Where did the day go? - a haiku

Today's poem is short and sweet: a haiku. 

I woke to the light

Shining through my window, then

I blinked. Now it's night.

Memories

This poem is for Day 2 of NaPoWriMo. 

Memories
By Candace Shultz 

I reach for a memory:
Laughing with friends,
Running through the sand,
The sun shining on my face,
My skin reddened from ultraviolet rays.

But the memory fades
Like sand sifting between my fingertips.

When I was young, I never thought to
Grasp onto those memories,
Never imagined bright, sunny days
Turning into hazy afternoons
Casting shadows on my memories. 

Even though my young self seems far away,
I still find her in the mirror,
Her eyes crinkled with the laughter
From a life fulfilled.

I Worry - a tanka

Today is Day 1 of NaPoWriMo 2026, and I wrote a tanka, as prompted by https://www.napowrimo.net/go/.

I Worry
By Candace Shultz

Shadows whisper in
between the dark spaces of
one thought to the next. 
I reach for rays of hope as
worries delve deep in my mind.

A Good Night's Sleep

Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo 2024! For my final poem this month, I followed the prompt to compare or identify the speaker of my poem with someone from myth. I compared my speaker with a goddess of the day, who I considered in my mind to be Hemera (Greek mythology) or even Eos (goddess of the dawn). I hope you enjoy my last poem of NaPoWriMo 2024!

A Good Night's Sleep
By Candace Shultz

Oh, Hypnos, god of slumber,
Come carry me off into the deep
Embrace of Mother Nature's umber
Earth and verdant greenery.
Allow me the deep dark abyss of sleep.

Goddess Nyx has brought the night.
Morpheus waits to bring me a dream.
Let me bask in the heavenly starlight
And rest like a sleeping beauty
Until kissed by a morning sunbeam.

Then the sleepy dust will leave my eyes
As I awake with a yawn.
From my slumber I will rise
Like a goddess of the day,
Shining bright as I greet the dawn.

Let the beauty of the night
Give way to morning's light.

Incandescent

You can find today's NaPoWriMo prompt here, but basically I had to choose one word out of a list of ten words to use as the title for my poem. I chose the word incandescent. My poem is a haiku.

Incandescent
By Candace Shultz

At the end of day
when the sun's incandescence
disappears, I sleep

Sun-Kissed

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sijo, which is a Korean verse form with three lines consisting of 14-16 syllables each. The following poem is my attempt at writing a sijo.

Sun-Kissed
By Candace Shultz

The sun beats down on her skin and smothers her with its heat.
Her bare skin reddens and burns under the glare of harsh yellow rays.
She rolls onto her stomach and sighs. For beauty she would die.

A Mother's Love

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write an American sonnet, which has 14 lines likes a traditional sonnet, but doesn't have a rhyme scheme or meter. Here is my attempt at writing an American sonnet.

 

A Mother's Love
By Candace Shultz

A picture on the wall of fragmented flowers
With purple petals and dark green leaves
Stuck together one sticker at a time,
A purple painting with smiling clouds
Placed beside a poem written with love,
Purple thistles and red dandelions drawn
Next to red roses painted with celery ends:
A collage of art created by youthful exuberance
Embraced and displayed by a mother's love
For her children, a love with no limits.
If the sky were a canvas, she would fill it
With pictures and paintings and poetry
And all the creations of her children
To show her love and joy for them to the world.