Poetry Friday - Smiles in Various Ways

             Kat Apel at her blog hosts us today. Thanks, Kat for the somewhat good news of the fires receiving a bit of rain. Hoping that Queensland receives some soon, too. Kat also shares a fun poem with her own picture of a couple of possums and a different look at school because it's time in her part of the world for everyone to start the new school year--happy and exciting times ahead!

Starting in November, I've been reading a poem a day from Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks.  I love Kooser's poetry, his style, the way he writes about life, his metaphors, his "seemingly" easy way of talking to us readers. Kooser wrote these poems as he was recovering from surgery for cancer in 1998. He sent them on postcards to his friend Jim Harrison. I cannot remember how I learned about this particular book, perhaps someone shared it, perhaps in browsing at my local Indie? But I've loved it and it makes me look harder when I go out walking, too. Here is a taste of Kooser's words:

         from Rainy and cold:     "The sky hangs thin and wet on its clothesline"
       from Clear and at the freezing point, about his old willow: "sweeping the rusty roof of        
                                                            the barn/with the pale blue lacework of her shadow."
        from Gusty and forty at dawn: "Sunlight like honey this morning."

                                                                                                                                                                          There is a small lake in a park near me, where I walk often. It's elevated enough that I have a great view of the mountains while walking by the lake. I could see even more if I could fly! 
           If I would send poems on a postcard, here is one I would send.

With a Mountain View and Water Birds, too

I look, I listen, I watch them land--
splash, bump, glide.
They ignore me because
they own the sky, the water,
and the land.
It's cold today but remain they do.
The squawking and talking
makes me lonesome,
wishing I might glide along
to listen to the gossip, gleaning
some warmth from the sun.
             Linda Baie ©

              As I wrote in my recent Poetry Friday post, postcards give smiles, thus here are two more smiles I've received.  Thank you, Kay McGriff and Robert Ertman for these special words and images to send me happily into the new year.

from Robert, who tells me this photo was taken at the 

Washington DC Botanical Gardens:

Winterberry--

among fifty shades of brown

from Kay McGriff

stacks of books, rivers
of words beckon adventure
through the new year