Author: Sally

Earliest Memories · family · poetry

One fish, two fish

Sally21 Comments

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be–
I had a Mother who read to me.

~~ Strickland Gillilan

My mother read to me.
She read and read and read.
She taught me to read, maybe so I would stop the pestering.
One memory, small but big, was a time I asked her to read One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
For the 729th time
And she sighed, like she didn’t really want to read it, but she did.
I loved this book.
It wasn’t the intricate plot.
It was rhyming words, silliness, and a mother who read it to me over and over.

One fish
Two fish
Red fish
Blue fish

Love to look (fish)
In a book (fish)

Love to read (fish)
“MORE!” I plead (fish)

Snuggle, snuggle next to Mom
Dr. Seuss? He is the BOMB!

Reading ’til my eyes grow bleary
Marguerite Henry, Beverly Cleary
Jim Kjelgaard, H. A. Rey
I think I could read books all day

Late at night, late at night
I get out my big flashlight
Hiding underneath bedsheets
I wander down literary streets

Mixed Up Files,
Desert isles,
Big Red, Misty
Bring me smiles

It all began with
One fish, two fish
My love for reading
Grew and grew (fish)

The W3 prompt this week is to base your piece, a mix of prose and poem, on a childhood memory. I remember my mom reading to me.

SCN_0276
Peter, Mom, and me
fiction

Fairy Tales

Sally16 Comments

“Here’s my idea for a story,” Jakob said. “A girl with long hair gets locked in the tower.”

Wilhelm scoffed. “That sounds dumb.”

“No, listen! She’s locked up there and she lets her hair down for people to climb up.”

“Climbing up hair? That’s ridiculous!”

“It’s magical hair.”

“That’s even dumber. Magic hair. Besides, there’s a stairwell right there.” Wilhelm pointed to the door at street level.

“What if,” Jacob said, “she was locked up there with a bunch of straw and spinning wheel? What if she had to spin the straw into gold?”

“What if she pricked her finger on the spindle and fell asleep?”

“What if the whole country fell asleep?”

“What if a frog hopped up and kissed her?”

“No, no — it should be a prince.”

“The frog could turn into a prince!” Wilhelm suggested.

“You thought magic hair sounded dumb. Listen to your ideas. Frogs kissing people and turning into princes! Pshaw!”

The two boys walked slowly out of the city in silence.

Suddenly they both stopped.

“What if…” they said at exactly the same time, and then both started laughing.

“What if it was just a story about kids walking in the woods?” Jacob suggested.

“Yeah! And they find a house made of gingerbread with icing and all?”

“How about walking to Grandma’s house and meeting a wolf?” Jacob said.

“That could be scary,” said Wilhelm.

“Really scary,” said Jacob. “Let’s try to write that one.”

With that, the Grimm brothers headed for home.

A struggle — but it’s done!

Unicorn Challenge — no more than 250 words launched from the photo prompt


poetry

Garden Fresh

Sally18 Comments

Summer foods
Summer eats
Fresh wholesome
Tasty treats

Green beans – yum!
Dangling down
Pick and eat
Best all ’round

Cucumber
Love to munch
Garden yield
Fresh raw [crunch]

Yellow squash
Sliced, sauteed
Seasoned well
Makes the grade

Corn on cob
Freshly picked
Butter, salt
So perfect

Summer foods
Summer eats
Fresh wholesome
Tasty treats

This poem is a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire.  I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

The W3 prompt this week is to write a food-related poem in any form. Okay, I thought, I’ll just write down everything I eat for the day and make a poem about it. Here was my first verse:

Farmstand egg
Whole wheat toast
Smoked Gouda
It’s the most

But I realized that almost everything else I ate was garden-related, so I nixed my egg sandwich and just put verses in that involved fresh produce.

fiction · poetry

Cloudy Gray Dullness

Sally11 Comments

The sky was a cloudy gray dullness making dreary the town.   
The sun in that nondescript dismal wore no smiley face but a frown   
The road was a convoy of autos over the drab green moor,   
And the snake oil man came driving—
Driving—driving—
The snake oil man came driving, up to Hotel Moderne door.

