This week I received my first poetry swap poem from Rose Cappelli. Rose sent a dreamy note tablet, a Mary Oliver poem, and a cascade poem about peonies. As Rose explained, in a cascade poem, each line from the first stanza repeats as the final line of each subsequent stanza. Rose does this seamlessly.
My mind has been on the flowers, prompted by Mary Oliver, Rose, and Maggie Smith. I subscribe to Maggie Smith’s Substack newsletter. This week she wrote about naming things.
“I love when I can accurately identify things when I see (or hear) them: a bird, a tree, a flower, a constellation, a kind of nest. (As the poet Pattiann Rogers once said in an interview, ‘naming is a form of honoring something.’)”
Maggie also writes about not knowing the name of something and how that can lead to wonder and discovery. I found a flower in my mother-in-law’s collection of pots that she nor I could identify. We could tell it was a type of hibiscus. I began by writing a list of metaphors. I am still playing with how to insert the not knowing, but wanted to share the small poem that I wrote in my notebook.
Hibiscus Moment
You are Love’s red lace,
blooming beet-red bow
on a woman’s flowing gown.You open only for a day
flirting like a spool of yarn
to a kitten, taunting usto feel unhinged with marvel.
So much bravery
in your fleeting face.
(Margaret Simon, draft)
Reflections on the Teche 