Who Can Think of Spring?

I often think about the still-born spring, three years ago, when it seemed like nothing would ever grow again—not even in our woods. The woods were lost girl met lost girl, years and years ago. We decided that it was safest to believe in magic to find the way through. We lifted moss-colored words from the banks of our creek to line our path and tucked stories into trees. 

I wonder if the trees notice you are gone, when I go to pick up scraps of memories caught in the brambles by the creek. I wonder what the creek thinks when I try to weave those scraps into something recognizable, something that makes sense. Spring green should not be the color of grief, but even now, in the spaces where growth is undeniable, spring always arrives late for me. 

 

who can think of spring
while grieving the one flower
that will not grow back

Photo by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song choice: Gavi's Song by Lindsey Stirling

Liner notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writings Prompt, In Memoriam.

Love Letter to a Wildflower

beautiful things grow
in unexpected places.
you taught me that

there is no wall
no cement pavement
thick enough
to keep what is meant to grow
from unabashedly blooming.

at the end of every winter
i search through last year’s dead leaves
and the cracks of suburban civilization
until i find you again.

Photo by Lee 琴 on Unsplash

Song Choice: Wildflowers covered by The Wailin' Jennys

Line Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Grasses and Dandelions (Why Not Both?)

What if you asked why
all front lawns should be only green
at minimum? Questioned

why even the hint of shape
of dandelion leaves are unwelcome?

What if you let that dandelion bloom?
What if you didn’t pinch off its head
because you were embarrassed

by its brazen color
announcing itself as something other
than the green surrounding it,
right in front of the neighbors?


What if you stopped pretending
nature could be forced
to betray its own wild
and grow in only one over-particular way?


What if instead of ripping out

everything that didn't look 

like your neighbor's yard,

you let what wanted to grow
just grow?

Photo by Walter Sturn on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Complicated by Avril Levine

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United, Genuine Ink.

Just Remembered (50)

I’ve always looked forward
to the pink petalled canopy
that lines my street every birthday.

This year it’s hard not to feel
the ache in the break of the blooming,
marking the space left behind

by a marvelously messy cherry blossom tree.
I used to make wishes
under the shower of dancing petals.

Today, I make promises
to continue the dancing,

and hold back none of my blooming,

even knowing
that some spaces can never really be filled,
just remembered.

The view from one end of my street at this time of year.

It really looks perfect right around my birthday.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Your Landscape.

Hyacinths and Violets

Hyacinths and violets do their best
to remind me it’s springtime,
but I am still grieving
the loss of the sakura tree
and the way she inspired my blooming.

Picture of the stump left behind

from the sakura tree that used to grow near my house.

Song Choice: Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year by Sarah Vaughan

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, What's There. One of the things that attracted me to the townhome I now live in was the cherry blossom tree growing right on the edge of the neighbor's property. It was cut down last year after being ill for quite a long time. I expect it will feel weird on my birthday when I won't be able to have a bowl of tea under its shade. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Waiting for Crocus

If I stand here long enough
I might see a crocus bloom.
But I’d likely freeze to death

before that happened.
Only my bones left
when the snow has melted

to see the purple fingers
of newborn crocus
reaching for the sky.

My ribcage could be
a serviceable cathedral

for mousely vows
said under springtime moons
and earthworm princes
to find the objects of their quests.

I’m afraid I’m too selfish to share
this space my heart is used to
taking up with just any random
invertebrate or rodent.

So I’ll pull my hat down lower
to cover up the howling of the wind,

go inside where my tea waits for me,
and come back to this place
when the crocus is ready for me.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: The Waiting by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writings, Feast or Famine. 

Bare

People will always talk
about the pretty perfection
of falling leaves

but hush
when conversation turns
to branches stripped bare.

Photo by Shaojie on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United, October.

Mint

We are suited to each other,
I think.

She is patient
with my lack of experience,
not minding the absence of green
in my thumb.

Mint curls a tendril around me.
“I will teach you,” she says.
“All you want to know.”

For starters, she is independent.
Take her inside over the winter
and she will wither. It is no kindness
to keep her from the world she loves.

But that doesn’t mean
she’ll shun all attention.

Check in on her
on dry, hot days.
Mint loves to stay a little wet,
but not drown.

She makes a lovely companion
in the quiet of your back porch.
But mind that she’s in a place that suits you both.

