Spring...I need you!

Day 4 of the Poetry Challenge.

Today is very rainy and blah out...I really want it to feel like spring...NOW!
Anyways, today I want to share with you a great Longfellow poem (fitting for today) as well as the one I wrote today.


The Rainy Day

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Interesting fact: in the Longfellow house in Portland Maine (he wrote a lot of poems there) there is a room called 'the rainy day' room and it is my favorite because it is supposedly where he wrote this poem...pretty cool, you should visit it if you are ever nearby.


Here is my poem of the day:

The Butterfly

The butterfly,
quivering gently on
my palm,
is so like a leaf
that quakes at the
slightest bit of breeze.
Its copper colors enclosed
in black, black lines,
thick and even
as if a steady hand
had drawn them
with a charcoal pencil.
The simple dark eyes
seem to hold a thousand answers
in them;
Live simply,
they seem to say,
rejoice in the sweet things,
and tread with light feet.
It is as if the wisest guru
has come down from
his mountain...
transformed himself
into the butterfly
that now sits on my hand,
unfurling its proboscis,
testing its wings,
readying itself for flight.
And don’t be afraid
to use your wings,
the eyes seem to say
as it flashes the copper
colors and lifts off.       
                                          
~Maya

Poetry Challenge: Day 3

Hello! I have a poem for you today, but first I want to talk to you a little about my day: I went skiing (thanks to this new snow) to demonstrate Nordic ski technique for this video my 4-H club is making. Then I went to town to work on my ukulele that I am making with my friend and her dad (!!!!!!!). It's so amazing!! I will be sure to post about a MILLION pictures of it when I am done.
And then I came home and wrote this poem, just for you:

White Walls

Spots of color mark their place
like dog-eared pages,
where our colored pencils touched
the white walls.
Out of boredom
or reason to fill the time
we took to the them,
marking up the pure white with
colorful blemishes.

Whimsical images
flung about the room,
splashing color on the white,
tiny bits of memory contained  
in a single scribble of blue
or green,
or pink,
where our thoughts were once
delayed, if only for a moment’s time.

~Maya

National Poetry Month!

Hello all!  I would like to announce the beginning of National Poetry Month and I have decided to do another month-long challenge in honor of this momentous event!

I will be writing a poem every day for the month of April, as well as sharing with you some of my all-time favorite poems along the way!
I would also like to post the website for this amazing reference, Poets.org.  It has all kinds of info on NPM as well as thousands and thousands of poems and bios on poets!


~Maya

Happy Spring! and all the rest...

Well, first of all, Happy spring! It is snowing where I am so it doesn't really feel spring-like now...but anyhow, I really want to let y'all know about this contest I just entered on Instructables!
It's a contest to submit photos of a project that you have made and I submitted some photos of these shoes that I drew on. But I can't really explain it with words so here is the link!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Funky-Feathered-Keds/

You can vote for the contest winner too! (hint, hint XD )

Oh, and have you heard of Regina Spektor? Right now I am so in love with her music!

~Maya

Day 28

We had an icy rain last night and when I walked out to take care of the animals I ran back inside to get the camera because the trees were covered in a layer of ice!

They sparkled in the morning sunlight...

Sooo...this is the last day of my photography challenge but I promise that I will have more challenges because I had a really good time finding beauty in this not-so-bleak month!! If people are reading this blog, I would like to hear your feedback on what I should do next! :)

~Maya

Day 27

Another fire picture! I was stoking the fire and noticed that the flames were really vibrant so I grabbed the camera and took this...

A toasty warm fire is always a good thing :D

~Maya

Day 26

I was at a ski race last week in Gray and snapped this shot of a row skis stuck in the snow. My dad was looking through the pictures on the camera and when he came to this one he said: 'Now that's a beautiful picture!' so I decided to post it. The sky was looking really beautiful that day too but I wasn't able to capture it with the camera...

~Maya

Day 25

I admit, I did set this photo up a bit. Toulouse was sitting on the kitchen bench and I thought he looked a lot like the Toulouse Lautrec poster 'Le Chat Noir' (which is how our cat got his name!) so I had my brother hold up this orange raincoat behind him and I took the shot. ;)

meow! he is sooo handsome :)

~Maya

Day 24

A hemlock covered in newly fallen snow...so pretty!

~Maya

Day 23

We had this huge snowstorm last week that produced a foot of snow! I went out to take care of the chickens and Zenry came out to greet me! 

You can see the snow falling thickly in the background...

~Maya