Author: lillian

What Was, Never Was

lillian40 Comments

Devout small child, sought cave
lit by red-orange candle flames,
mysterious grotto somehow carved
into side of large gothic church.

Dark stone curved inward
away from gold tabernacle,
winged angels and all the saints
beside mother Mary, gowned in blue.

Solemn under flickering shadows,
knees on kneeler, eyes squeezed shut.
Surely god listens, even to the young
deep within this special place.

Why did I return after decades away?

Priest stands at makeshift altar
watches people, back to tabernacle,
shining not. Statuary stands about,
coarse in detail. And there. . .

dim plastered niche. Grey stones layered
upon layer of faux black, some askew
like mislaid bricks. Yellowed plastic electric
candles flutter, dull and duller.

This off-to-the-side
push-a-button prayer place
is not, and never shall be
what was for me.

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Written for Wednesday Poetics, dVerse Pub for Poets. If you’ve not checked it out, this is a wonderful virtual spot — great group of folks — and always interesting challenges. Today, Mary tends the “bar” and talks about rooms, citing some wonderful poetry, and asks us to write about a room we remember. I did return to this place of my childhood some five years back. I wished I had not. So many things seem so large and magical when we are young. Somehow with height comes a different perspective. Photo Credit: Therese Branton.

Before the Dawn

lillian47 Comments

Much has been written about the dawn of a new day. For me, it has always been the moments before that, which stir my soul. When dark shadow clouds and navy blue-black sky meld into india-ink black sea. It is all a scrim, a gauzed blanket that lies above and beyond with no horizon line.

The shoreline blurs, smudges, like a charcoal master piece. There are no browns, only shades of ebony and beginning blue. It is a delicious hush. Before the sun begins its slow ascent from underneath somewhere, slowly tinting edges into floating worlds of pink and violet, revealing solid lines and building shapes. Before that color of pales, there is only the unseen, blurring barely to the discernable. In that moment of suspended darkness, there is the presence of hope.

Clouds before the dawn
shadows undulate with hope
darkness woos my dreams

Written for Dverse Poets’ Pub Haibun Monday — this week Grace asked us to springboard from one of three given quotations.  I used the following: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” – Mary Oliver  A Haibun is prose, followed by haiku and usually underscores nature and some higher truth.

Scissor Me You

lillian9 Comments

Two young blades were we
all shear joy
making lacey hearts
and peek-a-boos too.

Red crayons broken,
black marker now dry
we’re older, less sharp
and rusted with age.

In synch through the years,
our curves more rounded
our pace less quick,
we still meet at the heart
you and I.

We make each other
our valentine.

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Photo credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Victorian Love

lillian12 Comments

It was a summer of letters,
you there, me here.
The days of thinking slowly,
rolling words around
until they landed just right.

The days of ink to vellum
and a blotter for splotches,
hand heavy with emotion
or tear drops of missing.
And sometimes our words crossed

like a wind shift, dropping seeds
too early to be devoured or take root.
That summer of letters,
so many years and memories ago,
carefully bundled with dried lavender
tucked away in the back closet shelf.

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Photo Credit: Alex Drahon

What Death Lies Here

lillian26 Comments

The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.
Tombstones crumble, long passed souls embrace
‘neath palmetto fronds, while angels pray unseen.

And one lone cherub, an alabaster figurine
guards still the lad beneath her, quiet in grace.
The tall waving grasses are always green
in this blessed and hallowed place.

The sea nearby crashes waves of aquamarine,
spews salted grits of sand through air to stone efface.
Sacred words, names and years, all but erased
yet bones and dust beneath, feed this earth serene
the tall waving grasses are always green.

Gayle, in dVerse, asked us to create a Rondel: 3 verses (2 quatrains and a quintet). It must have a refrain: Lines 1 & 2 are repeated in lines 7 & 8; and line 1 must also be line 13.  The rhyme scheme must be ABBA   ABthen-line-1-and-line-2   ABBAthen-line-1.  The challenge is to have the form “disappear” within the meaning of the poem.  Photos: from our walk yesterday which included meandering through St. Peter’s cemetery, established in 1854, located atop a hill in St. George’s Bermuda.

Watch Me!

lillian38 Comments

I am in my eighty-seventh life on this earth. I’ve always been a feminist. Female, beautiful, and independently sufficient at the same time. I loved my can-can ruffle life in the Parisian bordello. And I donned a bright sash when I pounded my suffragette drum.

But this narcisstic genius body? It’s perfect!

I am bright, erect, and wear my sunny ruffles well. I stand above those two-lip characters, dutch men all of them. Short-lived though I shall be, there is nothing daffy about me! I am JonQuil the magnificent. And I out shine every bloomin’ thing!

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Word Count: 96. Written for Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle Wiseoff-Fields provides the photo prompt and a myriad of folks work their words into what is known as “flash fiction.” Must be a complete story about the photo, in 100 words or less.  FYI:  the jonquil, as well as the daffodil, are members of the Narcissus genus. Photo Credit: The Reclining Gentleman.

 

 

…and She is Beautiful

lillian35 Comments

A merry heart does good like a medicine
the yellowed brittle fortune
rest where he’d last touched it.
Beside the faded red envelope,
embroidered stitches now soft to touch.

She sipped her green tea, waiting.
The sun had set long ago
and now the rains were here.
Soon the streets would be a cacophony
drums, shouts, tourists and parades.

And from her window, she would see
the dragon dancing down the street,
her sign ever present, every new year
even in this approaching time,
the Year of the Monkey.

Closing her eyes, she saw again
mother, father, the land, and river
heavy rains bringing fish to the fields.
Images swam in and out in waves,
and memories filled her heart.

She sat, and sipped her tea,
waiting patiently.

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Written for Toni’s Chinese New Year’s prompt at dVerse, a Poet’s Pub. Toni provided several fortune cookie slips and we were to choose one, and use it as the first line in our poem.

Photo credit: Yenhoon

Angels Along the Way

lillian54 Comments

Six minute eternity,
seventy-two hours ago.
A cardiac arrest.

Doctors talked incessantly,
you may return or not.
And if yes . . .

Then a voiceless lull
filled that sterile beeping room
and angels’ wings were heard,
as they carried you back to me.

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Dylan Thomas, in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog [first published by Dent on 4 April 1940] provided a whimsical explanation of the word “lull” – A host of angels must be passing by. What a silence there is!  

Angels Along the Way is  a quadrille (44 word poem) using the word “lull” — the prompt given by Bjorn at dVerse, a Poet’s Pub.  Do visit this fabulous site!
Photo credit: Benjamin Earwicker.
Thankful for every day! 

Nature’s Blessings

lillian4 Comments

Mid night rains nurture
palmetto and loquat trees,
pinball through ridges
on Bermudian white roofs,
then steep in afternoon tea.

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Tanka verse form: 5 lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Photos and explanation: Fruit of the loquat tree in Bermuda – ripe when very yellow. Bermuda has no rivers or lakes or island-wide plumbed water supply. Each household must collect and store rainwater. Roofs are treated and always white with ridges that take rain water to each home’s underground water tank. A household that runs out of fresh water must pay to have a company “top off” their tank. And yes, the water is absolutely safe to drink – I do it every day! Photo is taken from hill overlooking St. George’s – the town we are staying in for 2 months. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in 1612, and a British overseas territory, hence the reference to steeping tea. The Kiskadee is a beautiful yellow bird found in Bermuda.

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