Best Coltsfoot Poems
I value the ability to live independently
Most sacred to me
is the freedom and my health
- every breath of dawn, is like a diamond
I open the window ... just for a little while
- no children are out playing
the sun is shining and the lilies are blooming
Spring sings its first greeting
Nothing is so beautiful
as the first coltsfoot
Our world today ... lockdown and isolation
Freedom has got a bad friend
and its name is: FEAR
Fear of getting sick ...
Infection and illness can hit quite randomly
A good saying goes:
// it's hard to define an elephant,
but, you recognize it when you see it //
This is a time and a reminder about
we are all equally vulnerable
... and mortal
// Dear Father in Heaven,
protect us in battle and sickness
Give us hope when it seems hopeless //
- Don't fear
... but cheer
Spring is my happy time
... it tingles in the stomach
- // (not in the throat)
I want my freedom back
27.03.2020
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
What Matters Most To You
Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke
2 place in the contest
Spring marks the end of winter and start of summer
It is lovely with colorful contrasts
Norway is a long country with a lot of mountains and valleys
Wide variations in climate from south to north and from east to west
Migrant's return, and the first flower is coltsfoot
Both humans and animals awakened by hibernation with new energy
The sun is high, no snow falls and the birds singing
Small downy mouse ears to be leaves on birch tree
01.04.2016
A-L Andresen :)
"Flowers fade and decay through wintry hours- waiting for rebirth."
Quote by - Constance La France
Each season has its own highlights
Flower life starts at the roadside
Coltsfoot, which humans classify as weed
A lovely sign of spring
Shrubs, trees and flowers come to life
everything germinates and grows
wood anemone, crocus and snowdrops
- a spot in the garden
Plants maintain the balance of life
Choosing a favorite is hard
Summer is a glorious spectacle
- when the blossoms explode
Time for a long hibernation
Preparing for the coming frost
Winter plants ice roses on the window
- creates sense of wonder
The decay and rebirth cycle
means everything is connected
With strength back into every living cell
- It feels as pure magic
The temperature fluctuates between mild spring days to rain or even snow. Nature wakes up, and the buds slowly sprout on the trees. Coltsfoot pop up as yellow rubber balls, charming yellow flowers. I find that the older I becomes, the more I love it. This time of year sings in my heart, along with a flock of whooper swans. Celebrating the arrival of spring with bubbling cider,
and delicious food on the fire pan.
coltsfoot pop-up spring
hocus-pocus, white crocus ~
dizzy by rapture
Spring is so lovely, right down to the smallest detail. Look at the bees, the queen has already laid lots of eggs. Buzzing, thousands of small bees ...spring tastes like honey - no doubt
do you save the bee
then you also save yourself ~
sweet golden honey
25/03/2021
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Springtime Haibun Contest Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: M. L. Kiser
7th place in the contest
Nicky, the neighbor’s dog, drags a road kill home.
A beautiful pelt like those fox shoulder garments women wore in the
forties.
But the head is crushed beyond recognition—maybe it’s a fox and that’s
why Nicky, a canine, is conducting this wake on our front lawn.
Loretta, my wife’s mother, is in the hospital again. Forty years of Crohn’s
disease has finally broken her.
It may take some time but she won’t bounce back from this episode.
None of us are sorry to see her die, not even Loretta. There will be a
thunderous downpour during her last hour.
I like the story about the nuns hitting Peg in school–contumacy is a sin.
Emile and Loretta considered it an inappropriate punishment for their
cherished adopted daughter.
So they pulled her out of Catholic for public school. They did their own
thinking about discipline.
Early Spring, peepers all night, then the birds take over at dawn.
Soothing—the mourning doves.
During this half of the year, May through October, we live in a green
bower.
We turn the house inside out, move into the mountains.
In their annual order, flowers appear in the understory: coltsfoot, hepatica
and trillium through to the end, late purple aster, spotted joe pye and
pearly everlasting.
We let Nicky nurse her road kill, watch over it, roll around on it.
