This gorgeous picture prompted my poem, "Glory Be to God for Wild-Colored Things," with a little help from Gerard Manley Hopkins, of course. The picture's the work of Carlos Jauhola-Straight, my pastor at South Church here in Concord, NH. The photograph and the garden are his art, along with the soothing of troubled souls. As usual, you'll find the complete poem here and an excerpt below.

Glory Be to God for Wild-Colored Things

For petals, veiny pink as candy hearts, as

Easter eggs. And amethyst, called semi-precious.

For the steep heart of the cone flower, where Bee

balances on an orange shade that shifts when I move my head. Magenta.

              Mauve....



Here's my list of incentives, just in case you'd like to help keep me busy.
:

For $5: Choose five words and I will write a poem for you using those words.

For $10: Email me a photograph or a link to a painting. I’ll write a poem about what that it makes me see, feel, imagine or remember.

For $20: Send me the title of a poem. (Find it. Create it.) Then I have to write the poem.

For $25: Tell me your birthday—day, month and year—I’ll write a poem about that day. If you want to leave off the actual year of birth, fine. I’ll choose my own year and you’ll still get a poem connected to your birthday.

For $25: Choose a subject or a place and I’ll write the poem.

For $50: I’ll make you an illustrated chapbook of a selection of six poems 

written during this challenge (you pick) and I’ll mail it to you by the end of September.