Crabapple/Peach Tree in back yard, Spring
Frank, hosting dversepoets pub today has an excellent prompt about prose/poetry. Haven’t a clue what is what, but it seems that I have been writing this stuff anyway. Probably because I don’t know what formal poetry actually is. Come over to this site for the great poetry that this prompt is sure to gather.
The plums are blossoming…tender little white flowers on 5 year old plums. They should be later but this weather is crazy. Yesterday 80 degrees! Today, 49 and a brisk wind. I thought we were over Winter, it seemed never really to jell, but it’s back or will be in the next few days with below freezing temps. I see my French Breakfast Radishes have peeked above the soil, but they are hardy souls so the freezing temps to come should not hurt them.
The light is so tender, gentle. The swirling pollen will cover everything with an acid green/yellow soon, and already I am feeling the allergies.
Spring is a taunting maiden, blowing in with great promise and then disappearing at will. Once the Earth pirouettes, this game will be over.
Lady Nyo
Plum Blossom Snow
The present snowstorm of
White plum blossoms
Blinds me to sorrow.
They cascade over cheeks
Like perfumed, satin tears,
Too warm with the promise of life
To chill flesh.
–
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2015
Tags: "Plum Blossom Snow", d'versepoets pub, erratic weather, poetry, Spring
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
March 3, 2017 at 12:02 am
This is great. My Japanese plums are starting to bloom as well. Seems we have similar weather going on. Although you do not usually post to the metting the bar posts at dVerse, I would like to suggest you post this. Frank is prompting for us to write prose poetry. This is a wonderful example.
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March 3, 2017 at 3:05 am
I like the plums even better than the cherries! LOL! They come first here and they are so delicate.
Ok….I’ll try to post there. And thank you, Kanzen…always for your support and your encouragement.
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March 3, 2017 at 3:08 am
I love your Plum Blossom Snow!
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March 3, 2017 at 3:24 am
Hello Sherry! So good to read you! I have missed you, but wanted to tell you that Willow, the cat that was injured probably by a car, is walking very well! A couple of weeks before Xmas, I found him in an alley and he couldn’t stand. When he managed to do so, he would flop over. Broken pelvis, hip, who knows. But after bed rest and some walking therapy and LOTS of fresh catnip! he’s doing Great! I am so proud of him. Next, am going to get his nuts cut off. LOL!
Thank you Sherry for ‘loving’ Plum Blossom Snow. I was encouraged to post it tonight by a poet I really love, but I don’t really know if it will meet the bar. LOL! Talk soon.
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March 3, 2017 at 3:26 am
sherry! Thank you. It seems my reply back to you has disappeared. Thank you, again.
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March 3, 2017 at 4:02 am
I liked Plum Blossom Snow, how those blossoms blind one to sorrow although they rest on the cheeks like tears warm with life. The prose part at the beginning supports the poem like a tree supports its blossoms.
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March 3, 2017 at 5:32 am
So sad when blossom comes too early.. a wonderful sight, but when freezing returns it feels like something lost (like plums)
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March 3, 2017 at 7:44 am
Thank you, Jane, for giving me hope! Your plum trees get the warmth long before mine and have reminded me that we will soon have a blossom filled garden! All of our fruit trees are old and gnarled but they flower every year. I love those cheeky peeking French Breakfast Radishes! Those are gorgeous, sad last lines:
‘Spring is a taunting maiden, blowing in with great promise and then disappearing at will. Once the Earth pirouettes, this game will be over’.
And I enjoyed the poignant poem!
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March 3, 2017 at 2:31 pm
At first I read ‘binds me to sorrow’. That felt so sad, the drifting blossom and the sadness. ‘blinds me to sorrow’ is so much more hopeful 🙂
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March 3, 2017 at 3:54 pm
I love your words, each and everyone.
Kind regards
Anna :o]
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March 3, 2017 at 4:45 pm
Thank you so much, Anna! I deeply appreciate your reading and of course, your lovely comment. Hugs!
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March 3, 2017 at 4:47 pm
LOL! Yes, it is. I think perhaps the secret of prose poetry is the emotion? or a sentiment that easily turns into poetry from prose….or who the hell knows? It’s not rocket science, though. LOL! Thank you, Jane, for reading and your insightful comment. Hugs!
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March 3, 2017 at 4:58 pm
You know what, Kim>?> By your words, here or by what you picked out…’taunting maiden’…it proves that prose can be easily turned to poetry. I guess it’s all in the sentiment, or the parataxis? Something, but it naturally can flow into poetry IF we observe somethings….what, I generally don’t know but am finding out. I think that for some of us, it’s more natural. For me, it is because I don’t have much knowledge of formal poetry.