Otherwise, she’ll run wild
over the rest of your garden
until all you can taste is her
on the heavy summer air.

There is something about mint
that plays well with my energy.
There is something familiar and dear
about her tingle.

There is something about mint that feels
like the sweetest magic I’d forgotten
or pushed away.

But mint holds no grudges.
So long as I respect her
she rewards me

with a bright, effusive flavor
that lingers in my mouth
or her distinctive scent
on my hand when I stroke her.

Photo by SIMON LEE on Unsplash

Song Choice: Treat Her Like A Lady by The Temptations

Liner Notes For This Groove: This poem was created for the prompt given by Poets and Storytellers United, Mining the Journals. I like to take notes on plants I try growing for various and sundry purposes. LOL, mint is the first plant I really tried to grow. It helps a lot that I enjoy a cup of mint tea blend in the evenings.

Embrace

I embrace decay,

trusting it to feed the seeds

too small for me to see now.

Photo by JXST PIX on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Ordinary World by Duran Duran

Liner Notes for This Groove: This senryu was created for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Micro-writings.

Sakura

What magic to be
included in the dancing
of a sakura,
from when it spun from its tree
to the moment it lay still.

Photo by Anders Jildén on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Mother Earth and Father Time from Charlotte's Web

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings prompt, Liminal Space.

Absence

A seed dropped by chance
inside a high-walled garden
became a tree
with impossibly deep roots
whose absence left a crater.

Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd

This poem was created for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Trees.

Unmistakable

It’s hard to believe
in the promise of springtime
while walking on the dried remains
of snow crushed grass, 
until
you see that first bit of green, 
thrusting forth an unmistakable digit
at the retreating frost.

Photo by iMattSmart on Unsplash

Song Choice: Feeling Good by Nina Simone

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created by for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Beautiful Words. I chose the word shitamoe , which means 'plants sprouting under last year’s dried grass or under the snow' as my inspiration. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Pavement

You see

the sharp delineation

of the narrow path

we are expected to take.

I see

the barrier

that crumbles

from the force of will

of a dandelion

demanding its place in the sun.

Photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash

Song Choice: Crumbling Down by John Mellencamp

This poem was created for the prompt given at Poetry and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings: Pavement.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

April 2020

On my birthday,

I will take my tea

under the branches

of a dying cherry tree.

It has its scars, like I do,

raw and still exposed.

Ants have worried their way into the crevasses

and I know those wounds will not close.

But I see the buds

of the promised pink

that swirls around me

at the end of every April,

even though many of the branches

will never bear a bloom again.

It is enough that some of its branches will still flower.

It is enough that I still take up my pen.

Close up of a cluster of cherry blossom buds
thinking about blooming. They're stubborn.

Song Choice: Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance (I couldn't resist using an AMV version with clips from My Hero Academia)

Liner Notes for This Groove: I pulled a double off today, utilizing both the prompt at Poet's and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #14 Let's Use Pathetic Fallacy, Shall We?) and Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads, Play it Again prompt, A L'Arora.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

The Apple

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,

except of course when it does.

And who’s to say what will happen

once it’s done falling.

Especially if it has a good view

of the valleys all around it

with hills just perfect for rolling in.

The Son of Man by René Magritte

Song Choice: How Far I'll Go From Moana

This poem was created for the Weekly Scribblings over at Poets and Storytellers United. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Black Hollyhock

I remember when I first saw her.

I composed the hymn in my heart right away.

I can’t remember the other things

on display at the museum that day.

I only had eyes for that large dark flower

taking up most of the space in the composition.

I don’t recall the exact words I wrote later

but it was my first prayer of praise

for a goddess who taught me

how very beautiful 

and worthy of admiration

darkness can be.

Liner Notes for This Groove: In high school we had a trip to the Met in NYC, which is where I first saw Black Hollyhock and Blue Larkspur by Georgia O'Keeffe. I bought a print and wrote my first 'for fun' (as opposed to 'for homework') poem when I got home. I remember that I wrote it in the form of a prayer (I think I was inspired St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun) and that I liked it well enough to submit to my high school's literary magazine. And they accepted it! I think it was the first time it crossed my mind that I might enjoy this writing business.

