This week’s photo comes from Bonne Terre Louisiana, studio, retreat, and farm stay in Breaux Bridge, LA. My friend Jen Gray owns this farm and retreat center. I haven’t been in a few years due to the pandemic, but it’s on my list for this summer. Her Instagram feed is creative and artistic.
Elder flowers are in full bloom. They grow wild and free and scent the early summer air. I found that elder flowers have medicinal qualities that I did not know about. There is always more to learn about Mother Nature and her miracles.
Buds
Margaret Simon, nonet draft
popcorn
as summer
sunshine brightens.
Elder flowers wake,
flare up the forest lair,
offer scented medicine.
Buds to blooms to berries to wine–
Like rainbow gold, a treasure to find.
Please join in with your own small poem draft in the comments. Encourage other writers with comments. Thanks for stopping by.
Reflections on the Teche 
Thanks for sharing new beautiful Instagram accounts to follow, Margaret. I have never noticed these flowers before, though I read they grow in southern California. I likely saw them as a child. I learned a lot from your poem, and it sent me to do a little research on these treasures that are “rainbow gold.” Beautiful poem!
I learned that Meghan and Harry had a lemon and elderflower wedding cake. What? I wrote a kind of dodoitsu Japanese poem form that I learned from Donnetta and Carol this week. However, Carol, I didn’t make the last line funny, I hope.
Elderflowers like snowflakes
What will each bud grow to be?
Spirits for a new pastry?
Stem to grace a grave?
Lovely poem. I like the way your last line sounds – grace and grave are words that seem to work well together.
I love the elderflower/snowflake comparison – each is unique, and the elderflowers do make you think of snowflakes.
Thanks for pointing to this new form. I love the snowflakes and the connection to Meghan and Harry’s wedding cake. Who knew?
Wow! What a great photo for today. I love it. And, a nonet! Wow! It really works with that rainbow gold. I made this up — but it feels real.
Elder Flower Wine
Tastes best
from a mason jar
rinsed in Grandma’s sink
dried on that drainboard
in late afternoon sun.
We toast summer,
dangling our feet
over the edge
of her porch
waiting for fireflies
to catch up.
Our laughter
scattered crumbs
for for the lost
and lonely night
It is real. I even have a mason jar.
Linda, this does sound like you are recording a memory here. Nice poem. I love the “scattered crumbs” of laughter for the “lost and lonely night” I feel like I’m there with you on Grandma’s porch. Beautiful!
Your specific details make this real!
Linda, what a good imagination you have! It reads like a book. I love these images and word choices. Your last lines “our laughter/scattered crumbs/for the lost/and lonely night” are a definite “swoon” for me.
I noticed your name on Highlights Zoom tonight with Padma and Kathi. Are you doing any other Highlight workshops? I signed up for the The Craft and Heart of Writing Poetry for Children in September. I also want to go to a verse novel workshop. I hope to find out more about the workshop Padma mentioned.
You’ve inspired me to write a dodoitsu! I like how structured your poem around questions.
Denise, I love “elderflowers like snowflakes,” your questions, and how thought provoking they are. They do look like snowflakes. I also researched elderflowers to see what they look like. I have had cough syrup with elderflower berries in it. I love your tidbit about M & H’s wedding cake! Thank you for sharing your poem and link to your dodoitsu poem.
I love your use of “popcorn” as a verb, Margaret.
Elderflowers
Buds burst
White blooms spray
Yield to purple berries
Smell like summer
I love “smell like summer.”
Spray is a great word for this image!
This teaches me so much more about the elderflowers and berries. I don’t have any experience, so it’s fascinating to me. In such a few lines you efficiently and effectively went through the life cycle with beautiful words like “burst” and “spray”
Great verbs!
Rose, I agree with everyone else. “Buds burst” immediately hooked me. Beautiful poem.
Put yourself into that photo.
You can find out the likely birds
and listen to their sounds online.
You can learn all about the flowers:
how they are pollinated, the history of their name.
You can look up the temperature,
imagine the feel of the air.
But the smell?
How do elderflowers smell?
You have to be there.
(I may have gone past the limit of “small” in this one…ha!)
Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Love this, Ruth….all the things one could do….but you really have to be there. Great stuff.
Yes, I’m the one trying to do research! I don’t know the smell, or at least I don’t think I do. I’m looking forward to experiencing someday. I love your sweet shoutout to the birds in the elder. I bet you know which ones like this tree. Lovely way to get us into the scene with the scent.
Thank goodness there is at least ONE thing you have to be “present to win!” I’ll add the scent of iris and lilies of the valley!
Ruth, I love this, especially the last three lines. I also love how the last line “you had to be there” contrasts the rest of the poem. So true.
I love how you bring us into the photo and end with “You have to be there” to know how they smell. So true. Love the sneaky rhyme too.
BTW, I meant I went beyond “small” in length, not in quality! Hahaha!
Margaret, I love your nonet. I, too, am crushing on “popcorn” as a verb, and also on the alliteration in this line: “Buds to blooms to berries to wine–”
Elderflowers
Your geometry laces
a patch of sky.
Your scent traces
the path to July.
“geometry laces” and the lovely rhymes that seem effortless…swoon.
Wow, Mary, I love these beautiful images, word choices and rhyme. I agree with Margaret “geometry laces” and “scent traces” your poem is a definite “swoon.”
May Lee, that is a sweet little rhyme. I love the image of the scent tracing “the path to July”
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Wow, I love your nonet. “Buds/popcorn” hooked me and you kept reeling me in. I think my favorite lines are how the awake elder flowers “flare up the forest lair, and offer scented medicine,” which for me implies magic. Gosh, I love those last two lines, too; how they rhyme and continue the magic “wine/like rainbow gold.” Your alliteration, assonance, consonance, and rhyme make the poem read like a song for me. I’ve know for a long time about the medicinal value of elderberries, but I didn’t know they were used in making wine, which reminds me of my 100% Italian grandfather making wine from dandelions when I was little.
When I researched what the elderflowers looked like, I immediately made the connection white flowers to weddings because my brother-in-law is getting married in two weeks. I have been thinking of writing a poem for them instead of buying card. So here’s my first nonet attempt, which is still a WIP. Nonets are difficult, but a worthy challenge. Not sure about the beginning of the last line, though. Thank you for sharing, inspiring, and giving this opportunity.
Our Wedding
White
summer
blossoms, stars
of purity
bouquet of beauty,
we come in unity
vows of love and honor
God blesses our matrimony
we will celebrate with family
Gail Aldous draft
Gail, beautiful idea for the card. Much potential here. Blessings on the wedding, and I hope you get it just right for the special couple. I love all the long e’s–especially “stars / of purity / bouquet of beauty / we come in unity” sounds nice!
Gail, perhaps you could make a Canva print with the photo and poem. I’ve done that before and you can get it printed nicely at Walgreens on a canvas or board. I think it works well. I agree with you about “we will” and wonder if an adverb could work there, such as joyfully?
Suggestion:
God’s blessings on matrimony
celebrated as a family.
Margaret, thank you so much for the suggestions and ideas. I appreciate it; you are sweet. I especially love you suggestion of joy. I think I’m going with the last two lines as:
God blesses our matrimony
celebrating joy with family
Thank you! 🙂