Poem Inspired by Nature’s Morning Glory

Image by Angelrays via Flickr

Today we have a lovely nature folding mirror poem by Jean Knill, who has her own blog and also blogs at Writelink.  The poem is very apt after a sunny early  spring morning.  Here’s Jean’s account of how the poem came to life:

My inspiration for this poem started when I opened the curtains on the French window and sat down at the table next to it to have breakfast.  It was just getting light.  The trees in next door’s garden were dark against the sky, and we could make out some little birds on the high branches.  Later, sitting on top of a double decker bus driving through the Dorset countryside, I marvelled at the colours of the trees and other vegetation we were passing when the sun came out from behind the clouds. 

I wanted to write a folding mirror poem, but some of the words that came to mind were quite lengthy and I couldn’t mirror them in the right place in the other half of the verse.  They were going to make the poem seem lopsided.  So I decided to count syllables instead, as I do when I write haiku.  This poem was the result.

The syllable count is: 5-9-7-5-9-7 (4) 7-9-5-7-9-5

Thanks for explaining the poem Jean, and also for creating and sharing it…and the syllables lesson too.

 Nature’s Kaleidoscope

 In early morning
leafless black branches are silhouettes
against the lightening sky.
Small winged acrobats
swing among the flimsy topmost stems
before  flying off en masse.

 Here comes the sun,

 flames the sky with orange streaks,
climbing higher, turning trees into
a kaleidoscope.
Gold, copper and lime emerge
from dull grey bark until a cloud shroud
melts them off again.