Mint

-ed

freshly—

 

pOp-hatching open

like a tin, new—

from speckled

blue—

 

with a

boing-bOunce,

songbirds’ primitive sweet breath

bugles

the crisp-fresh

 

reveille

after winter greens

spring.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

NaPoWriMo Day 6 challenges us to write a poem by choosing a number which corresponds to a word from one column (A) and then use the words that appear in the columns (B) and (C) to describe the taste of your column (A) word.  Bonus if you don’t use your (A) in the body of your poem but use it as your title only.  Mine: (A) mint, (B) boing, and (C) primitive.

 

The songbird Swainson’s Thrush lays speckled blue eggs.

 

A Day's Journey from Blueberry to Heron

Poetry can be like this—

blueberry stains on my fingers

from shoving them straight

from the bush to my mouth

—blackberries, too.

 

Seeing six rotting oranges

sitting underneath a tree—

hoping they smell good

to what crawls below.

 

The desert cottontail,

a perfect Russel Stover,

who froze still in the sun

when I stepped lightly by—

nothing but nose twitching.

 

A box full of free grapefruits

on the road

in front of the cottage house—

heavy, ripe, uneven.

 

The new puppy, dancing,

learning a leash, excited

to come to me—still unsure

which of us wanted to play more.

 

A Great Blue Heron

with long, delicate legs,

sleek and slow-hunting

at our green-gold pond.

 

I say our,

because it’s yours, too—

as is this journey-poem, for you to add

your own lovely thing to.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

“Look for a lovely thing and you will find it,

It is not far—

It never will be far.”

-Sara Teasdale

What's Going On?  Beauty

Yabba Dabba Doo

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

Yabber-yabber, do

bird,

it’s no ordinary thing

to hang a song in a tree,

to make a valentine of music,

sweet songbird,

on the vine.

 

Here I am

all blush and flush and flutter,

raptured full and giddy,

on your golden, wild wine.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

Again for Shay's word garden word list (still open for linking):  flutter, giddy, golden, wild, yabber-yabber, and for Dora's dverse poetics reimagining (closed/too late for linking).

 

Photo:  French horn hanging from a tree at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun.

Red Fox (to My Poems)

Vulpes vulpes, with your

little black nose,

your anxious eyes,

darting,

your den, under leaves

once red,

are ochre, burnt umber, and blowing away

in the air

of wet earth and maple smoke exhaled.

My palms,

holding ash

up to my fingertips, cool to the touch,

warm with a flame I cannot fan,

everything dying, like this.

But I’ll find you,

sometime October,

under the chestnut tree

wagging your tail,

Vulpes vulpes,

for me.

© 2016 Jennifer Wagner

It seems I am too busy for poetry right now.  But sometimes, she finds me.