Purple flowers

In your weekly dose of fresh poetry #155 we explore signs and symbols

Detail of fireweed AKA Saint Anthony’s laurel

You can't miss
these purple flowers on
Alpine mountain sides, where the tree line
is so much closer than
sea level.

Growing up below sea level, the tree line - that demarcation of altitude where trees can no longer grow - was a mystical thing to me. I understood the concept, but it was hard to imagine how it looked.

Since then, I’ve visited the mountains several times and even walked around that tree-line-altitude. There are many things that are symbols for this concept, but to me, these purple flowers are the ones that signal that altitude to me more than most other things. Sure, they can be found at lower levels as well, but around 2000 meters up in the Alps, they are quite abundant. These flowers, known as fireweed and Saint Anthony’s laurel, symbolise high-altitude vacation to me.

Do you have things that symbolise fun experiences to you? Let me know in the comments.

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Poetics in life

What is poetry? An interesting question, but one we have no definitive answer to. To everybody, poetry means something different. So, it’s a question worth exploring. The answer below is from an interview I did with Leon Faesulis for the Cryptopoet of the Month series.

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Poetry elsewhere

Up in the mountains, the summer was delightful. Beautiful weather, but not too hot. Especially in summers like this one, where many places experience sweltering heat or extreme weather, that was a delight. But, the heat also brings forth beautiful poems. Like this one by

Anthony Tao

:

24 Hours, Summer Day

Would you recognise a poet if you’d come across one in the street? You might have an image of what we poets look like, but we might surprise you. The poet known as

26thAvenuePoet

has written some great pieces about that here:

Poet, Incognito

Poets are great at capturing culture. It’s in our nature to observe and interpret. And then find words to explain to the world what we think is happening. A wonderful example of this is the poem The Saga of Signore Punk: The Enchanted Emblem by Emanuel Souza.