poetry

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Sally8 Comments

I close my eyes to the darkness
It’s easier that way to not see
The suffocating night
With its lack of light
Where even shadows can’t be
It’s a deafening deaf abyss

Open your eyes; find the light

Sticking my head in the sand
I can neither see nor hear
Nor taste nor smell
Nor live my life
’tis its own hell
Sans peace, sans strife
This existence of living in fear —
I must be willing to stand

Open your eyes; find the light

I rise and lift my head high
I open my eyes to the dark
A slim shaft of light
A glimmer, yet bright
Catches my eye like a spark —
Engagement is how I defy

Open your eyes; find the light

This is my submission to this week’s W3 challenge.

Kerfe challenged us to write a bop poem titled “Instructions on Not Giving Up.“

A bop poem has three stanzas and a refrain that repeats after each stanza. It tells a story or explores a problem, a bit like a mini-drama.

  1. First stanza – 6 lines
    Present a problem or situation.
  2. Refrain
    A single line that repeats after each stanza. Think of it as the poem’s chorus.
  3. Second stanza – 8 lines
    Expand on or explore the problem in more depth.
  4. Refrain
    Repeat the same line.
  5. Third stanza – 6 lines
    Show a solution or a failed attempt to solve the problem.
  6. Refrain
    Repeat it one last time.

The other night I listened to an artist describing her process. She said that painting has taught her to look for the light. I need to remember to do that.

Homeschool · poetry · prayer

At the Beginning

Sally20 Comments

At the beginning
Of my journey into conservative Christianity
I heard this sermon:

“If Christians were rounded up and put on trial, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

And I thought, Of course there would be. I know my Bible. I pray. I have memorized countless verses.

But then, at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, when Christians were condemning homosexuals and saying this disease was proof of God’s judgment on their immoral lifestyle, my brother, a Presbyterian minister, honored people with AIDS and their caregivers by having a dinner for them at his church. I thought about that action for years. Now there’s a conviction.

In the middle
Of my thirty years of homeschooling
I heard a homeschool convention speaker say:

“Ninety percent of homeschoolers vote in national elections when they are old enough to vote. That fact alone should have politicians shaking in their boots.”

And I thought, That’s a pretty remarkable fact. That’s a lot of power. Dear God, may they use it wisely.

But then, I watched my own homeschool convention heroes fall one by one. Joshua Harris renounced his faith. Cheryl Lindsey was excommunicated. Doug Phillips had an affair. They all are, after all, very human. And that voting power is a little scary.

And now,
I watch “Christians”
Wielding a sword and showing no love.

Dear God, I pray, convict me of compassion. May there be evidence of that in my life. Not power. Not judgment. Just kindness.

This is my submission to SoCS where the challenge was to write a stream-of-consciousness post using the words, “at the beginning.“

It’s also a response to the W3 Challenge this week in which the poet of the week challenged us to use one or both of the following images and write Prosimetrum or Versiprose: both forms combine alternating passages of prose and verse.

poetry

The Statue of Liberty

Sally14 Comments

The water laps at Liberty Island
Give me
Your tired
Your poor
New York bustles on the mainland
Huddled
Masses
Yearning
My friend huddles in her home
O Mother of Exiles
Lift your lamp
Amen

This is in response to this week’s W3 challenge. The italicized words are all from The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus which appears on a plaque inside the base of the Statue of Liberty. The poem is familiar and haunting.

I have a friend who is a naturalized citizen. I met her at the gym where I work and have known her for her journey as an immigrant — the trips back to her home country to see her children and to bring food; finally being able to bring her children to live here in the USA; studying, taking, and passing the citizenship exam; buying a home here.

I hadn’t seen her in a while so I asked a mutual friend about her.

“She works [at her housekeeping job] and goes straight home every day,” the friend said. “When she gets home, she cooks and eats. She has put on a lot of weight, so now that’s another reason not to come to the gym.”

I asked why, although I was pretty sure that I knew the answer.

