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Green river of cloth, washing over well-worn wood in smooth waves,
you carry crumbs of chocolate cake like tasty driftwood,
and brush my knees so softly before stopping in mid breath,
splashless silence.
Dry river, held in place by plates and cups floating quietly as lilypads,
do you hope for frogs or tea?

Tabatha Yeatts

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Oh, Dandelion I see you standing proud in your box of 24.

Your back-to-school scent lingers in my backpack.

My heart races and

a gasp escapes as I carefully pull you out.

The tip of my tongue licks my lips as I create my masterpiece
of a corner sun.

Why, Crayola did you have to take away Dandelion?

Just to make room for a new one.

© 2017 Leigh Anne Eck

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Green-vested Girl Scouts
line boxes on a table outside Walgreens.
Crinkling wax paper opens
to a circle of mouth-watering chocolate.
Mint permeates my senses.
Why are you hiding in this box?
Come on out for my delight,
a refreshing bite.

–Margaret Simon

https://reflectionsontheteche.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/sol-30-ode-to-a-thin-mint-cookie/

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I see you hiding there - a  shimmer in the waves beneath my feet

I wriggle my fingers deep into the wet sand and feel the whole of you

Deep ridges - smooth curves - A spiral of mystery waiting to be
discovered

I lift you to my ear and hear the rushing song of the sea that lives
within you

I breathe in your briny goodness taste the salt spray on my lips

I wonder- Who will call you home?

Toss me back and we shall see.

2017 Janie Lazo

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Beautiful conch, Neptune’s blushing sunset charm,

perfumed by saline sand and seaweed. I lift your

cool, smooth alabaster to my ear and you

sing a whooshing symphony, a

melodious banquet that feeds my soul.

What mysteries do you hold? The

history of eons.

Mindy Gars Dolandis

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This was posted at http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2017/03/march-musings-17-summer-sand.html.

©Carol Varsalona, 2017

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I see you peek beyond your shell,

hear the skitter of claws as you rush away,

remember the tickle-touch of wriggling claws,

imagine the briny taste your predators must enjoy,

and smell the sea your discarded shell leaves behind.

How does it feel to always seek home?

It must be so lonely.

© Sherry Howard

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by Jena Benton

Twisted inside out
like a hermit crab inside a shell,
your socks wait in the basket
for me to discover them:
rough cotton that expels tiny puffs
of sweaty foot ash
when I grapple with them
to prepare the wash.
Why are there so many?
This is the price of love
and surely it is better
than the empty basket
I used to keep.

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You jump around, up and down,
Your face goes into smiles and frowns.
You scream loudly and lick the floor,
Smell like something the cat brought in the door.
Oh why won’t you go to sleep?
I was not designed for that, you see.

by Angelique Pacheco

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Swim bag knows our kids are
up to their knees in shivery water--

Already
Splashing
SHRIEKING.
Fingernails full of grit from
combing moats into sand.
Opening the cabin brings
Aunties with bowls of potato salad
walking paths across new grass.
Uncles fire up a grill one-handed
tipping beer bottles with the other,
coughing at the smell of too much
lighter fluid. Again.
When will you join in?
Shhhhhh.
Later….around the fire
When sun-kissed shoulders need shield
from scary stories
spun over sparks,
and roasting marshmallows.
Remember me
in Winter’s fast.

© Linda Mitchell

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You sigh as you unroll, your stars

cartwheel and your candy clouds cluster.

The scent of paper newness and

an unwrinkled curl hold back my wrist

as I trim your party music into a square.

Do you know you conceal dreams?

One tear reveals, peels, unseals.

Copyright 2017 Brenda Davis Harsham

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When you color-in a strawberry, I taste it squishing in my mouth.

I hear a tree branch scraping if I sharpen your point.

Of all the pencils in my kit, your long red body looks like licorice string,

and that bump on your side is a mystery I like to rub.

But red pencil - you never smell like licorice, or strawberries!

How will I create licorice string or a strawberry, when I have
used you up?

- Jan Godown Annino, c. 2017

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by 2nd Grade Mustangs

Clay smells a little
Bit like dirt.
Clay, you feel soft
And squishy to me.
Clay, I look at you and
See what you will become.
Clay, when I touch you it
Sounds squishy & squiggly.
Clay, you are awesome.
But clay, why are you so squishy?

