Skip to main content

Poetry Friday: Pond Snails

We are surrounded by snails. We see snails of all sizes on the paths after the rain.

Snails of different sizes and colors on concrete steps.


We see large land snails, brought to Switzerland by the Romans, who liked to eat them (they're protected by law now). This one's shell is about 2 inches in diameter, and his foot is about 3 inches long.

A white land snail with a white shell on a paved path

And we see snails in the pond on our daily walks. 

Rocks in a pond. There is a brown snail with green algae on it on one rock.

This poem is the result of my musings as I watched the pond snails like the one above.

Close up picture of stones in a pond with two snails on them. Poem: Silent snails moving slow cleaning algae as they go. Ever busy in the pond, cleaning stones and grassy fronds. But I can’t help but wonder as I watch them clean so well, who will clean the algae on the snail’s shell? © Elisabeth Norton, 2022, All rights reserved

Our host for Poetry Friday this week is Jan at Bookseed Studio. Mosey on over to find lots of wonderful poetry to linger over this week. Thank you Jan for hosting us!

Next week the round up party is here! The post will go live and ready for posting links at midnight UTC+1 time. I can't wait to see what poetic goodies you'll bring to the party!


Labels:

Comments

  1. Dave RollerJuly 9, 2022 at 3:27 PM

    I really liked your poem. It was simple yet elegant like nature often is. You sound excited about hosting. My family will be volunteering at a camp for a month. I am in the middle of traveling there now and don’t know what my schedule or my access tomwifinwill be. So it’s quite possible I’ll be reading your poetry Friday in a month when I get back. Otherwise I’m going to try to contribute something if Incan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marilyn GarciaJuly 9, 2022 at 4:29 PM

    What a lovely poem! It could be about snails or it could be about all those creatures and people who quietly go about doing the necessary work. Really nice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carol VarsalonaJuly 10, 2022 at 2:41 PM

    I really like the fading into the poem photo. Your poem is delightful and the ending adds a bit of humor. See you next week when you host. PS: Would you like to add your image poem to my Poetryliscious Poetry padlet for a gallery opening? https://padlet.com/cvarsalona/q1uymnafyupx3w8c Let me know.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ElisabethJuly 12, 2022 at 1:45 PM

      Hi Carol - thank you for your comments! I'd love to be part of the Poetrylicious padlet ... just let me know what I need to do! - Elisabeth

      Delete
  4. Linda MitchellJuly 11, 2022 at 2:54 AM

    I do love a poem with rhyme that works and this one does. Beautiful photos too!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michelle KoganJuly 11, 2022 at 6:38 AM

    Love your snails poem Elisabeth, how cool that you have so many snails around! I think they are interesting to draw too, though a long time ago I found out I am very allergic to snails so I have to look at them from a distance… Looking forward to your post next week, thanks!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments! Comment moderation is active. Your comments will be posted after they have been reviewed. Thank you for your patience!

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Friday: Welcome to the Party!

There is so much happening in our world right now, it can be hard to take it all in. In these times, more than ever, I am grateful for poetry.  Sometimes I write it.  Sometimes I have no words of my own, so I read and reflect on the poetic words of others.  Either way, poetry helps me process my thoughts and feelings about the world and my experiences in it. My poetic offering today is a poem I wrote earlier this spring, on a rare day when my husband had to go to the office for an in-person meeting and I took our usual lunchtime walk alone.  I am a creature of habit, but on that day I challenged myself to break routine and change direction, and this poem was the result. Today I go against the grain, turn left  Instead of right, Let the path take me away from home Instead of towards it. Today I go against the grain, go up the slope I usually walk down. Climbing uses different muscles Than descent. Today I go with the grain, walk downstream Instead of up, Walk with the flow, Instead of a
23 comments
Read more

Poetry Friday: Story Cubes Poems "Plot Problems"

 Welcome to Poetry Friday! Our host this week is Mary Lee. She's shared a wonderful poem of her own, one by Sandra Cisneros, a video and more in her post. You can find all that poetic goodness and links to the other participating poets over here on her blog. My Story Cubes poetry prompt this week had me a little stumped at first. In addition to trying to write fast, I'm also challenging myself to keep the order of the dice in my poem. So if the cauldron comes first, I'm trying to make it first thing I mention. Either I like multi-dimensional chess, or I like making things challenging for myself. Or maybe both! Here are this week's prompts: And here is my poem. Plot Problems First I drew a cauldron Bubbling full of poisoned brew. Then I drew a hungry hero Now I don’t know what to do. hmmm . . . .  I know how to fix this! Draw one big foot, then two. Run fast, my big foot hero! Go find some barbecue. © 2025, Elisabeth Norton, all rights reserved What about you? Have you
19 comments
Read more

Poetry Friday: Neurodiversity Poems

In our family, we do a lot of thinking about thinking, because we are all neurodiverse (autism and ADHD). We're often engaged in discussions about how our neurodiversity influences the way we experience the world. From how we socialize to how we organize ourselves to complete tasks, our neurodiversity is a factor in everything we do and every experience we have. This week I decided to try to use poetry to express the experience of having ADHD. Although ADHD, like autism, can be characterized by the ability to hyperfocus on a topic or task for an extended period of time, the characteristic that is most commonly associated with ADHD is difficulty in sustaining attention .  In my attempt to express this latter aspect of the ADHD experience I ended up with two poems, both of which use the same metaphor. One is an almost-haiku (haiku-esque?) that's missing a syllable on the middle line, one is free verse. I'd love to know if you have a preference - let me know in the comments!
25 comments
Read more