC Potluck this month! Be sure to visit Michelle’s to read more poetic offerings. And don’t forget to visit JoAnn Early Macken at Teaching Authors for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
Glad you’re finally enjoying some real Spring, Catherine! Love the idea of daffodils as trumpets, marking the change of seasons.
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What a vibrant spring you’re having–Chasseing blossoms, trumpeted fanfares! Wonderful!
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Ballerinas and trumpets, great metaphors for these amazing flowers.
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The forsythia always seems to be the first blast of color, along with crocus, I guess. I love your dancing spring and “rousing fanfare”, Catherine. Beautiful response to your spring arrival!
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Those are wonderful poems! Very FriendlyFairyTale! I could reblog if that appeals to you. My readers would love your flights of fancy and fanfares. 🙂
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Thank you, Brenda! I’d be honored to have you reblog my poems. Enjoy your weekend!
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All set. I hope your weekend is a party of possibility. 🙂
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How beautiful! These poems sing to my spring-starved heart. Winter has been especially cold and long this year, and I am longing for the trumpeting daffodils and twirling blossoms!
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Isn’t spring glorious when she finally arrives? Your poems capture that feeling exquisitely.
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Reblogged this on Friendly Fairy Tales and commented:
Here are a couple enchanting tankas from Catherine celebrating spring, which is bursting out all around me in grassy vermillion, cardinal crimson and bluejay blue. I hope you have time to read her vivid verses. Have a magical weekend!
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So beautiful! I am in awe of your descriptive word choices.
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I definitely see dancers in flowers….and the trumpets of the daffodils too! Forsythia is my favorite signal that spring has arrived. Lovely. Enjoy every moment!
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Ahh! You’ve truly captured two beautiful moments here, Catherine—those “frilly pink tutus, chasséing” and the “rousing fanfare” of daffodil trumpets. Thanks so much for coming to the poetry potluck!
And I don’t know how many times I’ve read Margarita’s quote, but it still leaves me momentarily breathless. Every time I read it, I stop to listen. To what? Who knows. Just the silence, I guess, to see what’s there.
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I so love this:
ballerinas,
graced in frilly pink tutus,
chasséing on a spring breeze.
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Everything just popped this week, didn’t it? It’s amazing, the power of a little rain and a few days of warmth. Lovely poems reflecting the world around us. Thank you!
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I love your “frilly pink tutus,” Catherine, these are two beautiful tankas! Hope you continue to enjoy the arrival of spring!
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