dVerse Poetics: Fantasia!

Today at the dVerse Poets Pub, Lillian is our guest pubtender and prompter. She has used a poem from Carl Sandburg to spur us on, to help us to delve inside our fantasies and write. In fact, we are to use the word phantasy, fantasy, etc. in our poems. Come visit us on this fantastic journey! http://dversepoets.com/2016/04/12/poetics-fantasia/

public domain image

Fantasia in Green and Sun
I shuffle the packets through my fingers like magical cards. The pictures tease me, lure me. Fantasies of green project from my mind onto the patch of loamy brown soil. Looking at the almanac to chart the moon phases in the coming weeks The next week, full moon, will be for planting those things that grow above ground – tomatoes, green peas, yellow squash, cucumbers, snap beans, zucchini, okra, peppers, greens. The end of April, in the dark of the moon, those things that grow beneath the surface in the dark of the earth: potatoes, carrots, radishes, beets, turnips. Old fashioned flowers and clover around the border.  An old fashioned girl, I plant by the moon and the size of oak leaves. I honor the earth with compost of carefully recycled scraps and soil gathered with care and thanksgiving from beneath forest leaves raked aside and then carefully raked back to cover the spot.  Soil trundled to the site and distributed from end to end, worked in with hoe.

Sitting on my back steps in the cold of early spring, watching the fire of dawn split the black horizon, wrapped in my grandmother’s quilt sipping coffee and having converse with and listening to the morning birds. The mellow temple chime of the cardinals proudly proclaiming, “Here! Over here, over here!”. The trilling of the wrens and the glass chime tinkle of the finches and from my old friends whom I have named Peat and Repeat – the mockingbird and the brown thrasher – all the sounds of the other birds and magically, the opening notes of the theme from the Xfiles, carefully and patiently taught, joyfully poured forth without stint.

I look at the patch of bare earth and fantasies play like a wonderful movie behind my eyes – a fantasy of tender green shoots and tendrils, then exotic blooms of squash and peas, beans and tomatoes; various sizes and shapes of bright yellow. Little suns that drop to earth and leave behind the beginnings of meals, pickles, relishes – all the be shared or hoarded during drab winter. My herbs have been uncovered and in a bit, the sun will warm and send their blessed incense to me. Dreams of summer and autumn days and the joys of the seasons. All there, in that patch of soil. My land of dreams and fairies, butterflies and bees, night grazing bunnies. Fantastic beasts and flowers, secret garden of the soul.

from cool brown earth
visions of summer arise –
fantasies are born.

 

copyright kanzensakura