NaPoWriMo You Might Miss Them

Prairie Star Wildflowers

Prairie Star wildflowers bloom in the spring on reddish, leafless, raceme stems among the sagebrush. Its only lobed leaves grow small at the base of the stem. Yesterday, we discussed the lobed leaves of the sagebrush and bitterbrush, and beneath those bushes are where you will find the bright white and lovely prairie star. Lobed shrubs and wildflowers growing together!

The white flowers, with five petal, each only 5 – 10 mm also boast three lobes at the tips, which help them look like starbursts!

I found these beneath the bitterbrush– if you’re hiking fast, you’ll miss them, which is the point of my little poems.

Poetic Forms

Since we’re continuing with a number theme of “three,” — for the lobes and petals of the plants we’ve studied the today and yesterday– how about poetic forms of three lines?

I wrote two poems today, one is a Hay(na)ku, a twenty-first century development. It’s a tercet: 3 lines. First line: one word. Second line: two words. Third line: three words — six words total. That’s about it. Some reverse the order.

The second poem is sijo, a Korean poetry form, also of three lines. But it’s structure is more constrained:

First Line Syllables: phrases of 3 4 4 4 syllables
Second Line Syllables: phrases of 3 4 4 4 syllables
Third Line Syllables: phrases of 3-5, 4, 3 syllables.

First line content: introduces the theme
Second line content: elaborates on the theme
Third line content: First a twist, then a conclusion.

You might want to give these forms a try! They seemed to fit the message for today’s wildflower walk.