Song Choice: Who Says by Selena Gomez & The Scene

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Autumn's Breath: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 41

Autumn Breath
Jason Limberg
Used with Permission

Autumn’s breath should be crisper

than the first bite of an apple.

It should carry the musk

hidden in the heart of leaf piles.

It should whip past you

with the snap of a newly bared branch.

But when it is smothered too long

in a zombie summer’s dregs,

even the animals’ whispers will carry

across the sullen air.

This poem was created for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' Art Flash prompt. It is also linked to Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose.

Liner Notes for This Groove: I can remember being disappointed by freezing Halloweens in my youth - ones so cold that you had to wear a big jacket and no one could tell what you were dressed as. As much of a bummer as those were, I have to say that this recent one's unseasonable warmth bothered me more. I was able to run around in a short sleeve dress without needing a light sweater. I did however have a cup of tea with me as I was giving out the candy. As Thea Devine wrote, "Tea was the great leveler. It brought calm, quiet, contentment, warmth. And it was something to do." At least I could depend on my evening cuppa to be exactly what I expected.

Song Choice: Fall on Me by R.E.M.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

So Sweet, I Could Choke

It started with a scent. I was waking up from winter and had barely begun to bud, so I could only speak in creaks as the wind flowed around my branches. The smell was so heady, it threatened to put me back to sleep. But the buzzing of insects helped pull me from my torpor.

“Bees?” I croaked. “Am I late?” My buds tasted the cool air—no, this was the right time for bees though they never were this attentive so soon after the winter.

“Hush,” whispered a voice already flush with flowers and green. “No, you’re just fine. You can even sleep a little more. I’ll keep you warm.”

The wind blew again, but I was too tired to answer. My branches stirred slightly, and I could feel the weight of growth not my own. The scent flowed around me again, and I slept.

When I fully awoke, I ached to my sap. My promising buds had grown into spotted leaves, but they were strong enough to speak to a thriving patch of green on my biggest branch when the wind blew.

“What are you?”

“I’m part of you.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Of course I am. Can’t you feel it?” The branch tingled with the flow of energy through filaments binding the new green fast to me.

“You were only a bit of fluff, blown onto my branches last year.”

“And you were once an acorn. Things change.”

Autumn came. I held on to my leaves for as long as I could. I heard the creaky sigh from the new green as the last one fell. It had spread to all my branches by then.

“You are part of me,” it said before we both slept.

And in the spring when the wind moved through the leaves again, I spoke with a voice that was no longer my own.

Song Choice: Circles by Kira

Liner Notes for this Groove: I'm in NYC for a long weekend visiting a dear friend (and for BookCon!). I couldn't help but notice a hauntingly beautiful scent on the wind near one of the city's large parks. When I commented on how lovely it was, one of the NYC citizens informed that it came from a pretty parasite that's been taking over a lot of the local trees slowly, but steadily. They bloom early to get the lion's share of the bees' and other pollinators' attention and spread a lot like dandelion fluff. I was told that the parasite even changed the shape of the leaves of the host tree eventually. When I finish up with BookCon, I want to find out more about this smothering beauty, including its name. But I find an extra level of creepiness in not knowing.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

This short fiction piece is linked to Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads Art Flash and Poets United's Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero. 

Beauty Forgotten in Survival's Eyes by Eli Edward Evangelidis

A Drop of Jasmine

I only need a drop of jasmine to weave into the corkscrew vines of my garden. It is already dew-kissed knowing you will slip in just as night begins to lap up the sky as it explodes into stars.  

My tongue led along

constellations of freckles

reaches towards your bliss.

Song Choice: Love Reign O'er Me by The Who


This poem was created for the prompt given at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: Fireblossom Fridays Poetic Imagery. It is also linked to the Friday 55 at Verse Escape and Poets United Poetry Pantry #397.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Unashamed

Fate sometimes blows a seed into an inhospitable garden. The balance of sun and shade might be off, or it might be shunned as a weed in a carefully curated bed. But sympathetic eyes understand what it needs to thrive. Watch how stunted plants unashamedly flaunt their colors once they are shown some love.


Unfriendly soil chokes
leaves curious for their own
suppressed flowers. Hurt
flees at loving caresses
when blooms believe in their worth.

Song Choice:  Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae

This poem was inspired by the song/ video mentioned above and is linked to The Tuesday Platform at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and Poetry Pantry 394 at Poets United.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks