If you follow my blog, you may remember that I attempted to save my three little Hibiscus over the winter by keeping them in my garage. Now that the frost is no longer a threat, I planted them in my flower bed. They immediately started forming heads and today they began blooming, even before they have developed much green foliage. They are so beautiful. I am glad they survived the winter hibernation!
Beauty blooms in pairs
Surviving hibernation
Lesson for us all
Tom Paxton and John McCutcheon have written a heartfelt, stirring song, “Ukrainian Now”, that touches us all. Noel Paul Stookey edited this beautiful video that includes Peter Yarrow, Bill Miller, Tret Fure, Holly Near, Joe Jencks, Emma’s Revolution, Rebel Voices, Crys Matthews, Carrie Newcomer and Christine Lavin singing with them.
Many of these folks are living shadows from my past! They came out of the Folk Revival of the 1960s and have been speaking through their music and lyrics ever since that time. This is poetry in song! This is a beautiful heartfelt song!
Our Cry to God
Where are you God when we need you the most
as bombs explode and buildings crumble
Where are you as little men who desire power
send other men to the slaughter in their place
And where are you as mother’s weep
for their husbands… their sons… and their children
Where were you when refugees fled their homes
for destinations unknown and unforeseen just weeks ago
Where were you as bullets fly and old men are murdered
left shot, lying in the street like human refuse
Where are you as women were raped and children cry
from a lifetime of the despicable happening overnight
Where are you God as the Nations rage
seemingly out of control
God’s Response
I Am… not the chess-master controlling the board
As pawns are discarded and Queens attempt to capture kings
The affairs of men go on as they have since the beginning
Nation against nation and Kingdom against kingdom
Some think I Am a genie in the bottle
that when correct prayers are given, rubbed the right way,
will bring the three wishes of fantasy and dreams
My kingdom is not one of the physical realms
But of the spiritual, not of this world but of the eternal
I Am the God who gives you strength from within
Power of unequal measure coming up from the depths
When faced with crisis, or the enemy, or the forces of evil
I Am the God who reveals himself through the human spirit
bringing comfort to the grieving and strength to the dying
I Am the God who removes physical blinders revealing
chariots of fire moving you forward to face whatever lies ahead
I Am the Lion roaring through you to confront evil in the world
Those who look to me will find renewed strength
And like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, you too will rise
I AM the God of peace… which will come in time
as Love is shown and Grace, Mercy, and Forgiveness
are extended to all
***
Paintings of Sunflowers: Dwight L. Roth
Sharing this on d’Verse Poets Pub open link night… Join us at: https://dversepoets.com
Last summer we had a nest of baby wrens that hatched nearby. The little ones would come to the feeder and shimmy and shake expecting the mother to pick up the food and feed them. As their feathers were coming in, they looked a little disheveled! They did not look very happy and their songs where begging tunes! Once grown, they joined their parents in that high pitched song that makes you wonder how that much sound could come from such a little bird.
***
Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Today at d’Verse, Frank Tassone asked us to write a Haibun that refers to bird songs. We enjoy watching the birds at our feeder as they come and go. The little wren gets so loud at times we have to shut the door!
The following are a montage of flowers taken in or around my back yard. I hope you enjoy them.
Spring Flowers blooming
Fill the air with sweet fragrance
While war rages on
***
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
It seeps and creeps with time
deleting pictures and rhymes
Retention is lost
in Winter’s cold frost
While minds become filled with green slime
Today at d’Verse, Bjorn asked us to write a poem that is a riddle, making the reader try to guess what we are talking about. I decided to write about Alzheimer’s disease that slowly eats away at one’s memory till in time it is gone. When I finished my limerick, it took me back to Simon and Garfunkle’s song “Slip Slidin’ Away,” which some of you will remember.
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Hummingbirds zip around my yard each summer, enjoying the flowers and sucking the nectar up with their long straw-like beak. They are very tiny birds just over two inches long and have nests the size of a thimble. I have been seeing ads for round hummingbird nesting boxes coming across my Facebook page. Rather than buy one I thought about what I could use to make one.
A few months ago my wife gave me some wooden cosmetic boxes that have a sliding lid. I thought if I cut them in half and drilled a hole in them, they might make a perfect nesting box for humming birds. So, I went to work on making them as you can see in the photos below. I hung them on trees in the back yard and put some cotton balls in the box to encourage them. I also cleaned out my feeder and mixed up som new sugar water for them. Two days later the some of the cotton had been pulled from the nest, ( I am assuming by other birds) They all like the soft material for their nests.
Hopefully the hummingbirds will come and move in to the little houses.
*** to be continued…
Two nesting boxes
For two tiny hummingbirds
Hoping they will come
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
More about hummingbirds… Click below:
Our lives
Like chalk on the sidewalk
Defined by blocks of little lifetimes
Drawn at birth… continuing on
One hop at a time
Until we make it to the end
Or misstep and hop out early…
As the chalk defining our lifetime
Washes away
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
Today De at d’Verse asked us to Chalk up a poem. We are to write a 44 word Quadrille using the word Chalk in any way we choose.
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I was back to painting again this week. I got a framed canvas painting from the Habitat Restore that had a small pencil point size hole in the top center of the sky. I patched the hole with some glue, but the indention still showed after I painted over the sky. I decided to make a bird out of the hole patch. It is the one on the right in the center of the picture. You can see the tiny hole in the bottom painting.
The original painting below had a nice landscape perspective but seemed a little bland to me. I decided to add the stone bridge and a steam train. I also added more color and changed the mountain and water. I am happy with the way it came out.
Changing perspective
Keeping natures foundation
Covering defects
~my original sketch on the Restore canvas~
Recycled Painting from the Habitat Restore – Dwight L. Roth
Sadness to Wonder
The Story never grows old
Renewed life for all
***
Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Roth Poetry 