Overture:
Take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. The baton is poised in the air. The orchestra waits for the signal to begin. Listen to the symphony of sounds. You are about to feel the power of poetry seep into your soul. I believe in the magic of words.
Thank you to all the inspired wordsmiths before me. It has been a joy watching this Garden of Reading grow.
Your collective images led to my last line in this progressive poem below.
Light the candles. Let our words take flight.
-Pamela Ross
Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair
Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum
Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilac and phlox
commune without constraints
Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs
rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs
Bask in a royal spring meadow
romp like a golden-doodle pup!
startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub…
Drinking in orange-blossom twilight
relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky
as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs
We follow a moonlit path that calls us
Grab your dripping brushes!
Our celestial canvas awaits
There we swirl, red, white, and blue
Behold what magic our montage creates!
The Progressive Poem was begun by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem and is now organized by Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche. It is a collaborative poem with one new line written each day, with a different author adding each new line. At the end of April, we’ll have a completed poem. No one knows what path it will take!
Poet Linda Baie gave us concrete words of “red, white, and blue” to breathe life into the canopy of art we have painted. And like a true poet, she reminds us writers’ words “swirl.” That is so much more tangible than merely brushing the colors onto that heavenly canvas! You can feel those colors flying into the air!
And now… This progressive poem swirls to the next poet:
Swirrrrrrrrl! Swissssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh!
Passing the word palette on to Diane Davis!
———————————————
Please take the time to vist all the poets contributing to this progressive poem at the provided links below:
April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors
PAMELA ROSS WRITES 
Oh how lovely to see you and your wondrous line of light and flight and color! Love your intro, so you.
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I keep losing my response. What is that about? Thank you for your friendship and continuing affirmation of who I am as a writer and person.
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I also loved your intro and how you approached the line for the last part of the stanza. This poem is truly magical and filled with the essence of spring.
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Thank you for making me feel a part of this beautiful community. Your words are much appreciated!
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ps Am I seeing things? Do you live in RVC? I did as well when my daughters were little kids! Moved out to Suffolk County appx 2004!
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Pamela, I lived in RVC from 1981 to 2021 and now live in Virginia near my daughter, son-in-law and 3 little grandgirls. What a small world that you lived there too. It was an ideal community for us.
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This is crazy. We were neighbors! I moved to RVC the summer of 1991 when I was finally pregnant with my first daughter. She was born in 1992. My second daughter was born in February 1995. We moved out to Huntington in 2003. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t. I’m not unhappy where we are now but I realize now RVC was a special place.
We lived on Hughes Street, not far from the RVC rec center on Long Beach Road. North up from Sunrise Highway and the LIRR. My kids went to… Wilson Elementary.
What made you move? I understand. Family is everything.
Poetry is too. 💃
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I love the alliteration of magic and montage and the rhyme of the word creates. I can’t believe how beautifully this poem has come together, like magic. Thanks for participating.
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Thank you for taking a newcomer off the street and into the circle. I love your heartfelt and genuine reaction to where the poem began and travelled and will soon end. It’s not an easy task to write with 29 distinct voices and yet try to unite as one. ()
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I love that you brought it all together, Pamela!
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Thank you for those kind words! We couldn’t get here alone. (())
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Pamela, I lived a few block away from the Links Gulf Club. My daughter went to Covert School. My son was in the special ed program so he went to Riverside and then Wilson in 3rd grade. The children also swam on the Rockville Links swim team so every summer we were at the Links enjoying life. It’s a small world.
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