Unexpected

I painted this sunflower for our neighbor across the street a couple years ago. I was painting a different sunflower when Lois came by and said she wanted me to paint one just like it for her. It is a large 4′ x 4′ painting. She loved the colors and put it on an easel in her living room.

Sadly, we lost her to cancer a week ago. She was a beautiful person with a warm smile and welcoming spirit, just like the sunflower above. She will be missed.

Winter of life 

unexpected changes 

Seeds drop

Memories live on

Sunflowers bloom

Her spirit lives on

Painting: Dwight L. Roth

The Estuary of Life

Even the river

flows across rocky rapids

crashes //churning white

thunders over rocky falls

Smooth flow continues

How many lifetimes

we have stayed in river’s flow

carrying life’s mud

eroding jagged edges

Then we drop it all

In the estuary of life

*

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Digital Woolly Worm

I saw a green wooly worm today

sitting very still and pretty

Not your usual orange and black

but little itty-bitty

A digital worm I supposed,

from all those black antennae

I wondered what channel he listened to,

for there are so very many

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Quadrille day at d’Verse… the prompt is Wrap.  

https://dversepoets.com

For more information on the American Dagger Moth click here:  

http://redandthepeanut.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-dagger-moth-caterpillar.html

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/american-dagger-moth

 

Hard Situations

I saw this plant coming up out of my concrete sidewalk this week. The temperatures have been in the 90s F but this “weed” is growing, blooming and thriving in the hardest of situations. We must be more like weeds; tenacious, resilient, and strong in the hard times of our life!

Sometimes

We must grow and bloom

in hard situations

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

https://www.wildedible.com/wild-food-guide/wood-sorrel

Night Train

Reading Kym Gordon Moore’s post about the *Little Red Caboose got my nostalgia going for another train post. The painting above is one I did almost ten years ago. The photo of the painting came out a little blurry, which I thought made the painting have an almost ghostly quality. The night train roaring through the blackness is a sight to behold.

Night Train

Black smoke blends with the foggy night

Night train roars on through mist

Full moon hides from the fury of fire and smoke

Fireman shovels coal into the bottomless pit

as the fire dragon swallows and snorts

Whistle pierces the darkness at each crossing

Midnight hour draws near as the engine roars on

through coal patches,

past coke ovens

lighting up hillsides like Jack-o-lanterns

Windows rattle as the old man snores

Kids hide beneath their cozy blankets

Birds huddle close in the branches

Ground shakes as cars rumble by

River gleams just over the bank as it races

the Pennsylvania Dragon to Pittsburgh

Night Train heads into the darkness

pulling a hundred coke cars behind

Warning light twinkles like the evening star

a Red Dwarf

on the back of the little red caboose

***

Painting of the Night Train: Dwight L. Roth

*Read Kym’s poem here:

https://frombehindthepen.wordpress.com/2022/07/22/bringing-up-the-rear-%f0%9f%9a%82/#comment-18632

Summer Harvest (haiku)

Summer’s Gold shining

Goldfinch finding lunchtime meal

One seed at a time

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Geometric Strength

Triangles form curved

arches spanning New River

Solid steel rainbow

Cars hum on asphalt

Tractor trailors test its strength

Fractals of steel rust

Winding steps go down

Stairway to “Almost Heaven…”

“West Virginia”

Photos of New River Bridge: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Lisa asked us to reflect on fractals and how they could be used in poetry. They are small replicas within reflecting a larger whole. The New River Bridge crosses the New River Gorge in West Virginia. I drove across it and then stopped and took some photos. It is most impressive to see. The way the steel is put together… small triangles creating and arch which creates large triangles on each side of the bridge… is amazing. I wrote in Haiku creating poetic fractals of the larger whole poem.  Hopefully my understanding of this is correct.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

Scars of a Broken Heart

It was a warm Sunday afternoon. Jim took a small hand-ax with him as he climbed the ridge behind her farm. They had been friends since primary school, but now, seven years later she had broken his heart. Tommy Butler beat him to the draw, asking Julie Anne to the middle school dance… and she said yes.

With all his strength he chopped at the initials carved into the side of the tall sugar maple. He carved them there when he was thirteen. Now it was a bleeding scar where a heart of love once lived.

When Jim, told George what he had done, a smile crossed his wise old, wrinkled face.

“When I was your age, I had a girl who broke my heart as well. She played with my heart, then ‘she’d had it sliced away leaving a scar’. It still hurts.”

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Sarah asked us to write a prosery story of 144 words, which must include the line: ‘she’d had it sliced away leaving a scar’. from a poem by Michael Donaghy. (https://rihlajourney.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/liverpool-michael-donaghy/)

I decided to continue my conversations of Jim and his friend Old George.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

Knowing Our Limitations

After reading the blogpost *“Existence of Sand”, I began thinking further on the subject from a little different perspective. These are my thoughts.

Knowing Our Limitations

Children build castles in the sand

Knowing they won’t last

Washed away in the high tide

Walls and moats and shells

do not stop the tide from wiping

the shore clean

And the next day

they do it all over again

Just like children we create our castles

full of detail and embellishments

Building walls around us

we seek protection

from fear, war, and destruction

We buy guns thinking they will protect us

Move into clustered communities

of people just like ourselves

Erecting monuments

we hope to be remembered

forever

But just like grains of sand

these too will go

The high tide hits us all in time

Wiping the slate clean

over and over

again and again

And someone else will build

their castle on our shore

***

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

*Check out this interesting post:

Existence of Sand – Kaushal Kishore (wordpress.com

Summer Butterflies

I just could not help myself today, when I saw these beautiful butterflies on my Zinnias. I kept shooting and shooting. and they stayed around flitting from flower to flower, poetry in motion! With my 200mm zoom, I was able to focus all the way in on them. These are some of the most beautiful butterflies I have seen!

Beauty flits lightly

from yellow to red buffet

Basking in sunshine

Photos: Dwight L. Roth