“She’s afraid.”

I understood that also. She looks Hispanic (because she is). Her English is heavily-accented, and gets worse under pressure.

I understand her fear.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

We have so lost our way.

fiction

Sea Air

Sally5 Comments

The sea air brought the relief for which I had been hoping.

“O lies! Damned lies!” I had cursed, thinking back on the incident that had driven me to these travels. I was simply doing my job, putting together a write-up for social media. The last things I needed were a photo and biography.

I stopped at the studio, snapped a photo, and went home to my computer, but there I struggled to log in. “Where did my PIN go?” I asked. Without it, I couldn’t post anything.

The artist accused me of sabotage. “Lies!” I told him. “Those are damned lies!”

He scowled back at me. “You’ve ruined everything: the paintings, my reputation and biography!”

“Sea air’ll ‘elp you,” my Cockney neighbor said. He had been correct. The weekend away was what I needed.

It wasn’t just the air. It was the sound of the gulls and the waves, the salty smell, the sand, shells, and dunes. It was the absence of people.

When I came back, I found legal documents shoved through my mail-slot. Some were messages from the police saying they needed to talk to me. Some were nasty-grams from the artist. My troubles hadn’t gone away.

“Did ‘e ‘elp you?” asked my neighbor.

“Who?” I replied.

“Sea air,” he said.

“I went to the shore. It was wonderful,” I said, “but I didn’t see anyone there.”

“No!” My neighbor said, “Cee ‘ee Ayr! ‘e’s really good at this stuff. Do ya need ‘is contact info?”

This is my weak attempt at the Unicorn Challenge. I’m still reeling from the news that this was the penultimate Unicorn Challenge. Next week will be the last one.

Of course, they tried to put a positive spin on things. “Look!” they said. “CE Ayr wrote a book! You can order it on Amazon!”

So I hid the name of his book a couple of times in this post and fought the urge to add an “e” to CE Ayr’s name.

And I’m not even going to tell you the rules for the Unicorn Challenge — that the post can’t be more than 250 words and we have to use the photo for inspiration — because next week it will all be over.

In the meantime, I’ll just cry myself to sleepe.

poetry

Magniloquent (not)

Sally1 Comment

Mechanical? I am not!
Any cogs? Not in my brain!
Gears clinking? Pshaw! I forgot –
No – machinery’s a bane
I truly don’t get motors.
Laugh at my utter absence
Of comprehension.  Rotors?
Quite a puzzle. I’ve no sense!  
Use this gizmo? Okay — yes
Explain its operation?
No way! — I’d rather address
This flow’r than mechanization

The W3 challenge this week involved a dive into “vintage mechanical marvels: music boxes, paddle steamers, tractor engines, grandfather clocks, fob watches, steamships, penny-farthings—you name it.” We were told to “Craft a poem inspired by these bygone mechanisms—let your mind whirl and tick with poetic possibility. And here’s the twist: be sure to include the word ‘magniloquent’ somewhere in your poem!”

For the record, “Magniloquent describes language that is intended to sound very impressive and important, or a person who uses such language.” (From Merriam-Webster)

This poem doesn’t use magniloquent — but I did make it an acrostic.

I really DON’T understand mechanical anything. Music boxes are beautiful for the sound that comes out of them. I like tractors because I love the smell of freshly mown hay and the neat rows of it in the field. Fob watches can have beautiful cases, but better I like the way it feels — the ways its curves nestle into my palm, its weight in my hand.

poetry

Escape

Sally12 Comments

To the ocean I would go
Just to see the water flow
Whooshing in and pulling back
Hearing shells go crickle-crack

On a lakeshore I could stand
Digging toes into the sand
Watching mallards swimming by
Ospreys, eagles in the sky

Rivers also beckon me
On their way to far-off sea
Current flowing, rushing on
By an unseen power drawn

Water is my great escape
So I have an oil seascape
When I’m home and cannot go
Painted ocean soothes my woe

