When Lilacs Bloom'd

the power of imagination,
sent on its journey
When Lilacs Bloom'd

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Another erasure poem/commentary, courtesy of the OED word of the day: netherward.

As with yesterday's entry, this poem is obviously not a literal match to the sketch. It's more in the tradition of haiga, where the art work does not necessarily directly represent the images presented in the haiku with which it appears.

Did I squirm out of that? Truth is the erasure was more fun than the on site poem, and I couldn't pass up a Walt Whitman reference to lilacs, the only flower that makes me covet my neighbors' gardens :)

catch the sea

Small
white-collared waves trip primly up

Listener

discover How
you catch the Sea

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The OED word of the day, serving as the basis for the erasure poem, is 'precinct.'

grace

MORNING Wanderings
Grace my heart with
blue and calm Perfection

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Today's OED word of the day for the erasure poem is 'morrow.'

beach grass

late april —
the still-green beach grass
sparkles with raindrops

b&w

wet paints are 'gels' —
the color has gone out
of air travel

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Sorry for the dereliction of blog duty while I visited family, and got caught up in black oak, valley oak, live oak and - best of all - '94 Silver Oak! (Thank you, bro!)

Earth Day

Earth Day —
a bunch of bloomin'
bleeding hearts

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Plan A was to sketch the first buttercups, but these beauties and the play on words they inspired made me laugh out loud. I trust my fellow tree-huggers can take a joke.

a grand deluge

I love to see
the streets
on such a day

a grand Storm,
a deluge from above

That was the sort of show it was!

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Today's erasure poem is once again taken from the OED word of the day: gala.

The power has been restored.

salmonberry

I can understand
salmonberry, but "dogwood"?
spring faunaflora

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So, I looked it up and it seems that dogwood was originally dagwood, from the use of its slender stems of very hard wood for making 'dags' (i.e., daggers). Very surprised to read that the first styles of tennis racquets were made out thin strips of its bark. I'd love to see Federer hit topspin with one of those.

Wikipedia adds that it's also possible that the common name of dogwood may have come because dogs were washed with a brew of its bark.

That concludes our walk on the wild side of etymology for today.

rock paper scissors

homage a Matisse —
scissors cut paper

look up

Mariner fans
waiting for the light to change
don't even look up

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The Seattle chapter of Urban Sketchers was in Pioneer Square today. Gorgeous weather for tourists and a Mariners game made for a lot of conversations as about 20 of us sketched the pergola and other sites. I thought it an interesting comment on the times that one guy on the way to the game asked if we were in a competition.