Those fruit trees! We had 12, but because they were planted (by me) right on the sewer line, they invaded the sewer and boy was that expensive to fix! LOL! Those were the older plums and they were wonderful. Have had two Bartlett pear trees right on the walk to the entrance to the front door, and every time you went out of in, you got bompted by these big hard pears in the head! LOL! We have one Home Depot apple tree, planted 25 years ago, was supposed to be a Red Delicious, but is some unknown (and better) heirloom apple. Green and red stripped and very firm fruit but sweet! And last year? 400 apples on this tree. Yowser! The new plums and the Black Arkansas apples and the one Fuji apple are only 5 years old….and we don’t expect much. Have one pear tree in the front yard, and haven’t seen a pear in 5 years. It has big colored lights on it now, and they look like pears. LOL! It will come, Kim…the warmer weather and the fruiting of Nature. This year I sowed 4 packets of French Breakfast Radishes, and yesterday….they are above the surface. Regardless
what I get in my garden each year….seeing these harborers of Spring, they give me hope. Thank you so much, Kim, for reading and your lovely comment!
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March 3, 2017 at 4:59 pm
Well, we have had ridiculous warm weather this ‘winter’ Bjorn. but this weekend below freezing. However, I believe this poem to be an example of prose poetry. It’s in the parataxis and the sentiment I believe. Many prose pieces can be made into poetry. It has the bones…..
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March 3, 2017 at 5:04 pm
Oh! I didn’t think of that! But I see what you mean, Frank. And I believe that ‘the taunting maidens’…etc…is prose that turns easily to poetry…prose poetry. I think it’s something we all do…write this prose poetry without thought…it’s probably automatic and someone has come up with a category? LOL! Thank you, Frank.
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March 3, 2017 at 5:15 pm
It’s not an exact science ever, but I think you’re right about the emotion being essential. Whatever the name of what you wrote, it was lovely 🙂
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March 3, 2017 at 5:21 pm
Thank you, Jane. And yes…emotion is essential to poetry…at least in my opinion. I hate reading poetry that is too abstract or removed from sentiment…I call it robotic poetry. Perhaps that is my objection to futurism in poetry. Also, a lot of my poetry is heavily influenced by my 10 year study of Japanese poetry forms and history. One can’t not be influenced by this in their own poetry. I prefer Japanese poetry, especially from the great Man’yoshu over anything modern. I am that buried in clay. LOL! Thank you, Jane.
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March 3, 2017 at 5:30 pm
Emotion and the natural world is what I enjoy, and a story. What I really do not like is the ‘I’ ‘I’ ‘I’ poetry, the stuff that is so deeply personal that unless you know the poet, you really do not care. It’s tough, but if you don’t capture the essence of grief, or misery, or depression, it doesn’t mean anything to the reader. Navel gazing poetry. Almost as bad as the fake erotic poetry that only evokes twenty year old perfectly formed lust machines and not the probably rather flabby and unsupple poet who wrote it.
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March 3, 2017 at 5:53 pm
LOL! I agree…and I LOVE your honesty. I, too dislike the I I I poetry. I always feel
”post it on your bathroom wall…not in the light of day. LOL! It’s a question of universality I believe….if you don’t spark some sort of empathy, communion, etc. in your piece towards the lives of others, you miss the mark of poetry. I believe that a lot of people are turned off to poetry because of this long term trend…when it started I don’t know but I have a list of the usual suspects. LOL! It’s highly egotistical, and annoying. There is a woman who used to comment on my blog, but she is deeply into bdsm and I was there years ago…(sorta…doing research for a novel for a year and a half) but she is so over the moon about this crap that I wonder when she will crash. They usually do when they realize the submission demanded in this ‘world of hurt’ is beyond them. And it’s so male driven. And the Doms that I have come across are not the men that can make it in a normal dating society.
Yes, we must make something of attraction in our poetry that speaks to the life of others….not just our own. Thanks, Jane. I definitely agree with you.
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March 3, 2017 at 6:27 pm
It sounds like you have an orchard there, Jane! I once lived in a little house in an orchard garden, in the shade of a cherry tree. It was sublime. As you’ve probably noticed, I love trees above all other plants, which is why I would find it impossible to move from our house. I’m going to buy some radish seeds and a raised box to plant them in – our garden is too soggy to plant them directly in the ground. At the moment I have pots either side of our front door containing spring bulbs, so we’ve colour to greet us when we come home!