2017, 2nd Grade Mustangs, Woodville (FL) Elementary School
Ms. Sally Ash, educator (who invited Poetry Friday regular Jan Annino to school on March 6, 2017)

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Student Odes by Jone MacCulloch's Poetry Rocks Group

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Student Odes by Jone MacCulloch's Poetry Rocks Group

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(To read, click on the frog.)

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Thank you Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge for hosting Poetry Friday today. My Poetry Rocks' group worked on odes this week in response to the challenge at Today's Little Ditty. We started by reading some of the odes already on the March 2017 Padlet. We wrote the group ode.

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More nutritious

Than a bean,

I do appreciate

Your green,

But raw,

You are extremely crunchy,

Roasted,

Just a mushy-munchy.

Steaming

Makes you awfully wet.

Sorry -

‘Still don’t like you yet!

© 2017 Raven Howell

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You made your point
with woody twangs,
divulging a taste of recent indulgences,
your slim figure never gaining an ounce.
Were you pining for the fragrance of the forest
when you planted your
slither of splinter deep in my gums
for near a week?

© 2017 Kathryn Apel. All rights reserved.

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A quartet of silver prongs
meld atop a shiny, iron-like stem.
Scraping sounds catch pieces of plate
while digging up mountains of today’s cuisine.
Each metallic clank against my teeth,
small price to pay for morsels of home cooked
goodness dancing in my jaws.
After each meal, smelling of freshly picked lemons
courtesy of your dishwashing shower,
I ask the most important question ever …
“Care to join me for another meal, tomorrow?”

© Charles Waters 2017 all rights reserved.

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For decades of unfailing service
with never a taint of rust
or impure rainbow blush,
I laud you, loyal pot.
With sleek, unmarred interior,
your hygiene is far superior
to impostors' creviced dermis.
I'll not trade you for the lot.

© 2016 Sydney O'Neill

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As you warm to the flame,
she holds your tented lid against your heavy frame
and scrapes your weight back and forth
until tender, sweet corn bursts inside.
The scent of butter calls us to the kitchen.
Do you remember the salty pleasure
of popcorn on Saturday night?

©2017 Doraine Bennett

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by Bridget Magee

I knead your lumpy spines
and listen for your instructive lines.
I breathe the scent of volumes used for reference -
the drips and splotches show my preference.
My mouth waters for the cuisine between your covers,
which recipe is best to entice my lover?

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By Lana Wayne Koehler

It was love at first sight: Watching fingers tickle the ivories as

the sound tickles my ears;

Tasting joy,

While the fragrance of the music

Lingers, waiting to embrace

Me.

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Sweet as cotton candy, you gathered me into a cloud of pink confection

Where sheer and taffeta rustled lavishly

Each seam scented with anticipation

I slid my fingers around your slippery satin sash

My girlish twirls blossomed like peonies

You remember me after all these years?

Like silk stockings in a parade of bobby socks.

Karen Eastlund

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by Heidi Mordhorst

I see you squatting solidly on the far side of the verb.

You wait patiently for action:  will it be bringing,

singing, ringing?  You might be licked, lifted, lit.

I may pronounce you struck, sipped or sifted.

Oh--perhaps that is not patience,

but resignation, even fear?  Object, do not fear.

There’s not much I can do without you.

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Your sandpaper skin,

furrowed with peaks and valleys,

spills bitter milk in fox’s mouth,

who spews your foul-scented self,

leaving you to trill another night.

Will your acrid taste linger in fox’s memory?

You do not pause to ponder, turning your sights to the fly at hand.

—Buffy Silverman

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Oh, foot

so bare,

you stomp

and kick
and the mud oozes between your toes.

I smell the earth

we trudge ahead.

You don’t complain . . . no shoe, no sock?

It’s fun to be alive
in just my skin.

—Sandie Vaisnoras

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by Irene Latham

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Spring paints her perfume as Mama rustlesrustlesrustles,

then settles over her eggs.

Like stones birthed from the sky they wait,

silent,

silent,

silent.

All too soon the nest feels crowded with beaksbeaksbeaks,

squawking,

singing,

and finally winging

back home to the sky,

Mama’s murmuration to the world.

By Ann Magee
{murmuration-a flock of starlings}

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Ode, your oddness caught my eye-
I plucked you from the poetree

thinking I might taste and see.

But oh, the odour of your rhyme

was odious - a clunky chime.

Ode, I haven't made you cry?

Oh, Ode, you're owed another try.

