Prompt 5: Laughter

This week's prompt of laughter comes from Scott the Poet at Poetic Leanings. Here's Scott's work:

Soothing
A million sunshines
Emanate from your laughter
When I can share it

Click here for an interesting resource on laughter and haiku.

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How to Participate in One Single Impression

• Post your poetry on your blog. This does not need to be today. You can post any time during the week.
  
• Come here and enter your link into Mr. Linky. Other participants can easily find you by clicking your name in Mr. Linky.
• Enjoy the beautiful poems of the other bloggers.
  
• There is a new Mr. Linky each week so you always have to sign up on the current one. Please do not sign your name on Mr. Linky unless you are participating in One Single Impression.
  
• Mr. Linky will remain here forever. A list of past themes is on the sidebar. You can check back at any time for information on a past theme.

Thank you and enjoy!

A Call for Prompts and Photos

One Single Impression would like to include the prompts, haiku, and photos of our participants as we encourage each other as writers of poetry and as human beings casting thoughtful eyes around our world. Please email us or leave a comment suggestion a prompt and providing a poem. We would be honored to showcase your work and a link back to your site.

Prompt 4: Spring

As we enjoy the official beginning of this season, our prompt is spring.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering.

Kobayashi Issa
In my old home
which I forsook, the cherries
are in bloom.

spring's begun--
the sky over my house too
like old times

Shrikant Varma
The first shower of rain
The sky has thrown
Its roots on earth

Photo credits:
above: Tree by Lissa of Just Words
below: Daisy by Jem of A Longing for the Impossible
Thank you!

Z Z Z Z Z

How to Participate in One Single Impression

Post your poetry on your blog. This does not need to be today. You can post any time during the week.

Come here and enter your link into Mr. Linky. Other participants can easily find you by clicking your name in Mr. Linky.

Enjoy the beautiful poems of the other bloggers.

There is a new Mr. Linky each week so you always have to sign up on the current one. Please do not sign your name on Mr. Linky unless you are participating in One Single Impression.

Mr. Linky will remain here forever. A list of past themes is on the sidebar. You can check back at any time for information on a past theme.

New! You can now subscribe to OSI with Mr. Linky. If you have a problem, please let me know.

New! Subscribe to the new OSI Calendar (see sidebar) and always have upcoming themes available.

We look forward to your suggestions for future themes.

Thank you to all of you who have sent us photos for future posts! They are just outstanding photos. We will be using them in the chronological order in which they were received.

Enjoy!

Site Updates and Requests

We have made a couple of updates on the site for you:

You can now subscribe to Mr. Linky for One Single Impression. It is no longer a "private meme." You will now be able to select OSI if you want to include it on your post. Of course, it is not necessary to do so.

We are publishing future themes as soon as we know them so that you can plan ahead.

There is a Google calendar that you can subscribe to with these themes on it (see the sidebar). You can have notifications mailed to you, have the calendar included in your own calendar, or pretty much anything else that you want.

And our requests?

If you have any photos of spring, please let us know. We need them for Sunday! I only use photos from my week. And right now (Friday evening) we are coming out of an honest-to-goodness blizzard. Our deep snow is only deeper and colder now. So help me out. Flowers, lambs, sunshine, green things are all appreciated!

What themes would you like to see in the future? Would you like to write the theme post? OSI is for all of us, and we love input.

I'm hoping your weekend is warm and safe. We are safe in Vermont. We sure aren't warm but we're happy being home after an awful weather day.

♥ Andree

Prompt 3: Circle

Eternal

Mandala

∏

Irrational
Transcendental
Constant

k k k k k k k

How to Participate in One Single Impression

• Post your poetry on your blog. This does not need to be today. You can post any time during the week.
  
• Come here and enter your link into Mr. Linky. Other participants can easily find you by clicking your name in Mr. Linky.
• Enjoy the beautiful poems of the other bloggers.
  
