Best Greening Poems
You Texas Cuspidata!
Not you, and not a curse:
Taxus cuspidata, for Japanese Yew!
So, don’t confuse a plant with the Ibex
Ilex serrata – that’s Christmas Holly
Or Japanese Winterberry
Butterflies, butternuts, a Buttinsky?
Shut your eyes, it’s Conocarpus erectus
(Pastor here is only saying "Buttonwood" in Latin)
Meanwhile in nature, the pines of Japan
Are dwarfed like bottled thunder:
Pinus thunbergiana
The Christmas Spirit is perennial in China (?)
Schinus terebinthifolius
(Again, Latin for another plant: Christmasberry)
Try to bonsai gladly;
A creeper in your home or villa;
Haha! Bourgainvillea glabra
My dad called this beauty, Pride of India!
Myrtle set me right, but India won at the end:
Laegerstroemia indica
Neighbors, boyhood buddies, international relations?
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry? No plant connection:
Just Hackberry named Celtis sinensis
(c) Modified 20170417, Deo. This poem was previously published in my book in 2005 (UnAmerican Education: Poetry and Politics, by Red Lead Press)
Categories:
greening, art, flower, garden, humor,
Form:
Didactic
path through greening hills
raptor glides on silent wing-
smoke plume in distance
for the Nature contest
Categories:
greening, nature
Form:
Haiku
Gaia gifts her wares to all, not just the understanding few. Each minute seed with high hopes, sprouts and a newborn emerges from tiny coil within.
seeds stretch
upwards to the light
baby greens
The passing of a legacy from one generation to the next
begins to paint the landscape in shades of elation. Roots begin to find their comfort zone. It’s a new season as Earth begins her greening.
tiny verdigris
tendrils grasp
terra-forma
Nature's gifts fill my senses with spiritual flow.
on the winds
scent of magnolia
soul uplifted
2-18-2023
It Means A Lot To Me Poetry Contest
Regina McIntosh
Categories:
greening, nature, poems, poetry, solitude,
Form:
Haibun
The copper, silver chimes are cling-a-ding-ing.
The red cardinals, wrens, and sparrows are singing.
Greening faster than I can type, the woods are alive and witty.
We are all loving the bright, vivid, fresh newest green color so pretty.
A tiny black and red striped garter snake slithers over through the grass at my feet to say “Howdy-do.”
I give her blessings, then sit back and enjoy the sun, and the
gentle waving of the grass, anew.
If there was ever a better day, I do believe it at all.
I listen to the triumphantly happy birds, chirp, whistle, and call.
Categories:
greening, appreciation, celebration, green, joy,
Form:
Rhyme
Come, gentle Spring,
into my winter heart
long frozen beneath a wide expanse of snow.
Seek out the slumbering flower
hidden in the dormant sod;
charm her from frigid grave
with sweet, warm sighs and penetrating rains.
Come, incessant Spring,
and ravage my still heart with beauty's multitude.
Persist until I feel
love's tender greening bud
burst through surrendered soil.
Faye Lanham Gibson
Copyright, 1987
Categories:
greening, beauty, flower, love, spring,
Form:
Free verse
Aquamarine magic glistens across the lake on a moon song promise,
Mystical entities flitting past whispery diamond mountains, clean yet soft.
Potential supremeness and majesty rising up in supreme delight.
Faeries gliding gently playfully, throughout the warming of the soft young night.
Playfully, yet with fully authorized intentions of goodness and pure love,
Greening up our sweet meadows per the doting Father observing above.
A twig-like snap changes us, and we are comfortably silent and still.
The greening magic halts in honor of the lone doe at the top of the hill.
Like magic, we all begin again, slowly, methodically, in pure harmony.
Greening up the meadow with our spiritual love and hopeful moon driven dreams,
Meticulously, careful not to smear the glistening colors, so as to be
All in synch with the glorious nature of Mother Earth God.
Categories:
greening, dream, nature, spring,
Form:
Rhyme
I think of green,
and of a nation's spring
worn in by evenings
when the summer's war
marked birth in dripping red,
and autumn's amber grief
grew dry in sighing.
Then winter sagged in its own weariness;
gray breath lay heavily upon the snow,
and time, impounded in its gelid womb--
solidified and comatose,
could not envision dreams.
I think of green,
and men who had no time to think of it.
No time to plan,
or plough or plant green fields
upon a blackened earth,
for then it was
that death romanced too well.
Retire the colors.
While my voice will revel
in the song of victory,
I still would think
of Reich and greening time--*
still carry in this aging shell
a lust for peace,
for justice,
for humanity.
~
*Ref. to Charles Reich's book
in the 70's, "The Greening of America"
Categories:
greening, visionary, time,
Form:
Free verse
Spent a day with my ex this Christmas season.
Both his hands were now green so I asked,
"what's the reason?"
