Poetry Friday: Trips and Writing Interrupted

Me in the Redwood Forests of California. Photo by my son. Used with permission. © 2023.

The last few weeks have been extraordinarily busy. At the end of June, I went to California for a week with my oldest son. We spent three nights in San Francisco and then drove up the Pacific Coastal Highway to Redwood National Park. This park was on both of our bucket lists so it made sense to go together.

I’ve written several articles on my Medium.com page and will link those at the end of this piece. Needless to say, Redwood Trees are awe-inspiring not only with their height and mass but also with their age – One tree we saw was 1500 years old! Crazy!

Big Tree in California’s Redwood Parks. © Carol Labuzzetta, 2023.

I only brought my iPhone on our trip. This was a departure from taking my MacBook Air on trips – like I did when we went to St. Thomas last February or for our trek to the National Parks of the Southwest in 2021.

I managed to get several posts out on Medium over the week we were gone but it wasn’t without somewhat of a steep learning curve. It took me all week to figure out how to caption a photo! It cut into my writing time, but I was on vacation, so it was alright.

Long story short, I saw many amazing things in the nature of Northern California that inspired me but my time has been so fragmented since we got home, I haven’t had time to put those thoughts into words.

Me inside a tree on our hike to Trillium Falls. Photo used with Permission by CJ Labuzzetta, 2023.

In the last few days of June and early July, we had visits at our cabin of friends and family and different times up until the 9th. On the 11th, we left for New York to make our quarterly visit to see my parents, who are still living in their own home outside of Brockport. It is from their beautiful yard that I write you now.

While I do not have a poem to share today, I have been participating in the summer poetry swap and received wonderful, creative pieces from Denise Krebs and Linda Mitchell. This group astounds me with their creativity – both with words and with creations made with other media. I can’t wait to hear from the rest of my swap-ees.

And that brings me to another subject. I am moving ahead with a writing project that I plan to author, and be the editor, and publisher for. It will be an anthology of nature poems set to photos, or in other words, ekphrastic poetry for children in grades five through nine. I am working out the final details and will be announcing them by the end of the month. There will be specific parameters to guide your submissions. Given that there are two more Poetry Fridays before we reach that time, be sure to check my posts for more details. The publication is planned for the first quarter of 2024.

This was our last stop on our California Trip. © Carol Labuzzetta, 2023.

Linda Mitchell at her blog A Word Edgewise is our round-up coordinator today. Be sure to check out her post and if it isn’t “enough” for you there will be lots of others contributing that she has linked for us. I had to laugh at her post because “ENOUGH” was my chosen OLW for this year!

Avenue of the Titans. © Carol Labuzzetta, 2023.

In lieu of a poem of my own today, I am linking another blog I came across that explores Walt Whitman’s Song of the Redwoods. It is worth a read.

Walt Whitman Sings the Song of the Redwoods

You can visit my Medium.com page at Carol Labuzzetta to view more of my writing on our California trip! Thanks.

View at Medium.com

18 thoughts

  1. Wow! What a fabulous trip…amazing photos. And, it was nice to see your smiling face from inside that great big tree. I love that your parents live outside of Brockport. That’s home territory for me. Thanks for the swap goodies! Oh, my goodness, you spoil me with treats. I love the package and will share at some point in the future when I can catch up with my own self. Hooray for a future publication. Can’t wait to see.

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    1. Oh, Joyce! Have you finished The Overstory? I enjoyed the book for the most part but in the end it go too political for me, but I remain grateful for people in real life that act as advocates for our trees, whether they are tree sitters or not.

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  4. Appreciations for including Walt W. And for your evocative images. Looking up up up at that one trunk, I feel it’s majesty & grateful that this woodland creature has survived so much. Words aren’t necessary here with these photos ~ the fotos are so emotion-pulling.
    All the best for. your independent parents & great about vacay time with your son. Our daughter will be working from home here [the clumping bamboo, fern & banana leaf garden & pool are attractions 🙂 ] some of August & we are eager for that.

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    1. Jan, Thanks so much for your thoughtful response! I agree – words are not really needed here – and the post might be more affective without them. My visit with my parents went well. I hope you enjoy your time with your daughter – sounds like she’s got the bug for native environments! Can you remind me where you are? It sounds like somewhere tropical! I love bamboo – we were able to hike in the bamboo forest on Maui last year.

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  6. Hi Carol! You are in my heartland! I’m born/raised in CA (live part time in the Sierras). We don’t have redwoods at this elevation , but we have majestic sugar pines, that live 400-500 years and are second only in volume to the sequoia. :). Looking forward to sharing more from the Sierras with you in our Summer Poetry Swap!

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    1. Thanks Patricia! I realized you were in CA somewhere from reading your posts but didn’t know where. It is a beautiful part of the country! Do you winter in AZ to get away from the snowfall? Just curious. I look forward to your swap and seeing some of your ekphrastic poetry!

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