42 Comments
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Linda Olson's avatar

I need to be in the greenery! I live in the desert and it is hot. Our greens are struggling.

Petrina's avatar

Catching up from a week ago, but clearly Kitchen was written months ago when there was indeed sunshine in our kitchens, unlike this month! Brought some sunshine into my morning, thank you! I recently found a poem I’d sketched during a long ago Bishop Ranch session with you, describing the scene in great detail, and was amazed how years later it could put me right back in that moment. I enjoyed that same feel in Kitchen, slowing down to really notice what’s around you. As for colors, the color of the couch where I do my morning time was called “Baltic Blue.” It’s a beautiful deep turquoise and I loved the name because my dad escaped to safety in WWII across the Baltic Sea. I’d like to write a Baltic Blue poem.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Just found this note, Petrina! I would love to read the Baltic Blue poem when you write it. 💙

poem and cat's avatar

Such lovely reads --- I really love Kitchen, I keep reading it over because I love how much it sounds. The sort of poem that will stick in my head!

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Wonderful to know! Thanks so much for reading, p&c.

Pamela Leavey's avatar

Love both of these Elizabeth, especially Green!

Writer Pilgrim by So Elite's avatar

Green stuck with me too! Love them both, but with Green I experienced the colours through your words and imagery.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks so much, Pamela. So many of your photographs celebrate the greenness of this world; I'm glad the poem speaks to you as well

Pamela Leavey's avatar

Green is one of my favorite colors!

David Donoghue's avatar

The refrain in Green is brilliant. I really like that poem in oarticular!

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks, David - glad you enjoyed it. 🌿

LeeAnn Pickrell's avatar

… a wind-up clock

ticking seconds like blue paint drops

onto the linoleum, into the cream-

and-golden morning air.

Time steals, and gives, and steals again.

I love this! I slowed down to read it several times this morning as I sit in bed drinking coffee with a gray cat napping on the foot of the bed, the green Japanese maple outside the window, the gray fog still blanketing the hills.

And the Green poem. I’m always amazed in spring at how many shades of green there are.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

From my familiar kitchen to your familiar bedroom ... ! So glad to have you for a reader, LeeAnn. (Respectful slow-blinks to the gray cat.)

LeeAnn Pickrell's avatar

I too really value our connection.

Kim Hardy's avatar

My favorite color is green 💚

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

It's a wonderful color to celebrate! 💚

Patris's avatar

Such straightforward simple words that create both space and color so vividly. I know that kitchen now, I can see the shades and subtleties nature can shock and transfix us within a leaf.

Ethan Heusser's avatar

This is great!! Your 3rd stanza in "Green" is very special to me and I will learn from it. Thanks for posting!

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks so much for reading, Ethan. The woman who told that story was special to so many people; she'd love to know that her experience meant something to you.

Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

So lovely and so different from each other. I really enjoy the structure of the first poem (that was one of my favorite NaPoWriMo assignments), and how it leads in a trail of blending colors to the end. The repetition of "not the same, and the same" is great.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thanks so much, Margaret Ann! Those April writing-days are still with me, in all the best ways....!

Rose Scarff's avatar

These poems fit right in with my re-reading of Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac." He notices everything on his farm and writes very poetic prose about it. Thanks!

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

So glad the poems are timely, Rose! Thank you for reading.

Elizabeth Grace Martinez's avatar

counting the colors leading to believing in God, this tracks.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Especially the color green, because Who could have imagined so many living shades of it? 💚🌿

Thanks so much for reading, fellow-Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Beggins's avatar

Beautifully crafted, Elizabeth. I have a similar relationship with my kitchen and my daily brewed tea. Love how you see your world.

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

There's a lot of beauty and peace in the "daily sames," isn't there? Thank you for being here, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Beggins's avatar

My pleasure!

Aaron Waddell's avatar

Fantastic!!!

Nancy Wright's avatar

colors...mmmm....there are moments I treasure, seeing a color so lovely it stole my breath away. The sky just after sunset, the deep aquamarine blue below the dark night blue; the light glinting off a buttercup; the flash of yellow of daffodils and forsythia after a long gary winter; the warm sunny yellow of a parishioner's room as we share a Zoom call for morning prayer service.....thanks so much for reminding me of the magic of color, revealed by light,

26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Thank you for these deep blues and joyful yellows, Nancy! 💛🌿🌼

Kim Nelson's avatar

"Kitchen" makes me happy!