He’d a cowboy hat on his forehead, a bolo below his chin,   
A coat of angus leather, and Levis of blue denim.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots had those pointy toes.   
And he drove his Lexus Hybrid,
His shiny red Lexus Hybrid,
His brand new Lexus Hybrid, thus none could admire his clothes.

Through the streets he piloted and steered his pretentious wheels.
He waved out the window and honked his horn, but no one fell head over heels.   
He parked his car at the hotel, and who should be waiting there –  
But the town’s lone policeman,
Jeff, the only policeman,
Ready to write a citation and do it with quite a flair.

The con artist’s brow – it furrowed – as he looked at the cloudy sky
Then looked at the Jeff, the policeman. “I’ve got something you want to buy. 
It’ll make the sky turn sunny on such a dismal day.”  
But Jeff wrote out a citation
A rather costly citation
Yes, Jeff wrote out a citation that the shyster had to pay.

What’s the citation for, you ask? Could be a bunch of different things. You know the type.

Honestly, I don’t know though. I write not knowing where I’m going. Then that dang 250 word limits bites. I hit 227 words and knew I couldn’t squeeze another Highwayman verse in with only 23 words remaining.

Yes, this is my contribution to the Unicorn Challenge. Write no more than 250 words using the photo prompt.

My apologies to Alfred Noyes who wrote the amazing melodramatic poem, “The Highwayman,” the first long story poem I fell in love with and memorized.

poetry

Hip Pain Sucks

Sally11 Comments

When I rise up from sitting down to standing
My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that!”
But I’m active — and I’m sick of where I’ve sat
I actually love the physically demanding!
My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that”
When I rise up from sitting down to standing

This was a tough challenge for me! The W3 challenge this week is to write a biolet. A biolet is a six line poem in which the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines, however in reverse. The rhyme scheme can be expressed as ABbaBA (with the capital letters representing the repeated lines).

Additionally, Sadje challenged us to use the theme of love/hate. I love being physically active. I hate the way this stupid hip pain is keeping me from being as active as I usually am.

fiction

Homonyms

Sally9 Comments

“What makes shadows?”

“The sun is blocked by something and that makes the shadow.”

“There’s no sun inside and there are still shadows.”

“Okay — light is blocked, and that makes shadows.”

[quiet thinking]

“Light is a funny word, isn’t it, Mom?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Light is like a light bulb and shines, but it’s also like something that’s not heavy.”

“Those are called homonyms. Like ‘I’ [points to herself] and ‘eye’ [points to her eye].”

“But those aren’t spelled the same.”

“No, homonyms just have to sound the same. Sometimes they are spelled exactly the same – like a bat that flies and a bat that’s used in baseball. They are two very different things.”

[laughing] “It would be funny if I played baseball with a bat bat.” [flaps arms] “I found one yesterday.”

“Don’t touch bats if you find one.”

“Not even a baseball bat?”

“What kind of bat did you find?”

“A bat bat.”

“Don’t touch them. They carry rabies.”

“What’s rabies?”

“It’s a really bad sickness.”

“Like the flu?”

“Kind of, but –“

“WAIT! That’s a homo-thing! ‘Flu’ – like when I was sick, and ‘flew’ like the bat did.”

“The bat flew away? Did you touch it?”

“Dickie did.”

“Dickie?”

“The new kid. Richard. He wants to be called Dick.”

“I need to talk to his par–“

“WAIT! That’s a homo-thing, too! Dick, like his name and dick, like Mr. Dinkleheimer sometimes says about his –“

“Enough. Let’s talk about the shadows some more, okay?”

My contribution to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge is no more that 250 words based on the photo prompt.

I rather strayed from that photo prompt and tried to make my way back to it, but dog-gone these kids!

Of course, I didn’t get homonym-homophone right either. Don’t judge me.

poetry

Kittens?

Sally9 Comments

It hit me when I saw them play
That fuzzy tumbling adorable ballet
Of baby animals. I was smitten
But — they’re just a kittens!

Okay — not kittens. Tiny webbed feet
Downy feathers, little bills, complete
The picture — Gosh! I’m smitten!
They COULD be a kittens

Actually, I could call them a litter
But they’re a brood, all a-skitter
In the lake. I’m smitten
But no — not kittens!

These ducklings make me laugh and smile
No agenda. No politics. No guile.
Just joyful play. I was as smitten
As if they were kittens.

