Spring Archives - Improvised Life

‘ a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us’ (Ada Limon)

We were listening to music we’d “liked” long ago on SoundCloud and forgotten, when suddenly we heard the great Ada Limón‘ reading her poem, Instructions for Not Giving Up. It arrived with perfect timing.

Annals of Anonymous Art: Heart Writ in Cherry Blossoms (with Haiku)

Over the days that the bright pink cherry blossoms fell like snow around Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, two hearts formed out negative space appeared. We found the perfect Basho haiku to accompaniment them:

Solt’s Concrete Poem About Spring Celebrates Its Joyful Essence

In celebration of spring and all its possibilities and openings (and Easter and Passover), this remarkable poem-within-poem in the shape of forsythia by concrete poet Marry Ellen Solt…

‘When Everything in the World Has Been Lost But Soon We Will Find It Again’ (W.S. Merwin)

In his poetry, W.S. Merwin expressed what lies largely beyond our conscious mind, yet there, waiting to be recognized like this about the inbetween time before spring is fully apparent,

Timelapse Wonder of a Seed Sprouting: ‘Each Beginning Is the End of Waiting’ (Hope Jahrens)

‘Miraculous’ is what we think as watch a bean valiantly push through the soil to bloom into a full-grown plant in this lovely video. This revelatory hunk we found in Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl is a perfect accompaniment.

Instructions on Not Giving Up (Ada Limón)

Some time ago, we published a PDF Toolkit of Questions to Ask Before Giving Up. Perhaps as good or better is poet Ada Limón’s wondrous, to-the-point poem “Instructions on Not Giving Up”, which provides powerful instruction of another sort.

Spring Breakfast: A Perfect Boiled Egg with Toast Soldiers

This Sunday, we’ll celebrate Spring and Easter with a simple, of-the-season breakfast: soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers, and good coffee, inspired by Ellen Silverman’s Girl with Egg. Here’s how to make perfection out of something so simple.

Time to Enjoy Blossom Showers and Petal Snow

(Video link here.) The dazzling last gift of cherry and other trees in-flower right now is the “snow” that falls once the blossoms begin to die. We find ourselves walking under lovely showers of petals and finding wondrous patterns of them on the ground… … We’ve been watching them fall…on people on their way to work, sitting…

A Powerful Spring Poem with Robledo’s Wondrous Images

When we stumbled on this powerful little haiku, we thought right away of Maria Robledo’s wondrous flower assemblages…where we found another surprising haiku.

The Last of the Cherry Blossoms with Haiku

Last week’s wild weather knocked most of the glorious cherry blossoms off the trees. We found ourselves walking through a wondrous pink “snow”. We sent a photo of this surprising landscape to a few friends. Two sent back haiku to go with it.

Happy May Day!!!

There are many explanations for the symbolism of the maypole, around which people dance in celebration of May Day…Here are a few.

wishing you a happy easter, passover… spring

We’re wishing you a wondrous weekend celebrating Easter, Passover, or just….Spring. Our plan is to totally chill, take Monday OFF, sleep late and then eat some perfect soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, in honor of the season’s great ancient symbol of new life – and ideas- emerging… via Anonymous Works Related posts: d-i-y egg cups + recipe…

artichokes = spring is here! (revised) with recipe

Our friend Maria Robledo sent this wonderful photo with the message ‘Thinking of u’. It is one of the many messages we’ve gotten during the past week from friends and strangers who knew we’d lost dear ones recently, and traveled last weekend for a memorial service in the West Virginia Appalachians. Using dial-up internet connection,…