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March 3, 2017 at 6:44 pm
Oh! that is wonderful, Kim…..the planters with the bulbs. and the little house in an orchard? Sounds like a magical place. I pushed and ‘taught’ permaculture to this depressed neighborhood, but it didn’t really take. Permanent agriculture… probably because so many were renters and didn’t want to invest in a property they didn’t own. Fruit trees, berry bushes, perineal plants, things that came back year after year….this is just a part of permaculture. I believe it can be done anywhere. We have had to replant our tiny orchard of now 8 trees a few years ago….and cut down some of the surrounding trees that shadowed them to no good. I tried to keep most of the mulberries…but they are iffy trees! LOL! Neighbor doesn’t help with his trees at all..he is a slum lord, but theneighborhood is changing and younger, more progressive people are moving in. Perhaps we can revive a permaculture mentality here.
Radishes@!!!! Lovely!!! Kim, I have a tiny garden…only 30 x 6 feet…maybe a bit more….used to be an old driveway where I pickaxed up the concrete piece by piece myself….years ago when I had more strength and energy….and lay down a lot of soil from compost pile. this year, I couldn’t wait. I rototillered up that mess, and threw 4 packets of radishes out..now? a week later….tiny green heads@!!! I love to take a salt shaker out there early in the morning and just wipe off the soil and munch down. The tops go to the chickens who mostly stay out of the garden…if not, no radishes to speak of. LOL!
That is a wonderful (burp) breakfast with a cup of tea out there. We have a rose garden this year of 24 roses that were potted for two years..and now mostly in the ground in front of a lovely arbor…but it’s early and there are only a few blooms. This year there should be a riot of color out there. I love to garden but the secret is to start early in life. Blue berries we have a couple of bushes, and they are prolific when you get the right kind for the region…but strawberries I fail miserably at. For some reason, Rust fennel is coming up already and I can’t figure out how to use them. LOL! planted mint in the walled herb garden and it’s spread beyond it’s domain. I should have known….LOL!
There is nothing more magical than bulbs coming up in spring!!!! Lucky you!!!
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March 3, 2017 at 6:50 pm
This is lovely. You do have a much earlier Spring then we do here. I envy you and your beautiful blossoming tree.
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March 3, 2017 at 6:56 pm
Helene! Your comment showed up in my spam folder….so sorry! I am glad I caught it. Always want to hear from you. And thank you so much for reading and commenting on this short prose poem. LOL! I loved your beautiful and tragic haiku of yesterday. Blessings, dear heart to you and yours and to the budding season.
Love, Jane
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March 3, 2017 at 8:04 pm
I’ve never understood how you can be into bdsm and have any credibility as a feminist, in the sense of believing that men and women are equals. This kind of guff doesn’t exist in a world of equality and mutual respect. It’s like the women who claim to be feminist and wear a hijab because they can ‘be themselves’. I don’t understand all this voluntary submission to male egos and equating it with femininity! Bollocks.
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March 4, 2017 at 12:03 am
Yes, it is a mind twister. And these doms equate the disaster of humanity with feminism. LOL! It’s really a self-hating behavior. Women who participate in bdsm can’t be feminists. They belong to some other alien order. It’s a plea for acceptance I believe…from what I saw. It is ultimately sad and destructive to the core of a woman….and probably a man. There were so many pathologies in these people, men and women…just disturbing. Tried to get my head around it, but the bottom line for me in trying on some things of bdsm…was this: I abhor pain. Argument over! LOL!
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March 4, 2017 at 10:36 am
Yeah well, anyone who enjoys pain is some kind of an aberration, which may or may not be harmful. The best you can say is it makes you socially out on a limb.
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March 4, 2017 at 3:50 pm
Weather here is so erratic as well ~ Now we are cold, last week was warmer with a hint of spring ~ Can’t wait for spring to finally arrive and smell all the lovely blooms ~
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March 4, 2017 at 5:24 pm
Hi Grace, yes the weather is crazy. Thank you for reading this poem.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:08 pm
Jane…this showed up in my spam this morning. Glad I checked! And I agree!
Hugs.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Someone else told me he’d found messages of mine in his spam folder. I must have been put in spam jail briefly.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:20 pm
LOL! “Spam Jail”…LOL! You are not the only one lately….Mother Willow from Canada had a brief stay there…and that was horrible!!! I just scanned briefly (by chance) my spam….and there she was…such a lovely writer/poet and woman.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:29 pm
I know Mother Willow. The Akismet thing goes wild sometimes. I think it latches onto people who comment often.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:36 pm
YEah, I agree. And don’t ever approve a comment from something that ‘looks sane’. I did, and it took someone to get 400 spams from this company off my blog. Yikes!
Mother Willow is such a lovely person. Her haiku is so fine.
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March 8, 2017 at 4:39 pm
I won’t! I just visited my spam list to check that no real people were lingering in there. It’s mindboggling some of the gibberish pretending to be comments.
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