This is my response to this week’s W3 prompt. Poet of the Week Marion Horton challenged us to

“…turn our gaze outward—to scapes. Your scape might be a landscape, seascape, cityscape, dreamscape—any view that stirs something in you. It could be drawn from memory or daily life, from a photograph or a painting, from what still stands or what’s long gone. Write in any form that helps you say what you need to say. Somewhere in your piece, be sure to include the word scape.“

The painting used to hang in our sunporch. I had to move it recently because I noticed it was being damaged by the sun and heat in that room.

fiction

The Train Game

Sally13 Comments

The first time it happened they were playing The Train Game.

Alistair and his brother, Duncan, had made up that game. They would stand on the knoll to watch the train go by. As they caught glimpses of the people in the cars, one would shout, “Two boys and their dad!” Then the other one had to make up the story of what they were doing on the train. Going on vacation, going to visit their mother in prison, going to crazy Uncle Freddy’s house. The longer they played, the more absurd the stories became.

If the train was long enough and the stories short enough, they could each tell a few. They would laugh as they tried to outdo the other.

On this particular day, though, Duncan saw the little girl at the same time as Alistair. He shouted, “Girl with big eyes and frizzy hair!”

Alistair was silent.

“C’mon! It’s an easy one,” said Duncan.

Alistair looked pale and sweaty.

“Are you okay?” Duncan asked.

Alistair shook his head, slowly, confusedly.

“I saw her whole life in her eyes,” he finally said.

Duncan dropped it.

A few days later they were playing the cloud game, which involved finding pictures in the clouds.

“A dragon,” Duncan shouted and pointed.

“A horse running away,” said Alistair, pointing.

“Little girl with frizzy hair,” Duncan said.

Alistair gasped. His face went white.

“Her life is painful,” he said.

Later that week, Alistair saw the girl in real life.

This is my submission to the Unicorn Challenge — a challenge with only two rules: 1) no more than 250 words, and 2) use the photo for a prompt.

Don’t ask me what the story means. I don’t know. I admit, though, that I saw it in the clouds.

fiction

A Dip in the Pool

Sally10 Comments

“Are you sure that nobody is home?” Barbie asked.

Ronan nodded. “They are gone for the day. Those potted plants shield the pool from view anyway. We run to the pool wrapped in our towels. When we get there, we can throw them on a chair and dive in.”

His roguish smile gave her the courage she needed. “Let’s go,” she cried, and took off running.

Unfortunately, her towel fell off partway across the lawn, but she ran naked the rest of the way. Ronan picked up the towel and set it on a chair before he jumped in the water with her.

They splashed and swam in the nude. Barbie giggled the whole time. Ronan felt alternately giddy and guilty. He couldn’t believe she had agreed to it.

In the end, nurture won over nature. His strict upbringing led to the utmost respect for Barbie. Although myriad other scenarios ran through his mind, when they got out of the pool, he handed her her towel, wrapped his own around his lower half, and they ran back to the house to get dressed.

The next day, Ronan’s mother said to him, “I need to talk to you.”

Ronan paled and waited for her to continue.

“You know we’ve been setting up security cameras inside the house and around the property,” she said. “We have cameras facing the back lawn and the pool…” she said.

Ronan felt nauseous.

“… that don’t seem to be working. Could you try to figure out why?”

This is my contribution to the Unicorn Challenge. It’s an easy challenge: no more than 250 words and use the photo as a prompt.

poetry

Jewelweed

Sally15 Comments

I have feelings which are quite complicated
Regarding Touch-Me-Not or Jewelweed
Whether weed or flow’r can be debated
It’s both, not either-or, I will concede
After the blossoms, green pods seem to plead,
Touch me, touch me. You know that you want to.
One small touch, a fun explosion indeed!
Seeds fly out. The cycle begins anew.

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time weeding the jewelweed from the gardens. It’s my own fault. I introduced it.

