Unexpected Intersections

 How can it be the end of January already? Yet here we are, on another Poetry Friday, with February standing the wings, waiting to claim center stage. In the midst of busy home and work schedules, I'm always grateful for our lunchtime walks that pull me away from the keyboard, and out into nature. For the last year or so, we've been delighted by the periodic visits of an egret at the stream in the park. I love watching his slow, deliberate movements and the graceful glide of his flight. His patience and unhurried movements are a welcome reminder to me to slow down, and not let the busyness of life dictate the speed at which I move through my days. So I'm pausing in this busy day to post a haiku, inspired by this beautiful bird. Elegant egret, Striding slowly in the stream Fishing, disturbs ducks.     © Elisabeth Norton, 2022, All rights reserved Our host today is Irene Latham over at Live Your Poem . Glide on over to check out all the poetic goodness that is waiting for...

I hope everyone has had, as we say here, a good "slide" into the new year!  I have so many thoughts at the beginning of this new year, the beginning of the third pandemic year that has so altered our lives: reflections about where I and my friends and loved ones are at in our lives personally as we start the year, and a patient curiosity to see what this next segment of time that we humans have arbitrarily defined will bring to all of us. Last week I read Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook. In her chapter on "Imitation," she talks about how other artistic disciplines imitate past works as part of their education. How often have we seen artists sitting in front of a painting at a museum, sketching or painting, in an effort to learn through imitation how the artist created their masterwork? Mary Oliver says: Before we can be poets, we must practice; imitation is a very good way of investigating the real thing. She goes on to say:  It demands finally, a thrust of our ...