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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Daily Cascade
Since my old blog "Everyday Canvas "  became overfilled, here's a new one. This new blog item will continue answering prompts, the same as the old one.
Cool water cascading to low ground
To spread good will and hope all around.
February 1, 2026 at 2:03pm February 1, 2026 at 2:03pm
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Prompt:
“The trees were still leafless, and the land had the desolate look of a February that seemed never to end.”
Ernest Hemingway
Where you live now, what does February look like as it steps in?
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Where I am, today feels icy cold, even though it is South Florida on the first day of February. It is making me laugh at the travel commercials that claim warmth and fun under the sun to urge northerners to come to Florida. Last night, the temp went down to the 20s. Luckily, they have opened the shelters for those who may need it.
This cold, however, is not a regular February event in Florida, although it can happen only once in a decade or two. I mean the grass, today, is still green, and the trees have their leaves on. Except last night, I went out and wrapped plastic around my rose-bushes and some other baby seedlings.
As to the quote, it captures more of a mood than a moment in the season. It also points to the fluctuating sense of a winter, as if my world has paused now, waiting for permission to move forward. Although, it isn't anything like the northeast that I remember, where the snow piles darkened with road salt, lawns faded into dull straw, and rivers crept with rims of ice. But then, February has always been a month of contradiction.
It just maybe that climate shifts with sudden warm spells to be erased by a blast of Arctic air is the personality of February. It always makes me emotional, restless, and checking forecasts often. This was so when I lived up north and it still is the same down here in far south FL, especially today.
Yet, I know this is temporary and winters are known to test our patience, one way or another. I mean, maybe, where I am, we lack the desolate look of the frozen everything, the white of the snow, and stripped branches clawing at gray skies. Yet, the old man winter, even here, is trying to keep us on our toes for us not to get too smug with our more agreeable weather.
Still, just beyond all this, up north and everywhere, sap will rise, daylight will lengthen, and the new green life will rise up from its sleep. And if luck will happen to be on our side, we'll have a beautiful spring. everywhere.
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