One day, years ago, I was out for a walk with my children and one of them discovered that if you touch the pods on these plants growing by the path, they would explode. We all stood there for the longest exploding seed pods. It was so much fun. Finally, I broke off some stems with pods attached intact and brought them to my parents’ house.

The rest is history.

I’m weeding jewelweed — which, I have to say, is a most satisfying plant to weed. Its roots are shallow and let go of the soil so willingly.

Not like dandelions — which require that dandelion digger with a forked tip to attack the roots.

Or Japanese knotweed which require lots of oomph and a shovel with a serrated edge. Even then, it’s still everywhere.

So it’s a win-win to have jewelweed. It’s fun to seed and fun to weed.

If only it wasn’t everywhere.

This is my response to the W3 Challenge this week. The Poet-of-the-Week, Murisopsis (Val) gave us the following parameters for our poem:

  • Theme: ‘Seeds’ ~ literal seeds, figurative seeds, seeds of love, hope, fear, war… you choose!
  • Form:‘Huitain’
    • One 8-line stanza;
    • Rhyming: ababbcbc; 
    • Syllabic: 8 or 10 syllables per line.
gratitude

TToT — June 30

Sally7 Comments

I looked back and saw that I haven’t done one of these (Ten Things of Thankful) since March! Yikes! Here we are on the brink of July!

I won’t bore you with my excuses. I’ll just tell you ten things (in no special order) for which I am thankful.

I got a new hip!1 I think I’ve mentioned it elsewhere in posts, but not in a thankfulness post. I am truly thankful for the wonders of medicine. I reported for surgery at 6 AM on May 21, was taken into surgery at 8 AM, have very fuzzy memories of them getting me up to walk on my new hip at I-don’t-know-what time, and was home by 2 PM. Tomorrow I have my 6 week check-up. It’s all so amazing.

I have a new granddaughter!2 Little Polly was born a little over two weeks ago. She’s pretty wonderful. She is more wonderful than a new hip, and that’s saying a lot. Parents, sister, and Polly are all doing great.

My sister came to visit!3 She stayed ten days to help me sort and organize stuff in this house. It was really nice to spend time with her. We talked. We drank wine. We went to visit some of my kids and all my grandkids (Polly included). We drank wine. We ate at favorite local restaurants. We drank mimosas. We got together with our brothers. We drank wine. We also sorted and organized stuff. I am so so so thankful for her visit.

I went to a Celtic Fling. Wait, wait — let me back up. I went to a graduation.4 My last child in college graduated back in May. I’m so proud.

Now I have 8 children who have all graduated from college AND are working in their chosen field, which leads me to…

    I went to a Celtic Fling.5 The lovely graduate pictured above was a theater major in college. She got a job at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire working in production. I went to see her this weekend where she was managing one of the stages. First, I LOVE Celtic Music and sat through three sets at her stage. Second, I loved seeing my daughter at work.

    The college graduation was pre-hip surgery. I was so worried about driving to Virginia on my own — but my oldest daughter offered for me to ride6 with them. A fair amount of that ride was spent in the back seat with my granddaughter, Willow.

    Willow was so much fun. It turns out that she loves the song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” When she got antsy in her car seat, we would sing and she would be happy.

    Also, during this interim of TToT posts, I witnessed Willow’s first visit with the Easter Bunny.7 I think it says a lot that she was not even remotely intimidated by a 6 foot tall rabbit.

    I’m thankful for the birds8 whose songs I hear every morning. Mr. Robin tends to dominate the chorus.

    I’m thankful for blogging challenges9 like the Unicorn Challenge or W3 which usually get me to write at least twice a week. Such nice people. Such talented bloggers and poets. So much encouragement.

    Lastly, I am thankful to you, dear readers10, especially when you post comments. I don’t always respond because I feel so overwhelmed with… hmmm… gratitude? Undeservedness? Bashful humility? I don’t know what to call it, but I know that it leaves me speechless.

    So, thank you.