Provincetown’s prequel to dawn. Nature’s sky palette, her brush strokes divine. Palest of pastel pink ribbons and cotton ball fluffs, ombre into muted blues and greys. Profound quiet punctuated by gentle waves lapping shore. Day awakens as I gaze mesmerized by her calm. Her promise, a lovely day.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa gives us three options as prompts for our poems. I chose the second: to write of an experience, preferably in the first person, where we’ve asked for a sign of something to come. Here in our beloved Provincetown for two weeks, I awaken each morning to watch the skies, wondering if we will have a clear, cloudy, or stormy day. No matter the weather, Ptown is always beautiful.
Photos taken this morning from our deck – those magical moments before sunrise. And it has indeed, been a beautiful day.
“I left the farm for the big city sixty-plus years ago. I embraced feminism and burned my bra. Then I met a guy and several months later I was shaving my legs and curling my eyelashes again! He was an English major so I became a romantic poetry sop. One night I even recited a line for him: ‘I want to be pretty for you. I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes.” I gravitated to him like sunflowers turning their heads to constantly feel the sun’s rays on their faces. Thank god I came to my senses and never looked back. Enough of this tangent. No more questions, Miss Parkander! Please call the Vice President and tell him he has to be at the Climate Accord meeting I’m hosting at Camp David. The Secretary of State as well.”
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa asks us to include the line “To be pretty for you I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes” from the poem Garden by Isabel Duarte-Gray in our piece of flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length. Turnsole is a type of plant, like a sunflower, that turns its head or stem to follow the movement of the sun. And my question for you is, when will the US have a female President….so many qualified women out there!
Mist and fog ~ marauders of the night, muffle morning’s sun. Drip moisture on decks, lush grass, drooping hammocks and once tall hollyhocks. Grey ocean meets putty sky, nature’s pall like widow’s veil. But my view today? My spirits shall not be dampened nor my view dimmed of this wonderful place called Provincetown. I know the sun is there, simply biding her time to appear.
It is indeed a foggy morning in Provincetown today. I shall simply wipe down the table and chairs on our deck and sit outside to savor the myriad shades of grey presenting themselves between ocean and low hanging sky, all the while listening to the ebb and flow of waves lapping on to shore.
Walk with me along Provincetown’s shore. We’ll stroll through ripples of time, these oft etched sands. Some days smooth, some days ribbed like corduroy wale. Some days strewn with seaweed turned black from upheaval by tides in stormy rage. Walk by children’s sand castles, knowing that by night’s end waves will fill their moats, capture make-shift popsicle wrappers turned turret flags.
Farther down the coast remnants of wharves and docks once sentinels for Portuguese fishing boats, stand ghostlike in their dampened pallor. Imagine Wampanoags and Nausets here, long before pilgrims usurped their land. Think about artistic genius in this community: Eugene O’Neill, Norman Mailer, Jackson Pollock, Tennessee Williams, E.E. Cummings. More recently, Mary Oliver lived here for over fifty years, inspired by the raw beauty of this place.
And at night’s end, watch the sky with me, painted in pastels or crimson reds. Tip a glass of wine my friend, sit now and relax. Allow your muse to enjoy every sip.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today I’m hosting and asking folks to take us on a walk in their poem! Come join us – my guess is we’ll be walking many enjoyable miles through the words of many!
Photos are from our many two-week sojourns to Provincetown – at the very tip – the very end of Cape Cod.
Listen. Tears fall like rain, the soft spring rain gentle, quiet cleansing the earth, the soul.
Rain begins like a tear beading on a rose petal trickling down to nourish the earth, one drop at a time.
Clouds thicken, skies turn dark. Rain falls harder and the earth is saturated, muddy.
Drops become streams. Overflowing banks. A flood of tears rises to wash away our dreams.
Sun breaks through Two rainbows arc across the sky Double surprise, double gift Slowing the tears.
Summer rain smells fresh; earth is nourished; tears are pierced by sunbeams.
Listen. Rain will fall again: On roses, on your parade, on Mondays. Will you walk in it or just get wet?
Written by dear friend, Lindsey Ein, for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today I’m hosting and asking people to take us on a walk within their poem.
My kaleidoscope memories, colorful because they feature you and me. Time before you sepia toned, indistinct.
Like a deeply embedded sliver tender to the touch, fear festers as you sleep beside me.
I need longer days and many many more, to continue being us.
Written for dVerse where today it’s Quadrille Monday. Kim is hosting and asks us to include the word “sliver” in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Excited citizens rush through archway thirty-three. They take their seats on marble slabs, cool to the touch this sweltering summer day. Lions roar. Giant bear paws rattle cages. Slaves strain, work a pulley system, lifting up beasts on stone slabs. Trap doors open. The crowd gasps, then screams approval. Eighty thousand men lusting to see lion against tiger, grizzly bear against bear, or prisoner against beast. These to-the-death spectacles, the opening acts.
Last bout of the day, stirs the crowd to mad frenzy. Two gladiators trained to fight, slaves by night, warriors by day. They leave their training complex across the road, make their way through dark, dank tunnels connected to the Colosseum. One a slave with wealthy master, fights to earn his freedom, bout by bout. The other slave, a wealthy man’s business investment, simply tries to stay alive.
Entering the arena, they pause, adjust to glaring sun. The adjudicator signals and the battle begins. When deep wounds pore blood and exhaustion sets in, one man is declared a winner. Both barely alive, they are carted off the field as the crowd roars its approval. Back across the road, medical treatment given, they collapse in their cells. Crowds file out of the Colosseum. A day’s respite with excellent entertainment. Who can ask for anything more?
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, where it was Open Link Night on Thursday, August 24. I’m a day late posting. BUT, it’s also Open Link Night LIVE, coming up on Saturday, August 26th from 10 to 11 AM EST. Hope you can join us! You’ll find the link to on the dVerse home page,HERE!
We already had OLN LIVE on Thursday and had folks from Sweden, the UK, Jerusalem, Pakistan, Michigan, Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey; Portland, Oregon, Missouri, Washington, and Trinidad Tobago reading a poem of theirs aloud, and chatting with each other. We’re a friendly and appreciative bunch! So do join us on Saturday if you can!
Yes, these are PHOTOS from July when we were on our month-long trip. First stop was Rome and its antiquities. We had a day’s tour with an archeologist which began with an extensive visit to the Colosseum. Everything I’ve written about here is what it was like back in the day! And yes, you can still see the original XXXIII on the archway where folks who had seats in this area entered. The photo bottom left shows part of the floor rebuilt, and you can see the circular shape with the tiers of seats. Photo bottom right shows the partitioned off “rooms” or “cells” where the animals were kept. And yes, there were trap doors in the floor and animals were raised up to suddenly appear on the colosseum floor. It turns out that animal to animal fights were always to the death of at least one animal. Animal to prisoner would most likely end in death to the prisoner. But the real gladiators, unlike in the movies, who fought here, never fought to the death. There was an adjudicator who called the contest and named a winner. The gladiators were actually slaves and had a “school” literally across the road from the colosseum where they trained by day and were locked in their cells by night. As slaves, they were a business investment, owned by wealthy people. When you learn that, you understand why they didn’t fight to the death. Some slaves had the opportunity to earn their freedome by winning X number of battles. Sometimes they managed to do that, but not often. An incredible place to see.Construction on the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater ever built, began in 72AD and was completed in 80 AD. It held 50 to 80,000 people. And there was indeed a “gladiator school” across the road. There was daily entertainment here, provided to the citizens free of charge, and sponsored by the Emperor.
i On the street corner used and discarded needles, broken bottles too. The downtrodden neglected, Mother Teresa long dead.
ii Bottled up feelings like a Molotov cocktail, stuffed and volatile. When circumstances throw him, he’ll blow his top like Etna.
iii Bottle tipped over, red wine stained white tablecloth. Lipstick on glass rim, her perfume scent still lingered. The filthy slut betrayed him.
iv Glass milk jug bottles, Wonder Bread pb and js, Father Knows Best, Roy Rogers, saddle shoes and bobby sox. My fifties and sixties life.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Grace asks us to write about bottles.
The Tanka form is a 5 line poem with the following syllabic content in each line: 5-7-5-7-7
Roy Rogers and Father Knows Best were very popular tv shows in the 1950s. Roy Rogers vied for viewers with Gene Autry and also the Lone Ranger. We always got glass milk jugs from the grocer….no such thing as waxed cardboard containers in those days. Wonder Bread is a spongey white bread, still sold in groceries today. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread were always in my tin Lone Ranger lunch box!
There are moments in life standing in the glory of nature when I’ve been awestruck.
Humbled by her magnificence at the Grand Canyon, Norwegian fjords, and Mount Fuji.
And once, under whispering tall pines, I felt the sun’s rays of grace shine upon me.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to use the word “pine” or a form of the word, in our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title.
Yes, in our travels we’ve been to the magnificent Grand Canyon, the Norwegian Fjords, and to Japan where we saw Mount Fuji. Photo is from about ten years ago when we were camping with our children and their children, in Mount Rainier National Park.
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory – Percy Bysshe Shelley, English Romantic Poet (1792 – 1822)
People say, watching someone transition from all knowing, to sporadic dementia, to full blown Alzheimer’s, is like watching someone disappear. It seems to me, there could be another perspective . . .
She saw our bodies, our faces. But in her eyes, we were shadows. In the beginning of the end the mist would eventually lift. She’d remember our names, laugh with us as we reminisced.
But the veil fell and we lost her, and she lost us. We no longer existed in her world. But the music . . . sweet notes, harmony, songs she loved. These she kept in her heart.
Some days, we’d find her singing. Her voice clear and strong. Her face animated. We dared not interrupt lest she stop and simply stare confused.
She’s gone now, gone from this earth. In her last days of lying still, eyes closed, lights dimmed, unaware of nurses nearby or family by her side, occasionally she’d smile.
I have no doubt angels were hovering nearby, humming a lullaby only she could hear.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Tuesday Poetics and Merril asks us to write a poem about a transition in time we may have experienced or that we’ve thought about. She provides the poetry lines from Percy Bysshe Shelley at the top of my poem, as a bit of inspiration. They made me think about the lasting power of music for those who, for example, suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
I was reminded of Tony Bennett’s last concert with Lady Gaga, when he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He had trouble remembering many things but as soon as he heard the music of the standby songs he sang and loved for so many years, and was in front of the audience, all the music came back to him. The YouTube video is of him singing at that last concert.
On a more personal note, I learned several days ago that an old college friend of mine recently died. We were sorority sisters and she sang in our college choir and for all these years, in her church choir. Like Tony Bennett, I know from last year’s Christmas letter from her husband, that although her memory problems were increasing, she was still singing in her church choir. At her funeral, which I was able to watch in a recording, the pastor said her life was a song….and he had no doubt, God was singing a lullaby to her in her final days.
lillian the home poet 