They Could Be Canaries

Photo by Katy Brown

YELLOW TULIP TREE
—Katy Brown, Davis

The
bare tree
hung with — what?
— yellow post-its
from Spring announcing
I’ve been detained this year.

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YELLOW TULIP TREE 2
—Katy Brown

They could be yellow ribbons
or post-it notes —
these tags among the limbs.

They could be canaries
or yellow budgies
— everyone knows a flowering tree

is white or pink or magenta
— never yellow — never yellow tulips:
but there it is

like a blue rose or purple daffodil —
a little yellow tulip tree
on an unremarkable street in River Park.

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YELLOW TULIP TREE 3
—Katy Brown

While all around the other trees
shed white and pale pink petals
like snow or parade confetti

the little yellow tulip tree
casts slips of gold across the lawn
turning River Park into El Dorado.

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Thanks, Katy Brown, for the pic and the riff on the wee yellow tulip tree! Retirement seems to suit you! Actually, I recommend it for everyone...

And thanks to today's other contributors, including Pat Hickerson and Michelle Kunert for continuing to celebrate spring, and to Mike Cluff for a "found" poem (see Seed of the Week). Also our thanks to Chris Piper for our very first Charlie Sheen poem; Chris, fearing for his reputation, seems to think his poem doesn't rate a real Medusa posting—maybe in the "Ticklers", he says. So we've set up a whole section of Ticklers (see the VERY BOTTOM floor of the Kitchen) for an on-going section of Charlie Sheen poems—and feel free to contribute! What better way to pay tribute to a bad boy in the throes of making an ass of himself? We'll leave 'em up 'til he comes to his senses...

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FOUND POEM: Bargain Books, March 11, 2011 Catalog Pages 36-7
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

The idea that most of medicine is based on sound
secrets of creating realistic-looking portraits of your favorite
                                                                      people
The Upper Mississippi River Valley swamps
hard work, strong values and a genuine care for both employees
to establish the truth of what happened
standards ensure instant success:
a deceased president and 140 of the most
carpeted Oregon's high plains with hundreds of dead sheep.

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SPRING…FINALLY
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

rainy March morning
ripens for the birth of April
poppies and mustard will crest the fields
she and her dog Lily bound along the road
dew-speckled, mud-spat
running to meet the new dawn
a robin twits past them, chirps
Lily stops—
digs in to sniff the tender air

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EVERY TREE IS A “POET TREE”
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Not just Shel Silverstein can tell you so—
about how trees can give and inspire,
trees being earth's greatest creations,
cycling photosynthesis for air to breathe.

Trees throughout cultures symbolize life
retold in the leaves of pages trees make,
such as the legend of the first people
eating the fruit of a "tree of knowledge".
Their choice awakened them to new reality,
creating a fall from their dreamish existence
(for a whole different beginning).

Other things trees are about
include love, wisdom,
rebirth, strength, redemption,
friendship, bounty and encouragement,
branching out for the heavens of "Father Sky",
their roots linking into "Mother Earth"
and connecting as if all are one.

If trees could talk
each would have its own story
in songs with poetry.

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Today's LittleNip:

OUT OF TOUCH

Born in a glass room

Pampered

Sheltered and groomed

—Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

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—Medusa