I'm a Poet and You Didn't Know It

Or maybe you did, especially if you knew me in high school or read this post from last February.  Well, either way, you're about to see a lot more from me.  Despite me not being able to keep up with the March Photo Challenge, I decided to do NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, for April because of the theme being Poetry.  It doesn't just cover writing and sharing your own poems, it's also sharing other poems that have touched you, but I'm going to at least start out with my own work.  I may write some new ones, or I may just post older ones.  We'll just have to see where the month takes us!

When I was in high school, we had a poet-in-residence come for several weeks each year to do a weekly poetry workshop.  She would give us prompts to work from, and each week after the first would start with reading the poems that had been written the previous week (she would collect them at the end to type up and share).  This first poem I wrote my sophomore year, in response to a prompt of different ways to describe yourself, including as an animal, a color, a force of nature, an emotion, a sound, etc.

Portrait

I am blue, calm and peaceful,
  yet also red, fiery and hot.
I am sweet when you have me,
  but bitter when you lose me.
I am the sounds of birds, singing in the trees--
  the sweet song of the robin,
  the harsh caw of the raven.
I am the doe, running wild though others seek me.
I am the rain, saving some, killing others.
I am the daughter of the ocean--
  beautiful on the surface,
  turbulent beneath.
I am the dream of love.