Yesterday I wrote about the five senses and poetry in my post Winter Days. My post was inspired by work in the kitchen.

Today I reviewed my archives to see if I have written poems over the years with a few of the senses. My poems are visual, because I so often write about what I see through the days and seasons. I wondered about the other senses. This is what I found so far.

shoveling . . .
scent of mint
through snow

Time of Singing
25th Anniversary Volume
1998

reading poetry
my coffee gets cold
guess I made it
for the fragrance

Time of Singing
Volume 43, “Intermezzo”
Fall 2016

Time of Singing poetry journal, edited by Lora Zill, has a new site. This print journal was one of the first to publish my short poems, in the 1990s.

fragrance of leaves
in the gardens
what good friends
we became
as we grew older

My poem has been published online:

Tanka by Ellen Grace Olinger

Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog
August 8, 2020

A book: They Gave Us Life: Celebrating Mothers, Fathers & Others in Haiku. Edited by Robert Epstein. Middle Island Press, 2017.

A poetry print journal: Time of Singing, Volume 46, Fall 2019.

reading the Gospels
a few verses at a time
raindrops on branches

My poem was published at Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog,
Daily Haiku: Nov. 17, 2017.

We hear the rain and I saw the poem.

poems we read
again and again
washing an old plate
the pattern
still new

I see to read, and sometimes I listen (hear) poems online. I often read aloud to hear the words of a poem. This helps with revision too. Washing dishes in warm water, rinsing a plate, and looking out the kitchen window inspires some of my everyday poems.

some years
I hear them first
and then see them
this year a cold day
on the way home
from errands
with a bouquet
of daffodils and food
we see them first
red-winged blackbirds

“some years” is from March 26, 2015 at this blog.

Haiku Lesson Note:

Our Haiku Awareness Plan for Grades 1 – 2 at The Haiku Foundation features a well-known haiku about the rain by Peggy Willis Lyles (1939 – 2010).

I learn again all the time.
And I love to learn. Thank you.

Ellen Grace Olinger

Images: wpclipart