Poetry Friday Birth Day Roundup is Here!

Western Pond Turtles, © 2018 Michelle Kogan, Pen & Ink & Watercolor. Available in my Etsy Shop as a bookmark.

Happy Poetry Friday!

Welcome! I’m Hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup and decided to Celebrate Birthdays and Birth Days, as my Birthday is coming up this weekend.

Also make sure to checkout the Poetry Sisters Ekphrastic poems for their May poem prompt, they are tagged #poetrypals.

Please leave your link below.

BIRTH DAY
by Ruth Whitman

Tenant of the terrapin,
will you go your way, I mine?

If I do a lumbering waltz,
and bank you like an airplane—

if the sides of your tank 
tip and bank,

hang on. Don’t complain.
If I wake before you do,

Read the rest of her poem here.

I was very taken with Ruth Whitman’s Poem BIRTH DAY, and used her poem as a mentor poem for mine, BIRTH PLANT.

Monarchs on Milkweed, © Michelle Kogan, Watercolor. Available in my Etsy Shop as an Archival Print.

BIRTH PLANT

Milkweed home to Monarch
does your path call you, my path me?

Perhaps I’ll swoon and sway before you
and carry you in fondest thought

perhaps your flowerets overflow
with nectar

be patient. Forgive me
perhaps I left in haste

and didn’t tie you up properly
perhaps my care continues while you rest,

your Monarch’s might distract me
though my heart adores your perseverance

your serendipitous appearance
on any midwestern morn

lift your roots and soar like rocket,
enable Monarch’s magical flight,

you conservation queen.  

© 2021 Michelle Kogan

Here’s another Birthday poem reflecting momentarily on getting older… I particularly like what the Japanese do for Birthdays when one reaches 60.

Cupcake Princess, © 2012, Michelle Kogan, pen and ink and photoshop.

COUNTING BACKWARDS
by Linda Pastan

How did I get so old,
I wonder,
contemplating
my 67th birthday.
Dyslexia smiles:
I’m 76 in fact.

There are places
where at 60 they start
counting backwards;
in Japan
they start again
from one.

Read the rest of her poem here.

Some music…

And some cake…

Not yet in my Etsy Shop but let me know and I’ll work on that…

Available in my Etsy Shop as a Birthday Card.

Also not yet in my Etsy Shop but I can change that…

And a quick ekphrastic haiku…

poppiness explodes
all kinds of spring weather
and allures senses

© 2021 Michelle Kogan

Poppiness of May, WIP, © 2021 Michelle Kogan, watercolor.

Leave your link with Mister Linky here:

Wishing all end of May and beginning of June Geminis
Many Happy Birthday Wishes!

Leaving with some special thoughts
for the passing of the wonderful,
and creative Eric Carle.