#NaPoWriMo Early Bird Prompt

Wikipedia Photo Credit

Flowers are in bloom
Hear the pyrrhuloxia sing
Signs of spring abound

NaPoWriMo Early Bird Prompt – And now, in the spirit of an early-bird prompt, I’d like to invite you to write a poem about your favorite bird. As this collection of snippets from longer poems suggests, birds have been inspiring poets for a very long time indeed!

Good Afternoon readers! I thought I would introduce you to the pyrrhuloxia more commonly called the desert cardinal as in actuality the cardinal is my favorite bird, but since living in the desert for over 20 years now; I’ve grown to appreciate the beauty of my desert cardinal. And for those, who like me, look at the word pyrrhuloxia and wonder how in the world do I pronounce it.

Shawn has been busy working in the backyard cleaning and planting. This morning I went out there to enjoy my morning coffee and watch him work. The #haikuchallenge word today is channel. Of course, I used my morning as inspiration.

Enjoy morning sun
Stop flipping TV channels
Excuse the bed head

Gardner hard at work
Channeling his green thumb to
Grow vegetables

And since April begins tomorrow, there is a birthday to celebrate on Saturday. Poor Gretchen already feels her birthday gets a bum wrap. She never had any luck with birthday parties as so often her birthday falls near or on Easter and then when she was in high school she learned it was the day MLK was assassinated. Arizona will be on a stay at home order as of 5pm today; so yeah Gretchen gets to celebrate another year #ForeverAlone (as she puts it). I’m hoping she will get a wonderful social distancing surprise this Saturday through social media and turn her frown upside.

Birthday approaching
Channel positivity
Over doom and gloom

Well if you’ll excuse me, I’ve whittled my morning away writing and daydreaming in my backyard. I best be off to do something productive today. I’ll see everyone again tomorrow for the official kick off of NaPoWriMo.

 

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Advice from An Expert

Good Afternoon, readers! I ventured outside today to walk down the street to the mailbox. Alas, it was mostly junk mail and a couple bills.  I thought I’d share my National Poetry Month poster from a couple years ago to get everyone excited for next month. I did not get a poster last year, but I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of this year’s poster.

In the meantime, I wrote a few haiku for today’s #haikuchallenge word – crazy. This first one was inspired by the very cool weather we have been experiencing in Phoenix.

Wake up feeling hot
Heat kicks on at end of March
Crazy time of year

The next two are about an introvert being stuck at home with too many people underfoot.

House is too crowded
Introvert driven crazy
Without solitude

Advice from expert –
Conversations with yourself
Staves off stir crazy

To pass the time I’ve been on Twitter way too much, but I have been enjoying William Shatner’s Captain’s Log tweets about sheltering place; as well as Patrick Stewart’s daily sonnet readings. Of course I watched the season finale of Picard yesterday, twice. Shhh.. don’t tell Gretchen. Since she’s stuck at home with online classes, I told her we would watch the two part finale together. But after Jonathan Frakes tweeted a picture of Captain Riker back in uniform very early yesterday morning, I wasn’t going to wait for someone to wake up and attend her online classes before I watched. Don’t worry when I told her Captain Riker shows up again, I promptly blamed Frakes for the spoiler. She had no idea I watched the episode at the beginning of my day before doing housework. And of course I used the episode to inspire my #haikuchallenge tweet yesterday. It’s a good thing Gretchen does not use Twitter or reads my blog. 😉

Picard finale
Believe in human spirit
Live by example

So my life is pretty much continuing on as usual even with the lack of privacy. Unfortunately it seems that may be a constant until school starts up in August again, keeping my fingers crossed we return to normal by then.

 

 

Without Solitude

Good morning readers! Today is National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. I hope my family and friends are turning the internet green as everyone should be sheltering in place. Since I’ve already shared my green shirt and poem for today, I thought I’d share a few other poems I’ve been writing for the #haikuchallenge on Twitter. I know I said my routine is unaffected staying at home; but that was before Shawn’s job went on staggered days to limit the number of employees at work.  He makes medical equipment so it is an essential business but they’ve moved everyone to a four day work week.  Shawn has been home the past three days and I miss my solitude.

Miss my alone time
When we return to normal
Bask in the silence

Always home alone
I talk to myself often
Pastime will finish

It is fair to say
My same old routine suffers
From overcrowding

Here is a post I wrote a couple years ago about March being Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. Today is also the one week mark until April 1st and napowrimo. I signed up to participate again this year and since there are no standardized tests to score, I should fare better on the daily prompts. Last year was the first time I did not write for all of them; it was a little disappointing.

One week ’til April
Keep up writing poetry
Whether fair or foul

 

Same Old Routine

Hello readers! I know what many of you are thinking, who is this person posting on this blog. I have been way too quiet lately. I haven’t been writing much lately. Of course with social distancing becoming the new norm, not much has changed in my routine. On the plus side, with Gretchen home all day now, more house cleaning is getting done.

ASU has gone to online classes so Gretchen has her daily routine with class time and homework, but since commuting time is no longer an issue, she has more free time. And since my remote work is scoring standardized tests and schools are closed for the foreseeable future, I have no monetary work. So I should start writing poems again. Hopefully I can write a poem a day this April once again. In the meantime here is a poem for national cerebral palsy awareness month.