Was he painting, a project, and they didn't come clean?
His pigment was tinted in a mossy green.
I touched a hand, pulled the skin, gently pinched.
He showed no pain, didn't even flinch.
Could he be turning into the Grinch?
He rolled up one pant leg and revealed a green knee
and said, "well, it's really not bothering me".
Attempting to hide my growing alarm, I said,
"better see your doctor, some thing is wrong."
A few days later he and his Doctor did meet.
It turned out to be dye from new unwashed
green sheets.
Categories:
greening, humor, men,
Form:
Light Verse
The meadow is greening, a little each day
Buds are beginning to swell with anticipation,
Small, furry creatures are appearing to play
The meadow is greening, a little each day.
Soon the larkspur will appear in full array,
As I stroll through with fond admiration
The meadow is greening, a little each day,
Buds are beginning to swell with anticipation.
As I stroll through with fond admiration
The meadow is greening, a little each day
Soon the larkspur will appear in full array,
Small, furry creatures are appearing to play
Buds are beginning to swell with anticipation
I cannot conceive of a more lovely location.
written February 22, 2022
[a Trionet, fusion of the repeated lines
of a triolet with the 14-lines of a sonnet,
a poetry form I invented.]
Categories:
greening, nature, spring,
Form:
Triolet
Frigid streams melting
Daffodils unfurl in blooms
Earth savors the warmth
I am filled with pure delight
during the greening of Spring
March 6th, 2022
Springtime Beauty Tanka Contest
Offered by M. L. Kiser
checked with howmanysyllables
Categories:
greening, beauty, nature, spring,
Form:
Tanka
“Springtime”
The dark days of winter have passed
The snow gone at last.
The cold, a memory forborne.
As the Earth awakens
Will the meadows turn green?
Will the bluebirds sing?
Will the mission bells ring?
Will the cherry trees bloom?
Will mankind repent,
Make way for new dreams?
Will she return to me?
How I long to see
The dark winter of war
Be gone.
The cherry blossoms
Dress the DC mall.
The swallows return to
San Juan Capistrano.
How I long to see
The newness of it all,
The birth of a lamb,
The budding of trees,
The greening of grass.
It is time to seed the earth,
To shake a neighbor’s hand,
To repair the hearts and land.
Let it rain spring
Across this land and
In its many hearts.
The Meadows are greening.
The Bluebirds are singing.
The Mission bells are ringing.
The Cherry trees are blooming.
It is indeed a time to celebrate.
It is indeed a time to reflect and repair.
She returns to me
She will return indeed
To the many in need. 3/23/2022
Categories:
greening, dream, earth, green, spring,
Form:
Free verse
Top of the mountain
Covered with fog and thick clouds
Besides are greening.
Categories:
greening, beauty, feelings, nature,
Form:
Haiku
The Earth is greening
Just looking at the rice field
Already happy.
Categories:
greening, appreciation, green, happiness,
Form:
Senryu
Greening
Reclaimed Brown
Intrepid Smog
As Dust Absorbs
A Reckless Past
Aged & Rotted
Vintage Sour...
Germ-i-nation.
With New Arousals'
Fragrant Lust
Overheating On
Shimmering Lemon
Breath To Wet &
Tender Birth.
-Gray Squirrel
06-02-2025
Categories:
greening, life,
Form:
Free verse
In the grove of life, where the fields of time were greening with beginnings,
I spotted you, the naked shadow, a birth from the depth of the holy nothingness.
You crossed its silent threshold, coming with empty hands at dawn,
Unveiling yourself of the shroud of non-being, watched over by stars and the moon.
You embraced the universe, armed with only a pure soul,
In the pilgrimage toward the final silence, you will step again disarmed.
And I ask you, sister or brother in fate, whence come these cold chains?
Why plant nettles and thorns in the garden that was gifted to us pure and untainted?
In the ephemeral dance of being, all gold and silver dissolve into the illusion of time,
All palaces and thrones, sandcastles beneath the waves of vast oblivion.
The only currency that weaves across Styx embraces a finer essence,
A shared love, compassion speaking through deeds, a mirror still awaiting a response.
Ah, pride and vanity, dragons that steal the light from your eyes,
They plunge you into the shadow of a self beached on shores of disillusionment.
But the beauty of life woven in humility and kindness,
Rises like a phoenix from the ashes of falsehood, soaring toward true glory.
We will leave behind only echoes of that breath-song,
With a melody sung in acts of love, in the souls of those who remain to hum along.
This will be the mark, vibrating into eternity, a divine resonance,
The legacy that will cross the threshold, between earth and skies, to be followed with reverence.
And in the margins of time, when departure sends its envoys,
You will part, justly, with empty hands and a heart full of blessings.
The naiads of your eyes sealing the unseen tale left behind,
You remain the symphony of forgiveness, the harmony of celestial love, eternal through giving.
Categories:
greening, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse