January 2020 Poetry of Nature Walk + Poems

Pace Bend Park | Spicewood, Texas

Poetry explorers from Vermont, Connecticut and Australia gathered in person and online to enjoy a beautiful sunny day on the cliffs of Lake Travis just west of Austin, Texas. Inspired by the semi-arid landscape, the movement of the elements and the bright day, we ended up contemplating and writing about the themes of “adaptability” again (our theme in September) and contrast with the prompt of focusing on one physical sense to describe our experience.

 

ALL AROUND | Heather Swick
Curvy coves with colorful crimson cacti wrapping warm love around the bluish green wavy lake…yellow butterflies traveling to their next spot among the magic of the abundant worlds all around.

By Poetry of Nature Walker, Heather, in Brisbane, Australia

ROAD TRIP OF THE SENSES | Ani Rao

How is it that this place can bring up many memories of many places?

Yet, there isn’t a place that I’ve been to that’s exactly like where I am today? 

Here, I discover a memory of:
Earth – New Mexico;
Air- Bilgola Plateau;
Water – New Zealand;
Fire – The Grand Canyon.

Here, I discover a touch of:
Silky sky;
Rugged road;
Flat face cactus;
Skeleton of a tree;
Rhythmic rippling water
Cotton drapery of flower’s petal,
Harmony through diversity.

Is this an experience of universal-unique in nature?

By Poetry of Nature Walker, Ani, in Sydney, Australia

ADAPTABILITY | Laine Driscoll

Texas
Texas
Texas
The roads are long
The roads are long
The roads are long

Jump off when you prickle
Smell the burgundy when you flower
Mockingbird keeps watch out of sight.

Embrace and expand all who
Lose their way and
Magnetize to your vista.

Dance with the wild wind
And the white flowers.

Turquoise waters
At the bottom of dry cliffs,
Wild but organized.

Fall off the cliff and find
You’re surrounded by the embrace.

——

Snow outside while sitting on a
Warm cliff in Texas.
Psychical experience of a
Memory
Adapted from a book.

Floods
Brown roots
Groves of cacti and brush grass,
a sea of white.

Skeleton trees
Under the waters are rocks
Built of the facility of being mineraled—
The potency of the masses of Texas.

Knowing how to organize green
And capable of drought.

All the shadows of longhorns
Beaten into dense clay cliffs
Jump, submerge, expand, contract.

A small state saluting a large one.
The delicate snow dancing with an
Earthen path leading down to
Hamilton Pool,
With its emerald waterfall and warblers of gold,
A once home, saluting birthplace
In the damp ten degrees of
January winter.
And a 70 degree day.

How bodies adapt when offered
Another way.
When the experience of
Diversity breathes life from
Connecticut to Texas in 24 hours,
An unforgettable Taurean drive,
Back to life after eight years,
And so much verdant growth,
Maybe.

THE TASTE OF DELIGHT | JC - The Poartry Project

The taste of plans gone awry is a little bitter…
And then so, so sweet.
The sharp metallic tang of a change of course
slowly gives way to a chewy, robust,
earthy umami that warms all the way to the toes.
The sour puckering of the mouth
with the funky, sad flavor of another magic place
gone of moved or closed for the moment
Relaxes into the tasted honeysuckle of opening
and stepping into the long hoped-for
opportunity moving in to fill the gap
with a heaping spoonful of joy.
The expanse is in the surprise –
in the coordinated dance
from a well-planned banquet –
which might be too rich and heavy
with expectation –
to a series of lovely amuses-bouches,
each more satisfying that the next
with the spice of the unexpected,
the taste of delight in
the energies at play.

Inspired by the various unanticipated encounters that required our adaptability on the drive from Vermont to Texas.

 

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