7 Poetic Highlights from Our Week (7 Quick Takes)

For National Poetry Month, I am writing my weekly 7 Quick Takes in poetry form. Today, I’m trying 7 different poetic forms. I hope this is half as entertaining to read as it was to try to write them.

A Pie So Sweet (Limerick)

There once was a fresh apple pie
Would you like one? In fact, so would I.
This week I made one
And for sweetness and fun
Added vanilla bean sugar—oh, my!

A Toddler’s Mask (Haiku)

My tiny niece
Will not go outside unmasked.
It’s sweet and sad, too.

An Ode to Daffodils

You open up your smiling blooms so wide
To greet the sunshine and all those who pass.
The vibrant glow you simply cannot hide
Not even hid behind the tallest grass.
One day the deer might come—or rabbits too,
With nibble, nibble, chomp, chomp, chomp,
And then the blooms will all just disappear,
But now at least we will enjoy the view,
As carefully around your blooms we romp
Admiring your royalty and pomp,
The beauty that you bring us once a year.

Eggs for Breakfast (Acrostic)

Even as a child, I did not care much for eggs.
Generally, I prefer almost anything else.
Granted, when your husband and children like eggs, you make them anyway.
So, here I am, trying to perfect my egg creations.

National Poetry Month (A Sonnet)

Shall I compare thee to another month?
Thou art exciting, full of joy.
At other times of year, we have less fun(th),
As April asks us new skills to employ.
Though we’re not Shakespeare, Dickinson, or Keats,
We can still try our hand at verse,
Will we excel at taking on such feats?
We might do well—and yet, we might do worse.
But risk is low, and chance of fun is high
Since words are ready for our game,
They come in such a vast and rich supply,
And even if a sonnet’s lame,
It’s still a sonnet, through and through,
And this is one I wrote for you.

What is Normal? (Villanelle)

This is how life is—or used to be,
Extracting Covid from my mind,
How much has changed but will return, you see.

Though aspects of this time are dear to me
Those I won’t want to leave behind.
This is how life is—or used to be.

There’s no new normal—not for me,
Though some new aspects we might find,
How much has changed but will return, you see.

This is how life is—or used to be,
Remember how full schedules were designed
But now we feel our time is more ours—free.

How much has changed but will return, you see.
While quarantined, are we still less confined?
To set a better balance will be key.

An end to Covid is our plea
But to some changes I’m resigned.
This is how life is—or used to be,
How much has changed but will return, you see.

The Duck on the Porch (Free Verse)

“Mom,” he asks, and I hear the confusion in his voice,
“Why is there a duck on the porch?”
I cannot begin to guess. How can there be a duck on our porch
In a suburb where the only water we see is from the rain
Running down our little hillside and then our driveway and down the road.

A duck on our porch?
Why isn’t he running to grab my phone to take a picture?

I slip out of my chair where I am writing, working, taking calls,
Living a life that leaves little room for unexpected ducks
Even those on my front porch.

But I am curious. And then I see.

The duck is a wooden duck,
One of the whirligigs that our neighbors had flapping in the wind on their deck for years.
After they passed away, their daughter was emptying their home for the new owners.
She asked whether we would like anything from their back deck.

“We would like one of the ducks,” I told her, “but only if you don’t need it yourself.”

My husband was hoping they would give us a duck.

Earlier that day, their daughter had come and given me a plate of homemade muffins.
The house had sold. New neighbors were coming.
We could hardly speak. But I took the muffins,
Full of chocolate chips,
And I remembered the times her mother and I had shared baked goods.
“We will see you soon,” I said, knowing it was not completely true.
Knowing it was more of a goodbye than I wanted.

Then later she must have come back and quietly left
The duck on the porch.
It was wet with raindrops.

A gift and a way to remember
after the muffins were gone.

Find more quick takes at Kelly’s blog, This Ain’t the Lyceum, and have a wonderful weekend.

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