Welcome to Day 3 of our month-long daily writing project. Newbies, this is an annual community writing project that I host every February. You don’t have to be a poet to participate. Short prose pieces are a great way to join in the fun.
This year’s theme is FOUND OBJECTS. For those of you who are new to the project, please read my introductory post. You’ll find more information and all of the Week 1 FOUND OBJECTS at this post.
It’s Day 3. Let’s talk about a new category of found item today, objects we spotted in nature.
FOUND: Moth Eggs
What caught my eye about these eggs, stuck on the passenger-side window of my mini-van, was how much the bottom group looked like the continent of South America. I especially like the photograph where the continent of eggs appears to be floating in a sea of sky.
The photo I posted as our prompt IS a bit mysterious. I’ll put more information about the moth at the bottom of this post.
The first person in with a guess was Diane Mayr, who said, “I have no idea what the Day 3 pic represents, so I imagined roe. ”
Roe Your Boat
By Diane Mayr
Peculiar, pearlescent,
gelatinous beads
are clustered in places
where sea creatures breed.
Place your feet gently.
Avoid, please, the weeds.
Sail your boats elsewhere.
Let fish life proceed.
Margaret Simon claimed to be “stumped” by today’s found object, but shared a haiku poem that made me look more closely at the image.
Please ignore my
provocative position.
My shadow self intrigues.
By Margaret Simon
I’m fascinated by all the interpretations of these little eggs. Here is Jessica Bigi’s poem.
Berry Picking
By Jessica Bigi
Bare legs scratchy thistles
Grandmother shadow curling
Under my feet
Tasseled fields of winding hills
Windy chimes brushing rose cheeks
Whistles of laughter swings from buckets
Sweetness of berries feel the breeze
Purple berry giggles
Let grandmother know I’ve eaten more
Than I’ve put in my bucket
At home just for fun
We count our berries
Looks like grandmother has berry giggles too
I tried to heed my own call for imagery of the five senses today. Did I get all five?
Found Object
By Laura Shovan
A continent of lemon drops,
sweet bite of foreign words
on my tongue.
Bath pearls spilled on mirror top,
waxy shells ready to release
their tangy scent.
A nest of snowy Tiger Moths
about to burst, consume, cocoon.
A blizzard of wings.
Like me, Mary Lee Hahn noticed that the bottom grouping of eggs had a very familiar shape.
Mysteries
The mysteries of the world are myriad.
Sometimes they look like little balls of butter.
Sometimes they clump together in the shape of South America.
The mysteries of the world puzzle us.
They make us take our glasses off and look so close
we dust our noses with them.
The mysteries of the world hold hidden ripeness.
Each might contain a new life,
or the possibility to change the weather patterns of the entire world.
The mysteries of the world cast shadows.
Hovering above, they block the sun
and send a chill through us as they pass over.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016
Molly Hogan wrote, “This picture was certainly challenging!” I wonder what you are all thinking, now that the mystery is solved.
Mystery Orbs
by Molly Hogan
I itch to pick one up
squish it with a POP
and see what oozes out,
feel the dripping liquid
sticky on my pinching fingers.
I yearn to bite
and sink my teeth
into pale, silken green
to discover
if they are as juicy
as they look,
sugar-sweet like candy
or tongue-zapping,
puckering sour.
God forbid they’re bacteria!
I like how choosing a setting for her poem creates a totally different feel in Linda Baie’s response.
The Art Opening
The beads leapt off the canvas.
Adults were amused observing the child
who reached out to touch the beads.
They wouldn’t admit their desire to touch, too.
Even the shadows felt like mistakes.
The artist was that good.
Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved
Jone Rush MacCulloch is joining us from her blog, DeoWriter.
honey globes
remains of the hive
sun pearls
© 2016 Jone Rush MacCulloch all rights reserved
***
Last in is our friend, Poetry Friday blogger Charles Waters.
MARBLE DILEMMA
Marbles jumble, ready to rumble,
fighting to see who will be
picked to get flicked
in the next game.
(c) Charles Waters 2016
***
Donna Smith is catching up on the prompts. She says, “Though I knew these were moth eggs by now, I saw pearls.”
Grandma’s Pearls
I broke my grandma’s pearls
The horror of it all!
But then I took a look
And gathered up the fall.
I tried to line them up
By going two by two
But I just could not do it
By twos it would not do.
