If you are new to Quiet Reading, welcome, and thank you for dropping by! You may have heard good things about the unique profiles of authors and books you’ll find here. This week, we are due for something lighter.
Inspired by the forsythia, redbud, crabapple, and fruit flowers so much in evidence in my city, I send you a fair, weightless flurry.
1. Petals
Who decides which petals cling to the branch this gusty afternoon and which let go?
2. Girls
The girls who survive might be ok.
They tell each other to put down their phones
when it is time to play karaoke
or disclose someone's diary
or drift in a pack to the park.
Have you heard the music of girls discovering a beetle in the bathroom,
a spider on the wall?
3. Dandelions
I dig at dandelions wondering what an herbalist would brew from muscular roots, insistent flowers.
4. Today
Words fall lightly, a peace of white petals. Let the hallowed day speak for itself.
For more poetry on Substack, check out this variegated sampling:
- Poetry editor for Publishers Weekly, NYU professor, and (of course!) poet shares a combination of original poetry and a well-curated collection of poems you’ll be glad to know. - Author mixes poetry with comics. - mixes poetry, essays on poetry, and spirituality. - curates The Poetic Library (Substack authors who regularly publish poetry) here. Her original work includes poetry, fiction, and essays. - hosts “Fifties by the Fire.” Every other Friday, his readers respond to a theme with a fifty-word story or poem. Hint: Justin welcomes newcomers.Peace, friends.
Until next,
Tara
Lovely … brings them out … thank you …
Reminds me … Canto Xiii: Kung Walked - poem by Ezra Pound
``The blossoms of the apricot blow from the east to the west, `And I have tried to keep them from falling."
And here’s a grateful wave for Li Po et al…
Pause the blossom
And the moon’s slender beginning,
Hold the sky, heaven’s reflection
At the bend of the river
I know what my one-Pepsi-a-day granny would do with those dandelions: cook ‘em on her wood-powered kitchen stove, the only kind of cooking device she owned.
After the dandelions were ready to serve, she always told us, “now you kids get in here and eat. I’m not going to be cooking again in five minutes just because you think you are hungry.”