Haha, I love the humor in this! It's great the way you've still kept the sort of, not sure how to describe it... "high-minded-ness" of the sijo style while still making something genuinely funny!

Yes, a lovely thought! I've always really enjoyed seeing the robins in late winter/early spring. Really special time of year! This is sort of the prequel to that. :)

Thank you very much! Kind of inspired by/my spin on: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hmH...

Beautiful! It's really interesting the way you talk about cold stirring the soul, and then later build to this theme of waiting and the change of seasons. Normally we think of spring as the change, but as this reminds, the impetus for that change begins in winter. The solstice is in December even!

Thank you so much! We're so lucky that our friends (broadly construed) choose to be the way they are. One could always be otherwise!

Haha, thank you! My first official double wow!

Thank you very much! Yes, that part was the main inspiration, when I saw that shadow while on a walk. It was such a striking thing! A profile can both hide and reveal so much.

Thank you very much! It is nice to be able to take a negative feeling you have and turn it into something positive! Or maybe, to reveal a bit of the positive in the negativity. Probably a bit of both!

Yes, well, we're always collaborating with others, whether we realize it or not! There's always some element of imitation in art, both of the world and of other artists!

Thank you! I would share whatever was going on when I wrote this, but I honestly can't remember it. Or at least, if I do remember it, I don't remember that this poem was written in connection with it...

Thank you, yes! It's good to learn to be patient and forgiving with even ourselves

Thank you! I think I was frustrated with myself when I wrote that. There is this feeling of knowing that you "knew better" but did something anyways... not anything major (thank goodness), but petty stuff, which kind of makes it even more frustrating! ("You lost your temper over *that*??")

Thank you! It can be hard to keep in mind what the "true enemy" is; its flagbearers in our world today loom so large. I certainly find myself thinking at times how much better things would be if so-and-so just died. And it might be, a bit, but only if we also do the positive work to make it so.

Thank you very much! It takes a lot of inspiration from this: www.goodreads.com/quotes/28734... , not quite enough overlap to call it a "remix", but the phrases and themes of that one certainly loom large behind those of mine

I *think* I occasionally saw things a little like it growing up, but much smaller, not nearly so spectacular. There is certainly a logic behind it; those shapes are quite far from random!