Tangles & Tails: Tracey Kiff-Judson's Blog

Maple Seedlings

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Category: Blog

Poetry Friday is sizzling!  It feels like summer is just around the corner with the warm temps here earlier this week.  Please visit our host, the amazingly talented Buffy Silverman to see what’s hot in this week’s Poetry Friday roundup!

This year, we have thousands and thousands of baby maple trees sprouting all over our yard.  I spent a about six hours pulling spring weeds from our small garden this weekend. 

I took a minute to marvel at this sprout's preprogrammed growth plan. It knew exactly what it needed to do.  Basking in the sun, it raised its arms to its mother tree, as if to say, "Here I come!"

 Maple Sprout  (please read from the bottom up!)
      
            yearning to be grown.
Origami leaves unfold, rosy-cheeked,
              Tender wings fan.
              BURSTS ABOVE!
                          s
                      e
                   h
                      c
                        t
                    e
                       r
                    t
                   s
              Seedling

----------------------------------------

 

Maple Sprout  (or read top to bottom…)

Seedling stretches –
BURSTS ABOVE!

Tender wings fan.

Origami leaves unfold,
      rosy-cheeked,
yearning to be grown.

© Tracey Kiff-Judson, 2024

40 comments

  • Love the shape and energy of your seedling with its origami leaves! (Although I have spent some time this week as a lumberjack, yanking hundreds of little red maple seedlings from my garden!)
  • Love the rain of curving-upward letters spewing off of "Seedling," so fun, really gives you the feeling of that little seedling stretching up and out and beyond! And rosy-cheeked makes me smile, thanks Tracey!
  • ooooh, I love a good reverso. How wonderful this one is with origami leaves and that stretching! Bravo! Isn't it crazy how many mapled seedlings actually take root? I've often wondered how long it would take for nature to just take over everything again. I'll bet not long.
    • It's funny you say that, Linda!  My son and I had that same conversation.  We agree - not long at all!
  • The shaped bottom to top version is such fun! (We had a bunch of baby maples in our yard this year too.) xo
  • Love that bottom up reading!  Very aspirational, yearning to be grown. And wings growing from that helicopter seed. 
  • Wow -- never seen so many baby maples sprouting like that before. Your poems are a joy to read and perfectly capture the energy of new growth. Bottom to top reading is so clever. :)
  • I've never seen so many either! Excellent to take a close look at them and commemorate them with accurate details. Writing a reverso is TOUGH-- congrats!
  • So clever, Traci, and I love the images you created - origami leaves, rosy-cheeked. This is a poem where every word works just right.
  • From other's comments, too, maples must have sent out messages to others, "rise, rise"! I love the way you introduced us, then wowed with that spectacular shape poem, Tracey! Like others, I love the "origami leaves"! 
  • Tracey! This can be read BOTH ways... a concrete REVERSO! I love it! And - OMG - what do you do with so many babies? Do you let them grow? 

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