© Kate O’Neil

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Trees, Trees, Trees
What is Life Like
To be a Tree
Twisty Splintery
Sandpaper barks
Sugary saps
Branching skyward
Burring roots
Into earth
Trees, Trees ,Trees
What is Life Like
To be a Tree
Who's snapping their
Fingers in the
quiet forest
Trees, Trees, Trees

Poem By Jessica Bigi

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You feel soft and squishy, as her

shoes ooze over with clumps of your midnight mix.

Your earthy scent magnifies, as she moves toward you.

Swish, her foot slips and she sloshes down,

sliding to the ground; savoring your richness between her wet lips.

Why have you softened so early? Spring Soil,

for centering and slowing her, before the rush of summer.

© 2017 Michelle Kogan

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Your structure like poetry,

stride, glide, step.

Building

muscles, balance, strength.

Progress

calories, minutes, distance.

Story

sweat, tears, sounds

Victory

goal for the day,

Accomplished.

by Kathleen Mazurowski

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I picked you for your pinkish tone

but pucker at your taste, and groan,

wiping juice off of my face,

inhaling tartness, but embrace

the whispered promise in my ear:

two sizes smaller in a year.

Cindy Breedlove

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In half-light, readied, steaming, pink perfect cup,
I held you, warming my palms, a balm.

Relaxed morning breath brought your waking scent;

then first soft sip, familiar to my ears—

our ritual ending in my bittersweet waking.

Why now, Coffee Cup, are you empty?  Coffee Cup,

It’s because I am greedy and day is dawned;

it’s time to get up.

Rebekah Hoeft, March 2017

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A crystal gem on fragile web,

You speak to early dawn

With misty hope, a fragrance clean,

And sparkles on my lawn.

You taste of freshness, cool to touch –

I wonder – must you go?

“Oh, yes! The sun is calling me -

I’ll be back tomorrow though!”

2017  LeeAnn Blankenship

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(and an acrostic)

The faintest whiff of clean, starched sheets
In white, you lie flat, stiff, well pressed, waiting as
Shaking fingertips flounder, feeling for your straight, thin edge
Silently you caress my face, no, you are quietly humming
Unduly seasoned with salt from my tears.
Eternally crumpled, rolled up in a ball, do you have any regrets?
Shush, so happy to help.

by Donna JT Smith, March 10, 2017

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I dedicated a post to this challenge=> http://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2017/03/march-musings-30-ode-to-moon.html.

©Carol Varsalona, 2017

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Once crystalline now coated
with the grime of rotted sheaths
and root hairs shed, your new bulb's
nascent roots tickle the water
silently absorbing all it needs
to flower. Jewel tones and heady
fragrance, winter consolation.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

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~ Inspired by Lily Yeh and The Rwanda Healing Project

The hammer sings the story
of ten thousand broken shards—
the stench of old bones
and hope's gritty aftertaste,
scrubbed clean by twenty thousand tears.
What question hasn't been asked
that has an answer?

© 2017 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

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You can't fix everything.

My fingers felt weightless as my grandmother's candy dish tumbled
towards the tiles.

My own gasp is all I heard as stinging shards sprayed my ankles.

No longer will it hold the sweet little lemon drops my grandmother
delighted in.

Her gentle kisses always remembered their tangy scent.

Oh, glue, it was the only item of hers I kept.

My heart has shattered with it. You can't fix that either, can you?

Too many pieces.

by David McMullin

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Clutching your satin edge, soft as a dog’s ear,
I wrap your sunny yellow self around me.
Cocooned inside, I breathe in the air of summer.
Night whispers are muffled as I snuggle deeper,
take the first sip of a dream.
Do you sleep with me? Or are you always
on guard, steadfast and loyal through the night?

© Catherine Flynn, 2017

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Prancing zig-zags lopping leaping Dizzy circles of paw print hearts Purring laughter Sugar coated medicos Curing the loneliest of days Soft swishes of a tail curled in twitching whiskers Sleeping by my side
she’s my best friend

Poem and photograph By Jessica Bigi

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You taste sharp and tangy, some metal weapon,

but you dissolve to chimney smoke coziness

Your sleek, pearlescent point

tap dances with your twin,

turns your rhythm into fuzzy ribbons of warmth

Needle, why do you never rest?

Are you afraid to be alone?

--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

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I feel your power when fireplace ashes stir;

smoke puffed in stings my nose.

Window-tapping of the tree branches

accompanies dog growls and cat yowls.

I shiver-run for the news, taste snow in the wind.

Why not the breeze of yesterday?

Winter conceit.

Linda Baie

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Background Image: "Ode to a Muse" by Robert Couse-Baker