Liz and Dana at Poetry Thursday came up with a difficult exercise for this week’s project. Basically, you had to find a random, unknown word in the dictionary, without so much as even peeking at the definition (which was quite a challenge, in and of itself, because I am just too darned curious!) Then, without a clue of what the word means, you were supposed to write a poem to define it. I’m willing to try anything once, so came up with this:

Zoysia

Z-words are sung
and tickle the tongue.
Followed by “OY”,
they can only mean joy
or maybe boistrous or noise
made by rowdy boys.
In the middle, the “s” does
repeat the “z”’s buzz:
a silent smile to a laugh,
reversing its other half.
“ia” is like “mia”,
meaning “mine” in Italia.

Zoysia–my state of gentle joy!

.

Just for the record, I generally dislike writing rhymed and metered poetry, as it feels way too contrived (and explains why I do it so badly!), but like I said, I’ll try anything once. (Luckily you can’t see me on my blog because I am still cringing!)

Having finished the poem, at this point, you are allowed to look up the definition of the word to see what it really means (and verify that you are totally off the mark). In fact, I’m not even going to tell you what it means here because I was so disappointed. I had built up such high expectations for my word that the true definition would never be satisfying enough.

Since the word is, in fact, something you can find in a garden, I tried working around a vegetation theme through a different approach: writing the word vertically, giving rise to this poem.

.
Zucchini blossoms hover
Over tangled vines in
Your parched back yard.
Safran petals will soon
Implode, giving way to
A fleshy green cylinder.

While I like this better, it still has nothing to do with the actual definition of the word. Oh well. Can’t say I didn’t try.

On a somewhat related subject, I highly recommend this English Word of the Day site as a fun way to enrich your vocabulary.

“En fait d’amour, vois-tu, trop n’est pas même assez.” -Beaudelaire

As a child living in Maine, I learned to live with bitter winters. Some say it forges character; I tend to think it is the reason I escaped to a warmer climate as soon as I possibly could.

One breath-freezing afternoon in early winter, however, I recall strolling courageously across an iced-over pond near my house, which was a breeding ground for squadrons of mosquitos in warmer weather. The stretches of frosty gray ice were outlined by a fringe of evergreens where land stood. Everything had closed up for winter, and the frozen pond, in its barreness, creaked under my weight, as if warning me not to tread upon it. The smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, and the North Wind whistled across the frozen pond, stinging my ears until they were numb. Even though I was bundled up well, I could feel the biting chill through my winter garb.

Seeing myself as Dorothy Hamill, I attempted a few pirouettes on the soles of my boots, ecstatic to be literally walking on water. Clearing off the wind-blown snow with my mitten, I tried to peer through the ice and the air bubbles dancing just under the surface, into the inky blackness, wondering how anything could survive in the depths below. Yet, my fisherman neighbor regularly pulled out his wriggling catch through the hole he bored in the ice. This gave me hope. It proved that life could persist in the most inhospitible of environments, provided you stay away from the hooks.

Traipsing back to my house, I watched the charcoal smoke from the chimney soar upward and then, mesh with the cold greyness of the sky. I rushed home to be on the other side of that chimney, keeping warm while waiting for the day I could escape.

“I confess that I have no philosophy, nor piety, nor patience, no art of reflection, no theory of compensation to meet things so hideous, so cruel, and so mad, they are just unspeakably horrible and irremediable to me and I stare at them with angry and almost blighted eyes.”

-Henry James on war

Warmed by morning rays,
coerced by a gentle breeze,
dew drips from branches.

*****

mist-clung and silver,
the lake’s mirrored surface etched
by a landing loon

*****

A hurricane of
children subsides, leaving me
alone with my thoughts.

Red
capes
enrage
charging bulls,
forced to succumb, pierced,
in the crimson of their spilt blood.

lady in red
married woman
forbidden fruit
object of desire, but out of reach
nothing more than fantasy
a pleasant distraction
to be admired and longed for from afar
a distant, beautiful thing unspoilt

Like with poisonous berries in nature,
red is a warning: “Don’t touch.”

“La médiocrité de notre univers ne dépend-elle pas essentiellement de notre pouvoir d’énonciation?”

- Breton, Introduction au discours sur le peu de réalité

Spinning ball of clay
fashioned patiently into
an earthen vessel.

*****

After seven years
underground, he shouts his joy:
singing cicada.

*****

For another insect haiku and photo, click here.

Sunshine transforms his
sticky trap to spun silver:
spider alchemist.