Object poem with Paint chips

This week Linda Kruschke’s challenge is for an object poem. Please visit her blog for more information, the paint chip colours and her poems.

‘My challenge to you is to pick one of the paint chips below and write an object poem about it. If you are feeling ambitious, write a series of object poems, one about each of the paint chip words and phrases. If you are feeling rebellious, you can write an object poem about some other object but incorporate one or more of the paint chip words and phrases in your poem.

‘The paint chip words and phrases we have to work with this week are cotton, nest, emerald, wonderful wisteria, Boundary Waters, hermit crab, and swamp.’

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Wonderful wisteria reminded me of a white one at Hill Top. That is the object I chose for my poem, but I used two of the other words as well.

Hill Top in May

A country cottage

When we visited Hill Top we were amazed
By wonderful wisteria in flower halfway across
The front of the house where Beatrix Potter
Once lived. Billowing blooms like white candyfloss.

Trimmed and trained around green-framed sash-windows
Its multiflowered sprays attract bees; other kinds of insect
Visit it too. The light breeze tosses its blossom
Making a long exposure focus suspect.

Across the doorway a bushier tree grows;
Its abundant foliage could provide cover for a nest.
Perhaps a pair of blackbirds might live there, but
Popularity with tourists is no jest.

Around the world people read about Peter
Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail and come to visit
The place associated with the author.
That’s a blessing to the village, or is it?

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Notes: Candyfloss is UK English for cotton candy.

The visit to Hill Top is described on Sue’s words and pictures.

Free choice paint chip poem

Linda Kruschke’s paint chip poetry prompt this week left the choice open to us. I wrote a very clunky 20 line rhyme, which only had the merit of being factual. Then I decided to try haikus. My Grandma wasn’t a gardener, so didn’t have any hydrangeas, but I guess a little poetic licence is permissible!

Linda was busy coordinating a writing competition. She writes:

So today I’m just posting a few paint chips with no other details. It’s a free write week. Do with these three paint chips whatever you want.

The words and phrases you have at your disposal are stepping stone, grandma’s hydrangeas, and heirloom tomato.

Have some fun with this one, with no parameters to hold you back.

Spring thoughts

Plants are sprouting shoots.
Grandma’s hydrangeas were blue;
Our lace-caps are pink.

Heirloom tomato
Plants’ crop may be tastier
Than we remember.

Growing sunflowers
Is sometimes a stepping stone
To having bird seed.

My 800th post on Sue’s Trifles

I was looking for inspiration for a post other than a book review this week, when I discovered that I have already published 799 posts on Sue’s Trifles; this is my 800^th! It is also the 78^th since this time last year. I have also added some more pages.

In the past I have occasionally written posts looking back and taking stock of what I have done. This  helps me to plan what I might write next.

Sue’s Trifles, as I was explaining the other day to a writer I had met for the first time, is my second blog. My first blog, Sue’s considered trifles, had a particular purpose. When I posted other material there it was not welcomed by some of my original followers. So I started a new blog. That was in March 2013.

Looking for additional ideas for posts, I searched for challenges and discovered I was just in time to take part in the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge. It was a steep learning curve, but I have taken part every year since then.

Perhaps the forty five new people who have followed my blog in the last 12 months (thank you!) would be interested in its history. (My other valued followers will no doubt have read any posts that caught their attention!) My What’s new? page is a record of my writing/blogging activities.

My inspiration for posts on this blog (other than A to Z, which I mentioned earlier)  has included writing prompts from WordPress’s the Daily Post, craft projects I have completed, social activities I have been involved with, books I have read and (for posts like this) my earlier blogging.

This may also be a good opportunity to share my reaction to reading my New Year ‘s post, which ended:-

To conclude, in 2019 I am going to try to

• be more focused on my writing
• communicate better with the people around me
• listen more
• be less irritable
• improve my fitness by spending less time sitting down
• use my skills to help other people
• remember to trust God and not to rely on myself
• rejoice in the Lord always Philippians 4:4

So how am I doing? I’d like to think that I am making progress at least some of the time. The last one brought me up short, though. There has been much sadness locally this year. A number of friends/spouses of friends have left this earthly life behind. Others are suffering. Perhaps my Bible verse should be, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn’. Romans 12:15 (NIV)

To end on a lighter note, there have been some amusing incidents, when I have been out and about. Two relate to my wild flower spotting activities.

When I was pointing my phone at a wall, a couple watched and the man said, “That’ll make a good photo!” I don’t always recognise sarcasm. In this case, I suspected it, but I explained that I was taking photos of flowers and asked them if they knew what they were. They didn’t, so I told them. They were probably underwhelmed.

A retired gentleman with walking sticks was stopping every few feet and leaning on the sea-defences. Hubby asked, “All right?” He replied, “I’m looking at the wild flowers.” On learning that I was also interested, he queried what a particular plant was. (It was a stunted specimen near the sea.) We chatted for a short time. He explained that he had taken up the study of wild flowers instead of his former hobby of bird spotting. His children used to frighten the birds!

If you’ve made it to this point – thanks for reading!