Don’t let go of the steering wheel while driving fast in the passing lane.
Lost my energy... tired and exhausted in my body
My longing drives me like a high fever
Just the thought .... feel a bit lightheaded
Am I sick - should I see a doctor
No ... when I think about it ... it's spring fever
Beautiful spring ... long time to wait after a cold winter
Gorgeous birdsong in the air ... I have not waited in vain
Spring snow melts ... Snowdrops, coltsfoot and buds on trees
Taste of summer I must say. . . my time - so beautiful
The air is set with colors - and dipped in beautiful fragrances
I want to plant a little seed in the still cold ground
later the seed grow into a beautiful flower
Spring has opened my heart today -
and I can feel it in my whole body
Now I want to dance - dance with me
19.02.2014
A-L Andresen :)
Scents
Coltsfoot
Dare to dream
Nature's glory
Wealth
10.04.2017
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
howmanysyllables.com/syllable
1-2-3-4-1
THE FLOWERS WELCOME THE QUEEN
Spring returns to my garden and the Golden Queen
Once again warms everything she touches.
A little girl comes barefoot into my empty garden one day.
Her hair floating in the wind gets caught on my thorn hedge,
But she pushes past the barrier, and makes herself at home.
She passes by my roses and her tiny fingers make daisy chains.
She leaves my pathway and her unprotected feet mark my soil.
Somehow my garden is filled with her presence
Now moving in the grass green growth -
Meeting morning’s sunny face, my little girl’s growing -
She’s planted there, showing more roots each day -
Helen - in my garden of wild flowers, their leaves
Enfolding her tender years. My adored daughter,
My child, running through the deep butter meadow,
Young knees yellow with topaz dust, marks my soul.
She gazes at all the smiling saffron rays-of-sun petals.
A field filled with dandelions’ bright amber glow;
And bursting with energy she chases a butterfly and tumbles,
Giggling, into a crowd of elegant marguerites, splaying their
Neatly-displayed petals in their starched ruffs :
The heart of whiteness shining in the early flower of life.
She bends to count the spots on the ladybirds climbing
The stems of the coltsfoot. The leafless coltsfoots, in greeting life,
Offer their radiant lemon fingers full-spread
To welcome back the Golden Queen of heaven.
..................................................................
Can't seem to get off to sleep tonight, thoughts buzzing around my old head,
It's dark and quiet, the cat has gone out and the street lights have gone out too,
The odd car passes by maybe coming home from friends or a night on the town,
Could be on the way back from a restaurant a Chinese, or picking up family?
Looking at the calender I see we are getting into mid March and days are longer,
Could it be that the winter has lost its sharp teeth and the might of frosts gone,
A thousand welcomes to Spring but it cannot bring back youth or thicken my hair,
Or enable us to offer the first gathered violets to dear souls in their heavens.
The fowled of the farm yard lay, the pheasants crow in the copse the ring dove coos,
The linnet and the gold finch sing while man looks to fences and drains and water levels,
Next is ploughing and sowing, pruning and planting and talking of good years gone,
Spring stirs all with her mighty influence from the depths of the soil and heart.
So spring is with us and she will throw off one dark and gloomy coat after another,
And spring will chase away winter with his hardly wrinkled face and keen eye for beauty,
It is march rough yet pleasant, vigorous and strong with hope and strength and lovely voice,
His gales will come rushing and sounding over forest and lea and shake nature wide awake.
The tacamahac shows off its long furry green catkins, the mezereon its clustered blossoms,
Then the splendid red China rose unfolds itself to the fresh air, and green pastures return,
Coltsfoot and cardamine embellish old fallows and the star of Bethlehem gleams in the woods,
Crocus spreads around like a purple flood over the old established meadows, spring is sprung.
A
son
before
the father-
yellow precedes green
Blowball and cankerwort,
words born from a common tongue.
English is most practical
when it is rustic and colloquial.
Lions tooth, priests crown,
moles salad and pee-a-bed.