I’ve been swimming in the lake. Of course, I can’t take pictures of the ducklings while I’m swimming, but sometimes when I see them, all I think is that they’re just like kittens — except they don’t have fur and claws and whiskers. Instead they have fuzzy feathers, webbed feet and bills. Other than that they’re pretty much exactly the same.

This is in response to David’s W3 prompt to write a poem about something that amuses you. Ducklings amuse me. So do kittens.

fiction

Spawning

Sally12 Comments

“Do fish have mothers and fathers?”

“Yes. All animals have both mothers and fathers.”

“Dogs?”

“Yes.”

“Elephants?”

“Yes.”

“Frogs?”

“Yes.”

“Caterpillars?”

“Yes, but a caterpillar is a stage in the life of a butterfly.”

“Butterflies aren’t born from other butterflies?”

“Not exactly. The mother lays eggs and a little tiny caterpillar hatches out.”

“Oh, yeah! The Very Hungry Caterpillar! You used to read that book to me!”

“Right! Remember the caterpillar eats and eats and eats, then makes a chrysallis. Then a butterfly hatches out of the chrysallis.”

“How does that happen?”

“Magic.”

“Where’s the dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“The mother lays eggs, but where’s the dad?”

“Hmmm…. well…. I think the mother butterfly and the father butterfly meet each other before the eggs are laid.”

“Like a date?”

“Kind of.”

“Does he get to meet them after they become butterflies?”

“Caterpillars and butterflies don’t meet their parents.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes, life is sometimes sad.”

“How about fish? Do fish get to meet their fathers?” [pointing to a sign on a food truck that say “The Codfather.”]

“I don’t know.”

“Do fish have a caterpillar stage?”

“Fish hatch out of eggs.”

“As fish?”

“As larva. I suppose kind of like swimming caterpillars.”

“What about the mother and father. Do they visit each other first?”

“It’s called spawning. The mother lays a bunch of eggs that the dad visits.”

“That’s weird. Does the mother fish ever meet the dad?”

“You’re wearing me out.”

“What about people? How does that work?”

This is my response to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge is simple — no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.

Here you get to eavesdrop on another mother-son conversation.

poetry

The Story of a Clock

Sally17 Comments

There once was a clock FULL of faces
In a restaurant — sheesh — of all places
So loud and so rude
While folks ate their food
Non-existent was homeostasis

So the chef there (whose name was Bill)
Finally reached his fill
Of its public emotions
(louder than oceans)
That he “accidentally” dropped it on the grill

As the clock sizzled and screamed
Bill literally stood by and beamed
Ahh — peace at last
(It happened quite fast!)
Ambiance returned, redeemed

Well, look at me — whipping a limerick or three on the day the prompt was posted.

This is in response to the W3 prompt — and what a great one it is! — to write a limerick based on the photo prompt.

Faith · Life · Sermon Recap

Crippling Grace (and a sermon recap)

Sally2 Comments

There’s a poem I’ve read over every morning for the past week or so — mostly because I’m still not sure I’ve unpacked it. I probably never will. It’s called “No accident” by Norman MacCaig. Here are some bits from to give you the gist:

Walking downhill from Suilven (a fine day, for once)
I twisted a knee…

I didn’t mind so much. Suilven’s a place
… [where] a heaven’s revealed, in glimpses.
Grace is a crippling thing. You’ve to pay for grace.

The heaven’s an odd one…
…hiding
Forevers and everywhere in every thing — including
A two-mile walk, even, and a crippled knee.

You reach it by revelation. Good works can’t place
Heaven…
…in the hard truth that, if only by being
First in a lower state, you’ve to pay for grace.

“You’ve to pay for grace.” I think those words bothered me, because Christianity teaches that grace is free.

But Sunday’s sermon was from 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh.” I’m sure it wasn’t a twisted knee. I know the scholars propose an eye affliction. But I don’t think Paul is saying anything much different from Norman MacCaig, though, when he says that God’s grace is sufficient and that power is made perfect in weakness. (1 Cor 12:9)

My take-away from the sermon was this quote from Fr. Nathan — “Our weaknesses, our scars, our really big wounds — these are the places where God can work in our lives.”

I needed to hear that reminder. The challenges in our life are how we pay for grace — or God pays for it. It’s where He works.