Two roly-poly pearls rolled off,
They rolled about the floor;
I watched as they rolled down the hall
Under the closet door.
With the remaining 85
I made one single line,
Then very neatly arranged the pearls –
Three piles of twenty-nine.
I gathered them together in
Two piles when Math was done –
Creating South America
And Greenland, just for fun.
My cat pounced into Greenland
And they began to scatter
He sent them all around the world
Then departed, pitter-patter.
I crawled around on hands and knees
To round them up again
But somehow most escaped me
And I only counted ten.
Oh, Grandma won’t be happy,
She won’t be very pleased
I think there’s only 8 pearls now
Two flew when I just sneezed!
Inside a jar they could be safe,
So there I put the rest
I still had 8 and, don’t you know,
I think they were the best!
But then the jar with precious pearls
Opened when it tipped,
It rolled and rolled and turned about
Until those 8 pearls slipped.
There were no more inside the jar
No pearls that I could see
I don’t know where they rolled to.
Oh, where could those pearls be?
So I’m a little worried,
I might be in some trouble;
Do you think I can make more pearls
By blowing pearly bubbles?
©2016, Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved
***
You’ll find Carol Varsalona’s digital design for today’s poem at her blog, Beyond LiteracyLink.
Wonder
Clusters
of neon balls
hanging
in mid air
waiting
for the
human touch
to flick
them
away.
©CVarsalona, 2016
DAY 4 FOUND OBJECT PROMPT
Thanks so much for joining me today, everyone. Wasn’t it fun to have a UFO: Unidentified Found Object to work with?
I’m heading out to a high school drama club meeting this evening. I’ll continue to post responses to FOUND OBJECT 3 as they come in, but may not be adding additional poems until tomorrow morning.
See you tomorrow for Day 4.
If you’d like to read what we’ve written so far, here are links to this week’s poems:
Monday, February 1
FOUND OBJECT: 100 year-old mailing box
Poems by: Diane Mayr, Molly Hogan, Mary Lee Hahn, Linda Baie, Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Catherine Flynn, Jone Rush MacCulloch.
Tuesday, February 2
FOUND OBJECT: Fancy peppers and produce
Poems by: Mary Lee Hahn, Jessica Bigi, Diane Mayr, Molly Hogan, Laura Shovan, Linda Baie, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Margaret Simon, Jennifer Lewis.
More about the moth:
It took me about fifteen minutes of internet searching to identify Mama Moth. She is a Virginian Tiger Moth, Spilosoma virginica. You can read more about her at Buglifecycle. There is a photograph of this moth’s eggs at the top of the page. They are a perfect match for our Day 3 FOUND OBJECT.
So many different ideas about what those tiny yellow balls were. I never would have guessed moth eggs. Edible? Not lemon drops or any other candy. I love Mary Lee’s mysteries of the world. Now I see the South America, but when I looked at it the shadow looked like grapes. Don’t know where the word provocative came from.
I’m still working on the fan poem. I’ll send it along later.
I’m so tickled that everyone was really stretching on this one. I do see the grapes.
Amazing the poems and the pictures (especially the ones at Buglifecycle). I have to say, Linda’s art poem is the one that spoke the loudest to me!
And no, it wasn’t my evil twin, I did write a rhyming poem.
I would of never guessed Moth eggs the objects looked as if they wear being counted I love everyone poems I like Linda’s idea of arte bids jumping from caves
beads
Excellent poems today, everyone. I especially enjoyed the way Mary Lee took the mystery and made that the subject of her poem. Life is mysterious indeed.
Wow, moth eggs. Everyone’s “look” helps me re-see. Love them all.
I admit I wasn’t going to guess moth eggs but they were a little gross to me so I skipped this prompt. Haha.
I purposely didn’t read the post until I had written my haiku. I wondered if they were eggs. Noticed the South America looking continent , so cool.
Here’s mine: https://deowriter.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/found-objects-challenge-day-three/
Margaret, the word provocative was perfect! I also saw grapes when I first looked at this picture. I suppose that’s what put me on the edible train. (Ick! I think I’m going to go brush my teeth–again!) Laura, what did you do with the eggs?
The eggs blew off my car as I drove. I was sad about that. I wish I had moved them onto a shrub.