• There is a new Mr. Linky each week so you always have to sign up on the current one. Please do not sign your name on Mr. Linky unless you are participating in One Single Impression.
  
• Mr. Linky will remain here forever. A list of past themes is on the sidebar. You can check back at any time for information on a past theme.

Thank you and enjoy!

Prompt 2: Kindness

This week's prompt is kindness.
As an act of Buddhist kindness, Basho once ingeniously reversed a cruel haiku made up by his witty disciple.

Kikaku had said:
A red firefly
Tear off its wings
A pepper.

Basho substituted:
A pepper
Give it wings
A red firefly.



Basho again:
I wish to pluck fresh green leaves to wipe away your tears

k k k k k k k

How to Participate in One Single Impression

• Post your poetry on your blog. This does not need to be today. You can post any time during the week.
  
• Come here and enter your link into Mr. Linky. Other participants can easily find you by clicking your name in Mr. Linky.
• Enjoy the beautiful poems of the other bloggers.
  
• There is a new Mr. Linky each week so you always have to sign up on the current one. Please do not sign your name on Mr. Linky unless you are participating in One Single Impression.
  
• Mr. Linky will remain here forever. A list of past themes is on the sidebar. You can check back at any time for information on a past theme.

Thank you and enjoy!

Wow! and Mr. Linky Is Gone For Just A Moment

I'm sorry but I'm working with Mr. Linky to resolve an inconvenience that has popped up with the Mr. Linky widget. It will be back and all your names will be back. I promise!

I think I have everybody on the blogroll now. I think I have all the links in the sidebar that everyone has requested. If I have overlooked anybody at all, let me know! Getting the e-mail, feeds, links and blogroll all setup is easy enough but requires a personality that does well filing away information in folders in an e-mail client. I don't do well with that.

Can you believe that this blog averages over 100 visitors a day after less than a week? We had over 40 participants to the Change prompt and it may go higher. Sandy is all ready with Sunday's prompt. And I am going to do the March 16 prompt! I'm psyched.

Most importantly, thank you to all of you for your words of kindness and support. I have gotten so many wonderful e-mails that I am awed by this community. I am also so impressed by the poetry and artwork that I have seen this week. Sandy is sick with the flu, but I know for a fact that she feels the same way because she wrote me to tell me so.

What I read for Change was so good, in fact, that I am wondering how we can archive every single participant's poetry and art. Do you have any ideas? I don't want any poems to be lost in time. Blogs come and blogs go for reasons that we often have no control over. So if you have an idea of how we can keep a permanent record of our work, please leave a comment.

♥ Thank you again from the bottom of my heart — Andrée

Prompt #1: Change

The first prompt for One Single Impression is change.

As we worked together to create this blog to pick up where One Deep Breath has left off, change seemed an obvious choice for the first prompt. This blog reflects change as much it reflects a desire for continuity — especially the continuation of blogger relationships in the online poetry community. Focusing on the interests of a group and creating an inviting atmosphere is a change from the solo act of a personal blog.

As we embrace the challenges that come with change we also lean on old certainties. It's wonderful to transform a potential loss as an opportunity for growth. Thanks for being a part of the change!

Here are a few of Basho's haiku for inspiration.

Pommeling hail —
like the old oak,
I never change.

Do not forget the plum,
Blooming
in the thicket.

Wake, butterfly –
it’s late, we’ve miles
to go together.

Here is one from Akutagawa, Ryunosuke:

Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering.

k k k k k k k

How to Participate in One Single Impression

• Post your poetry on your blog. This does not need to be today. You can post any time during the week.
  
• Come here and enter your link into Mr. Linky. Other participants can easily find you by clicking your name in Mr. Linky.
• Enjoy the beautiful poems of the other bloggers.
  
• There is a new Mr. Linky each week so you always have to sign up on the current one. Please do not sign your name on Mr. Linky unless you are participating in One Single Impression.
  
• Mr. Linky will remain here forever. A list of past themes is on the sidebar. You can check back at any time for information on a past theme.

Thank you and enjoy!