Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly
Pine boughs
mittened, each finger cuddled
in quilted fleece.
© 2018 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
This morning we awoke to a winter wonderland!
The Capture Your 365 prompt today was “Prompt Free.” How convenient– a perfect invite to capture the snow on a crystalline morning.
I have returned to an old habit—following the Capture Your 365 daily photo prompt challenge (#CY365), and pairing the photos with a few lines. I’m finding it’s really quite doable if I keep up with it.
So, without ado, here are some of this week’s captures:
Last Saturday’s prompt was WITH WORDS. Here is the photo and poem I cobbled together from the week’s words in my 2018 Word-A-Day calendar.
(Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
On New Year’s Day the BENTHOS froze
under our polar bared toes.
Our Christmas treats we now CONTEMN
against our hopes of getting slim
(though with bold APPETANCE they still beckon
our calories we’ve resolved to reckon).
PROCRUSTEAN as resolutions are
without them we won’t go as far
their value is at least HEURISTIC
and though our methods are simplistic
to fight holiday excess PIACULAR
our hopes still burn for the spectacular.
Sunday, January 7th the prompt was WHITE.
We met our newest grand-dog on Sunday. His name is Henry.
Henry (Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
Tuxedo Henry—
natty polka-dotted socks
fashion forward tail
Monday, January 8th’s prompt was SPLOTCHES (OF WHITE). This photo doesn’t really answer the prompt, but it had to be taken. (The next three photos are of my grandchildren.)
(Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
Little Santa girl
delivers the best gift—
herself
On Tuesday, the prompt was ODD ONE OUT.
Two moments made my photo day, and inspired a tiny poem:
(Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
(Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
Caught
in the act
of play
On Wednesday the word was MINIMAL.
Hooded Merganser (Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
Study in white, black,
brown, with amber eye
Hooded Merganser
And finally yesterday, Thursday, the challenge was to photograph EXQUISITE. Oh boy… it was a very unexquisite day here but I did escape the dull and dreary indoors for an even more dull, dreary, and damp out. And I found something exquisite!
Nandina also known as “Heavenly Bamboo” (Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly)
Leaves of flame, embers
of berry warm this soggy
January day
(I just had a great suggestion from Joy in the comments below about making the verse above more comfortable in its skin…. changing it to a rhyming couplet or a quatrain. I’m opting for the quatrain. Thanks, Joy!)
Here’s version 2:
Leaves of flame
embers of berry
warm this soggy
January
(All poems above © 2018 by Violet Nesdoly – All rights reserved)
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This post is linked to Poetry Friday. Our hostess today is Jan, who directs the poetry traffic at the Book Seed Studio (what a fabulous name for a blog!). Thanks Jan!
My summer poem project has given me a lot of joy… and it’s far from over. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m working on Summer Shorts, a project that combines my love of photography with my desire for poetry to be part of everyday life. Summer Shorts is writing a short poem a day, every day of summer (June 21 to September 21) based on the photo I take from the Capture Your 365 photo challenge.
I actually don’t write every day, but do take a photo every day. On days when I have extra time, I catch up, though often I find these poems practically write themselves during my walk, as words and lines come to me. I always carry a notebook, so I perch myself on a railing or park bench and capture those flighty thoughts mid-walk. Because I’ve promised myself these poems will be short, it’s not intimidating. Who can’t write 3 to 6 lines a day?
Most of the photo challenges are different each day. But a few keep recurring every month. One such is “Where I Stand.” Here’s my “Where I Stand” photo and poem for July 21st. (It happens to be the longest poem in the collection so far… a few over my required 6 lines.)
#CY365 photo for July 21, 2017 – “Where I Stand” (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)
pat a dog,
photo the fog
pick a bloom,
pixel a room
chat with a friend
ponder the bend
follow my nose
to smell a rose
stop for a hare
hopping who knows where
admire the herd
find the lyric bird
be lured to tarry
and munch on a berry
my motto for a summer walk:
“Always be prepared to stop!”
© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by our very talented troubadour Donna at Mainely Write.
I begin lots of things. It’s the continuations that I’m concerned about! Three new beginnings that have become a part of my daily life are captured in the photo and poem below:
Laptop tucked away
housework keeps till tomorrow.
Now is time to pray
to process joy and sorrow
line-captured while music plays
© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
My three new 2017 beginnings:
1. Bible Art Journaling
Earlier this spring I discovered Bible art journaling. You could say it was love at first sight.
Doodling, drawing, and lettering in my special journaling Bible has become part of my routine. Several times a week, in the evening when the jobs of the day have been put to bed, I get out my Bible, pens, and supplies, tune in to one of my Spotify play lists (favourites are Audrey Assad , Fernando Ortega, and Andrew Peterson) and meditate / create.
They say that when you work in an area of strength, the activity energizes you. That’s what I find happens when I do this. The day’s fatigue falls away and I am often still going at 10:30 – 11:00—pretty good for someone who wakes up without an alarm just after 5:00 a.m. (though I do often take a daytime nap).
Here’s the project I was working on in the photo (prompted by a Rebekah R. Jones Bible Art Challenge video).
2. Taking a photo a day
My camera has been my walking companion since I got my first digital in 2006. Earlier this year I found a website (Capture Your 365 – #CY365) that provides a daily photo prompt. I’ve been snapping photos challenged by those prompts since mid-May. The photo above was prompted by the July 3rd challenge: “A Favorite Time of Day.”
3. Summer Shorts poems
On the first day of summer this year I met with a local poet friend. Among other things, we discussed summer poem-writing. I told her about American Sentences, and she decided to embark on writing “Summer Sentences.” Her decision encouraged me to work on a summer poem project that seemed like it would fit into my life—writing short poems prompted by the daily photos I take. I call my project “Summer Shorts” and the tanka above is one of those.
There you have it—three activities that I’ve not only begun but continued, and that have added much spiritual richness to my 2017!
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This post is linked to Spiritual Journey (first) Thursday, hosted today by Julieanne Harmatz at her blog To Read, To Write, To Be.
“May the magpie of happiness return to roost in our trees” – Chinese saying
Pica pica please don’t fly away
Our smoggy air is not a Four Pest ploy.
For health, good fortune, wedded bliss please stay.
We need your dapper black and white for joy.
So you are thief, rogue, louder than a jay
deceptive, sneaky, flashy, brash and coy.
Bold happy bird don’t disappear in grey.
Without you I won’t be a lucky boy!
© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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Prompt – Inspiration
This is another poem inspired by one of the photos in the Shadows and Silhouettes collection from the Boston Globe. This poem was in response to photo is #24
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This April I’m celebrating National Poetry Month by posting some not-as-yet published poems from my files, along with what inspired them. If the prompt inspires you to write a poem of your own, you’re welcome to share it in comments. Just one more day and we’re done with posting this collection. It’s gone by quickly. Thanks for dropping by!
Photo by Sam Taylor Wood (via The Picture)
Frozen in
precarious leap
balanced on
chair-leg tilt—
push that chair! Engineer a
Photoshop escape.
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Yesterday’s prompt at Poetic Asides was an ekphrastic poem, based on a photo. We were given four photo choices on the site, or invited to use our own.
The shadorma, above, is based on one of the suggested photos.
Calendar is now available as a FREE ebook! Click on image for details.
Violet Nesdoly / poems 