Ichibon – Our First Cat

November 26, 2023 Sally12 Comments

“Can I have a little kitty?” I asked my dad one day.
My mother put me up to it; she knew what he would say.
When I had first asked her, she said, “You need to ask your dad.”
The thought of having NO kitten made me rather sad –
So in my simple six-year-old heart, I began to pray.

When I first saw those kittens, much to my dismay,
The lady said to ask my mom and I knew I must obey
So I asked my mom with every ounce of sweetness that I had —
Can I have a little kitty?

My father loved to tell this tale. I can hear him now portray
How this funny freckled blonde-haired girl stole his heart away
With such a simple question — and he would often add
“How could I say no to that?” Yes, he would be a cad
To deny his own dear daughter the joy that came with one “Okay”
Can I have a little kitty?

The cat’s name was Ichibon. We lived on an army base at the time, and the family with the kittens had recently returned from a stint in Japan. Ichibon means #1 in Japanese, and she was allegedly the first kitten born in the litter.

Ichibon was first in a long long string of cats in my life. Today, I have an obese cat who doesn’t understand that he’s supposed to be a working cat and taking care of the mice in this house — but that’s probably a poem for another day.

This is response to the W³ prompt this week:

Write a rondeau inspired by a childhood memory

15 lines long;
Three stanzas:
- a quintet (five-line stanza);
- a quatrain (four-line stanza);
- and a sestet (six-line stanza);
Rhyme scheme: aabba aabR aabbaR.
Refrain: L9 and L15
- The refrain (R) is short;
- The refrain (R) consists of a phrase taken from L1;
All the other lines are longer than R and share the same metrical length.

Life Choices

October 30, 2023 Sally11 Comments

“There’s an awful lot of sighing going on over there,” said my pew-mate at church yesterday.

She was right.

I carry my cares in my shoulders and my breathing. Multiple times during the worship service I had realized my shoulders were tight and that I was holding my breath. I would force my shoulders down in faux-relaxation and exhale slowly. Apparently it didn’t go unnoticed.

We talked for a few minutes afterwards and her words were so helpful. To have the right person with the right words show up at the right moment is truly a gift.

Then I made a great life choice — carve pumpkins with my granddaughter.

Sometimes a life choice is something big — where to go to college, who to spend my life with, where to settle down and live.

More often it’s something small — what do I do this month, this week, this day, this moment.

Carving pumpkins, eating roasted pumpkins — sometimes that is the very best life choice.

family · poetry

Parenting Advice?

September 14, 2023 Sally30 Comments

Hmmm…. Advice?
Parenting is not precise!
My counsel is, hit or miss,
This:

Hold children
With open hands. To build one
Up until they are strong, free —
See?

They travel,
Grow, change, at times unravel
These are things you always knew —
True?

Kids succeed,
Fail, succeed again, agreed?
As parents we give a base,
Space –

Both vital.
This is more than a title,
This whole mom-dad-parent thing.
Bring

An open
Mind and heart. Give (un)spoken
Acceptance to any mess –
Yes?

Yes! Because
No matter what the thing was,
Your child should be loved by you.
True.

This is in response to the W³ prompt this week:

Write an Ekphrastic Poem based on the photo of August Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ with the theme of parenting.

I’m not sure how ekphrastic my poem is.

I tried using another Irish form called Deibide Baise Fri Toin.

The poem is made up of quatrains with an aabb rhyme scheme. Syllable count 3-7-7-1. Lines one and two rhyme on a two-syllable word; lines three and four rhyme on a monosyllabic word.

family · poetry

Inheritance

July 21, 2023 Sally17 Comments

In
Eighteen
Ninety-four
Great-grandmother
Pedersen arrived
In the United States
From Denmark with three dollars
And four children under the age
Of seven to join her husband who
Was a tailor working outside Boston

Her super-power: hospitality
Her home became a hub where Danish
Women gathered to drink coffee
And converse with each other
Without all the mental
Gymnastics that go
With translation
They relaxed
And smiled
[sigh]

My
Mother
Received that
Super-power
Hosting dinners and
Welcoming newcomers
And people in need to our
Home, church, and the community
She made it look so very easy
I thought I had missed that DNA

One day I was sitting at my desk when
A person peeked around the corner
“Can I talk to you?” he asked me
“Of course,” I said, so he came
In the office and told
Me a small story
A wee sliver
Of something
That was
large

I
sat and
I listened
To his words, awed
That he had chosen
Me to share his thoughts with
One day a woman sat down
With me and she started to cry
She told a wee sliver of her story
And I listened, gently holding her tale

They come. I listen. So many people
Some sad, some angry, some joyful, some tired
They all share different stories
“You should get paid for this,”
One man said to me
He doesn’t know
It is my
Super-
Pow’r

This is a double etheree times three. Does that make is a sextuple etheree?

An etheree is a syllabic poem — 10 lines with syllable counts 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. A double etheree has 10 more lines, counting back down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

For the record, I work at a gym and when I’m in the office, I sell memberships.

And listen.

This is in response to this week’s W³ prompt: Write a poem of any style and any length on the topic of “Power.”

Blather · family · Life

Saturday Blather

May 20, 2023 Sally4 Comments

I should have taken pictures last weekend — at the very least, a photograph of the big stick we moved into the storage unit.

Yep, we stored a stick. It’s actually a tall dried stalk of bamboo.

“It’s a staff,” Mary said.

Someone had given it to her. It was cool. She said all that, too.

I agree. It was kind of cool. But when I saw the prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday — stick — it hit me that we had stored a stick.

I’m sure there are worse things out there in storage units. I don’t even want to think about that.

But photographs from my road trip last week were limited to one, which I’ll share in a sec.

I drove to Virginia to pick up her from college. Last year, when it came to moving out, there had been tears. Not the I’m-sad-that-I’m-leaving-school variety. More the I’m-overwhelmed-with-this-process variety.

Packing up and moving is a tough business, don’t you think?

But we successfully emptied the dorm room, stored some stuff in a shared storage unit (including a stick/staff), loaded up the car, and headed home. Without any tears.

I didn’t take a single picture of that process. In fact, I only took one photo — I promise, I’ll share it soon, but it’s really nothing great so don’t build up your hopes.

I wish I had taken a picture of the view from the stables. The school has a riding program, and one of the storage unit sharers was up at the stable when we went to get the key.

First, I love horses. Such beautiful animals. We visited some of the horses in the barn, then Mary’s friend walked us out and pointed out some in the pastures. Beautiful, beautiful animals out grazing in beautiful Virginia fields. The fields were dotted with trees leafing out, flowers blooming, and horse nibbling at the grass while swishing away the flies with their long beautiful tails. I really should have taken a photograph.

Here’s a photograph (nope, still not the one) documenting my early love of horses. I think I was three years old.

And here’s another one (still not the one) showing my continued love of horses. I was maybe ten years old?

Without further ado, I should just show you the picture I took last weekend. Honestly, this is the problem with Stream of Consciousness writing. You start off thinking that you’re going one place and then you end up in another place entirely.

We had just loaded up the car and Mary had run in for one check. I was waiting outside the dorm and started to read the plaque there. It was from 1955 when the dorm was built. The reason I took the picture was to remind me of how far we’ve come. At this all women’s college in 1955, all the married women on the plaque are swallowed up by their husbands’ names. The unmarried women still have their first names. The married ones do not.