Blueprint for a Summer Afternoon

We sat cross-legged
­                                    on short grass
that left a prickly itch
­                                         on bare skin.
Summer stretched out, droning
­                                                           on like the plane
flying overhead, carving a white scar
­                                                                     on scattered blue.
We scanned herby blades for four leaf clover,
­                                                                                    the only luck we knew.

Kim M. Russell, 13th July 2020

Thielemann Stock Pictures, Royalty-free Photos & Images

My poem for dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille: Blue Monday

After a two -week break, dVerse is back with the Quadrille, when we take any meaning of one word and transform it into 44 poetic words, and I’m hosting with the word and colour blue.

66 thoughts on “Blueprint for a Summer Afternoon”

  2. I can see that white scar on the scattered blue of the sky (love the imagery). I am keeping a close eye for those 4 leaf clover.

    Thanks for hosting the Quadrille Kim.

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  4. Love this summer poem….I am sitting there with you, prickly and all. I’m imagining fingering through those herbs looking for a four-leafed clover and then sniffing my finger tips and smelling sage, peppermint and lemon balm too! 🙂 LOVELY to sit with you a moment here…..even if we are unlucky in some ways, we’re lucky to be sitting her cross-legged together! 🙂

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    1. That;’s such a wonderful thought, Lill, especially as it’s twenty to nine at night here, and pouring with rain. I will imagine sitting with you in a sunny park in Boston, cross-legged, making daisy chains and looking for four leaf clovers.

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  7. A moment etched in our consciousness, a perfect bookend for Grace’s poem, and a grand illustration for your prompt. It feels so good to be back on the trail.

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    1. Thank you, Helen. I wonder if children (and adults) still do that. I have given up looking for four-leaf clovers around here – I’ve not found one so far.

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  16. Pingback: Clouds of Bounty | A Dalectable Life

    1. Thank you, Suzanne. If you’re using the new WordPress edit, it’s so tricky to lay out any poetry. I can only us the old one, and then it takes ages, pasting the poem in html mode, then adding soft space characters and using the spacebar to create hard spaces. I think it’s worth it, though.

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      1. That does sound complicated. I am using Block Editor. I might try the old editor nd see if I can do better layouts. Thanks for your input. The layout of your poems really sorks.

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  19. I love this memory of summer and how it stretched out, the prickly grass, the drone of planes, and the search I, too, conducted for four-leaf clovers. Beautiful poem.

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  21. So like how you’ve laid this out – the phrases – ‘on short grass’ ‘on bare skin’ etc. diverging down the page – drifting off – like a snooze on summer grass. (It’s a howling winter gale here – so this is a delight).

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  27. That blue overhead, scattered or not, is reward enough, even with a four-leaf clover.

    Side note: I remember those grass blade impressions from sitting on the lawn looking for four leaf clovers in my youth. These days, in the mid-west, I’m so mindful of ticks that it’s hard to imagine, any more.

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