‘Swine snout’ snorts loud upon the page.
The yarrow-yellow flowers last for hours
then overnight turn to fairy bones.
I recall us both sat upon the grass
blowing unfettered puffs into the wind,
our hair littered with stemmed parasols
the pirouetting flotsam of the airborne.
The French have alternate names,
herbal idioms difficult to spell,
but we savor together taraxacum
for it is a diuretic and wets the tongue,
as do the damply dunked sounds
of sneeze-helicopter's and
the muddy splatter of piggy snozzles.
Lions teeth are its leaf,
mix well with burdock
for a low tea under a shady tree.
Beware of false dandelions
such as cats ears and coltsfoot.
The Chinese, Pu Gong Ying
is the real thing.
After we had covered each other
with dandelion kisses
we made hay the old fashioned way.
Feel free to spell dandelion
the way you would write
a long sunny day.
Don’t let the worms touch the brittle petals,
Just blow them to my empty palms
As gentle dream. I can no longer settle
Be lonely as a leafless stalk.
And coltsfoot not roses,
Just coltsfoot surround me
And nothing comes close
As close as a dream comes.
It rains all over our roofs and our raincoats
And we might fall or wither away,
I long for the time,
for the night when the moth comes
But hope for a visit of an insect less gray.
And coltsfoot not roses,
Just coltsfoot surround me
And nothing comes close
As close as a dream comes.
In waste places beside the road
Coltsfoot grows in fertile till.
A smallish flower no higher than a toad
Its habitat seems to fit the bill.
Not expecting a flower in this land
Odd brown scales clasp its stalk.
Skunk cabbage neighbors in its sand
And makes a "feller" stop and gawk..
Leaves not unlike the hoof of a colt
Hence the name, Colts-foot, you know.
The first flower in spring to bolt
And a weed that escapes my hoe.
By any name, it's still a weed.
Early one Spring morning, I joyfully walked the verdant hills,
among lemon tinted blooms of coltsfoot, swaying in spills.
Their beauty seemed to drift in a gloriously scented display,
so enticing that honeybees and butterflies visited that day.
Dawn whispered with fruited breath to bid the sun, "Arise,"
and hues of watermelon rind and peach flesh filled the skies.
I gladly welcomed the gentle warmth on my upturned face,
savoring this tranquil scene; a moment I would long embrace.
Tangerine and lavender coral bells had grown quite profuse.
There was one the shade of lime, like the liqueur, chartreuse.
Blanket flowers of crimson were fringed in saffron yellow.
Dragonflies flitted among the buds; a pastoral scene so mellow.
Wild lilac bushes were maturing into a beautiful hedgerow,
then I caught I glimpse of aquamarine water on the lake below.
It was such a serene setting that I lingered for some time
thinking about the pastoral scene I would write about in rhyme.
April 13, 2021
Changing Colors Contest
Sponsored by Emile Pinet
As March sets in people are eager to work in their rural gardens and fields,
The earth turns up fresh and mellow and there is beauty in its very blackness,
Flowers are fast springing in the boarders, delicate and beautifully poetic,
Familiar friends the alpine violet, the dog tooth violet, daffodils and squills.
The little snowdrop peaks out of the soil to see how many of his friends wait,
The snowdrop sees the Almond trees blossom beautiful while others are leafless,
Bends his little white head to the tacamahac, smiling he waves at the catkins,
He casts his eyes at the mezereon with clustered blooms, a China rose unfolds.
The trees in the woods feel the warmer weather and wild wood flowers sprout up,
The snowdrop nods to his friends the Coltsfoot and cardamine in older fallows,
And in this magical setting the star of Bethlehem beams across the grey trees,
A kingcup waves to the celandine showing off their fine deep and golden lustre.
Then who does the snowdrop see, can it be his friend the daisy growing on turf,
The crocus spreads like a purple flood that has beautified meadows for all time
But for today the violets, white or purple takes its lodgings under our hedges,
They move along the moist banks which is well remembered from a sweet childhood.