Day Four:
Ahhh, A Fan
On certain sticky summer days
when heat slaps me in the face
and my flushed skin drips
and my thoughts grumble
into curdled meanness
and a rash of spiteful words
trembles at my lips,
I would kill
for the simple respite
of a fan
with sweet hum of rotating blades
and soft, stirring air
to dispel the sour chunks
of my humid mood.
I think I would have guessed moth eggs…butterflies and moths were my favorite thing to study on my own as a child..though this is not one I’d connected with before.
Do you need any more images? And if so, how would I email it to you?
I’ll see about the fan writing….
Hi, Donna.
If you have something to send in, please email to mrspoems at gmail. I’ll work it into the schedule. Thanks! Looking forward to your poems, too.
Aha. I came in a different way and can now comment. I just want to say I enjoyed these poems so much. I thought the yellow circles might be plastic amo for a child’s toy gun–though I did see south America…moth eggs much nicer.
Day Four
I really did work in the stacks during college. No fan, but always wished for one. For some reason that’s what I remembered when I saw the picture. Amazing what the mind will do!
That Timeless Time As A Student
I play the night guard.
Back in the stacks,
the fan whirrs white noise,
shimmers and shakes,
scoots into edges, turning away,
blowing powdery mildew from the shelves,
grit on my tongue.
Not the balmy breeze expected.
Yet, it stirs the still air,
and its machinations keep me alert.
I need to stay awake,
taking notes from dusty books.
Thoughts rise in slow bubbles
and stir in the swirled air.
I mean to survive
this small tomb kept for me
on Fridays and Saturdays.
I’m tasting the future.
Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved
Laura, I just read through all of this week’s posts for the challenge. I am impressed by the different perspectives and word choice from all of the writers. I would like to get involved with writing about your found objects.
Hi, Carol. The invitation to join is on-going. Although writing daily is part of the challenge, people are invited to drop in any time — even if it’s just for a poem or two.
[…] Wednesday, February 3 FOUND OBJECT: Moth eggs Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan, Linda Baie, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Laura Shovan. […]
[…] Wednesday, February 3 FOUND OBJECT: Moth eggs Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan, Linda Baie, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Laura Shovan. […]
This is a day late, but I couldn’t resist writing about this fan. It reminded me of the fan my grandmother kept on her kitchen table throughout the summers of my childhood.
Cicadas and grasshoppers
thrum and hum
in the sweltering sunshine
of an August afternoon.
Your old silver fan,
oscillating across the kitchen table,
whirrs and purrs,
propelling bursts of coolness
over my face.
Sipping sweet cold tea
from a glass dripping
with sweat,
we weather the heat
together.
[…] Wednesday, February 3 FOUND OBJECT: Moth eggs Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan, Linda Baie, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Laura Shovan, Catherine Flynn. […]
MARBLE DILEMMA
Marbles jumble, ready to rumble,
fighting to see who will be
picked to get flicked
in the next game.
(c) Charles Waters 2016
[…] Wednesday, February 3 FOUND OBJECT: Moth eggs Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan, Linda Baie, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Laura Shovan, Charles Waters. […]
Though I knew these were moth eggs by now, I saw pearls.
Day 3
Grandma’s Pearls
I broke my grandma’s pearls
The horror of it all!
But then I took a look
And gathered up the fall.
I tried to line them up
By going two by two
But I just could not do it
By twos it would not do.
Two roly-poly pearls rolled off,
They rolled about the floor;
I watched as they rolled down the hall
Under the closet door.
With the remaining 85
I made one single line,
Then very neatly arranged the pearls –
Three piles of twenty-nine.
I gathered them together in
Two piles when Math was done –
Creating South America
And Greenland, just for fun.
My cat pounced into Greenland
And they began to scatter
He sent them all around the world
Then departed, pitter-patter.
I crawled around on hands and knees
To round them up again
But somehow most escaped me
And I only counted ten.
Oh, Grandma won’t be happy,
She won’t be very pleased
I think there’s only 8 pearls now
Two flew when I just sneezed!
Inside a jar they could be safe,
So there I put the rest
I still had 8 and, don’t you know,
I think they were the best!
But then the jar with precious pearls
Opened when it tipped,
It rolled and rolled and turned about
Until those 8 pearls slipped.
There were no more inside the jar
No pearls that I could see
I don’t know where they rolled to.
Oh, where could those pearls be?
So I’m a little worried,
I might be in some trouble;
Do you think I can make more pearls
By blowing pearly bubbles?
©2016, Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved