See Apricots: a Tanka Encompassing Three Prompts<\/a> for the prompts I’ll be using (if I use any at all) this month. To the extent possible, I’m determined to combine all three, plus the Blogging A to Z Challenge<\/a>, each day. That said, I reserve the right not to – despite my conviction that creativity thrives when challenged to overcome constraints.<\/p>\n I recommend reading the daily posts at each of these sites to get a fuller picture of the prompts, though I will summarize them here so you get the general idea:<\/p>\n Be sure to check out some of the Blogging A to Z blogs here<\/a>, too! And do leave comments – seriously, don’t be shy. Real people who still blog still love to get comments! Egg ’em on! I’m number 81 of 133 on the list, this year.<\/p>\n For day 2, my personal challenge is to write an “express poem” – again, not a form, but my interpretation of the word “express” – to “recount a childhood memory,” and to incorporate or be inspired by the word “ubiquitous.” And to start the title of this blog post, if not the poem itself, with the letter “B.”<\/p>\n Running barefoot I used line length to hopefully capture the child running, plopping into the grass, then the relative shortness of a bee’s life compared to a human’s memories of childhood.<\/p>\n Of course, there’s also the literal “expression” of joy in running barefoot outside on a sunny day, followed by pain and indignation of getting a bee sting in the child’s howling.<\/p>\n I chose not to use the word, itself, but to hint at it in the child’s plopping down right in the midst of bees and clover.<\/p>\n When I was little, we went to my grandfather’s company picnic. Everything in this poem is a simple recounting of what happened. What I didn’t mention in the poem is that his secretary was the first to hear my howl and ran over to help me. What I remember most vividly is her incredibly long nails. I had already yanked that poor bee right off its stinger, but the stinger was still stuck in my foot with its tiny venom sac still hanging from it like a teardrop. She pulled the stinger out with her nails, careful not to squeeze the sac so as not to deliver the full payload into my little foot. I have no idea how I only got stung once, by the way, other than sheer dumb luck, after I sat right in that large patch of clover!<\/p>\n Please, leave a comment, a poem, a prompt – I’d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Remembering some of the joys – and pains – of childhood and summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2717,2716,2788,2787,2779,2725,2772,2792,2728],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-a2zchallenge","tag-atozchallenge","tag-pad","tag-poem-a-day","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-prompts","tag-poets-northwest","tag-stafford-challenge"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 23:34:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990903"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990999,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990903\/revisions\/137990999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990903"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Bee Sting<\/h2>\n
\nthrough pink and white clover
\nheedless of anything but summer
\nsweat and sunshine, sweet lure
\nof lemonade, links on the grill –
\nsharp, sudden sting – howling –
\nbottom plop, right in a patch
\nof honeybees and shamrocks.
\nChildhood memories last
\na thousand lifetimes
\nlonger than a bee’s.<\/p>\nExpress<\/h2>\n
Ubiquitous<\/h2>\n
Childhood Memory<\/h2>\n
Other National Poetry Month Posts<\/h2>\n
Your Turn!<\/h2>\n