Eucalyptus trees stand tall.
Look up, look down and feast your eyes.
Lily pad shaped quilt of greenery
melding into rolling hilly ground.
Brambles. Clover flowered shrubs.
All revel beneath blue sky canopy,
clouds banished in sun’s reign.
Sit. Breathe in.
Appreciate.
Photos taken this morning from deck at our rental apartment in San Diego.
It was a secret,
what really happened.
She swallowed it,
buried it deep.
But it festered,
gnawed at her.
Invaded her thoughts
at inopportune times.
Stuff it. Just stuff it!
She tried. Oh God she tried.
She could manage alone,
step up and lean in.
Efficient competence
clad in stern business suit.
She wore luminescent pearls,
choker style.
Eyes up here, buddy!
Words yelled at him,
but only in her head.
Feelings choked back again.
ME TOO she wanted to scream.
But it was a secret,
what really happened.
She swallowed it,
buried it deep,
again.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where Tuesday Poetics is hosted by Merril. She asks us to write a poem somehow involving a secret. I am not a member of the MeToo movement….but this is my heartfelt concern for those who have suffered abuse and hold it within. Photo from pixabay.com
Sunday morning stillness,
thoughts meander.
So many blessings,
thank you, Lord.
Photo taken many years ago in Provincetown, Cape Cod.
Perk up!
So the path behind is longer
than the trail ahead.
Wild flowers still bloom,
ready for picking along the way.
No more reins to white knuckle.
The children are loose
reining in their own foals,
galloping in fields you planted,
tended many years ago.
Embrace your lover joyfully
as days and weeks slip by.
Love more deeply, gently, surely.
Expect to share the morrow gladly
as you kiss the night goodbye.
Written fordVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Frank is tending bar, asking us to write a soliloquy poem today. Photo from Pixabay.com
“As I left China farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a great universe beyond the plane’s silver wing. I took one more glance over my past life, then turned to the future. I was eager to embrace the world.”
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
Youth and middle age.
I am far past those lanes,
beyond that curve in the road.
Photos framed on shelves.
Who I was and who I loved
all along the way.
Mirrored image returns my gaze.
Silver haired and wizened,
in this, my final season.
No turning back.
Winter’s snow always glistens
even in the setting sun.
I shall embrace this scene.
This my new world forever,
as ever I shall be.
Mish is hosting Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to choose a book near us (or from a link she provides) and look to the last lines at the end of the book….and then let those be our poetic muse for our post today! Thus the last lines to Wild Swans, included before my poem.
Photo from our trip to Norway a few years ago.
Machines roar their voracious appetite.
Mill girls risk hands and limbs,
work fourteen-hour days.
River powers turbine belts,
transforms cotton bales to cloth.
Spindle City’s deleterious result,
more slaves on auction blocks.
Black hands blister in cotton fields.
Industrial revolution’s progress
paves misery’s trail.
Written for Monday’s Quadrille at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. De is tending the pub and asks us to include the word “roar” in our Quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words sans title. Photos from this past summer’s visit to Lowell, Massachusetts and the Bott Cotton Mills Museum. Lowell, once known as Spindle City, is recognized as the Cradle of the American Industrial Revolution. The first textile mill was built there in 1826. By 1850 it was America’s largest industrial center with many large textile mills and factories. By 1840 there were 8,000 workers in the mills, mostly women between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Within one year, the mills could transform raw bales of cotton into 50,000 miles of cotton cloth. The North’s increased appetite for cotton textiles led to an expansion of slavery. One side note: Some of the Southern cotton was made into ‘negro cloth’ at the Lowell mills and sold to plantation owners for their slaves.
October 19, 2013. We walked across the street from Mass. General Hospital into a new life. My question: Is there always darkness before light? Night skies before the dawn. In utero before light at the end of the birth canal. Sleep before the alarm sounds. Death before new life.
Six minutes minus a heart beat. Thirty-six hours of induced comatose state. You suspended somewhere; eyes shut, machines whirring. Me existing in light which felt like the darkest of times.
You returned to us and the morning sun. Five days later, we walked home. Six years later, we are together still. Thankful for every day.
dark in chrysalis
strength builds, body renewing
life’s splendor springs forth
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Bjorn is hosting Haibun Monday and asks us to write about new beginnings. Haibun: 2 to 3 tight paragraphs of prose (must be true) followed by a haiku. The condominium building we live in is actually located directly across from the main campus of Massachusetts General Hospital.
In the wee morning hours
snow falls softly
blankets trees and fields,
comforter divine.
No footprints.
No paw prints
No sound.
Pristine countryside at rest.
Its lone splash of color,
one crimson cardinal
perched expectantly
on quivering branch.
Dawn arrives slowly
steeps through clouds,
glisten shimmers hill tops
adding magic to the scene.
Photo from Pixabay.com
If I could choose, let us be a kaleidoscope.
Created by One with artistic eye,
teacher of Truth who understands,
together, we all shine best.
You, me, everyone as glass shards.
Infinite hues, shapes and sizes,
knowing we are at our finest
melding into one design.
Sun and moon do shift their paths,
causing solar temperaments to flare.
Tempted to mirror that discord,
reflections may tip, slightly askew.
Then quietly, with kindly understanding,
One gives but a gentle twist.
We realign, nudged ever so slightly,
even more beautiful than before.
None of us misshapen.
No color better than another.
We mirror each other’s good will,
design so glorious to behold.
Would that we could truly be
one magnificent kaleidoscope,
birthed within the cosmos.
Each bit valued,
an intricate part of the whole.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Mish is hosting and asks us, “Do you ever wish you could just wave a magic wand, eliminate everything that creates havoc, unrest, uncertainty, injustice? I do. Today I am asking you to do the same. Dream with me. . . create and describe a ‘new world’ as you envision it.”
Photo from Pixabay.com
There is beauty in ash
as embers glow brightly.
Once sapling, resilient to touch,
life juices now almost gone.
Last moist quiet hiss
escapes crumbling sinews
as ashes join earth.
Glowing flecks break free
catch wind, flicker and float.
Momentary sanctuary
in darkening sky.
Posting to dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today I’m hosting the final Quadrille Monday of 2019. Quadrille: poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I’ve chosen the word “glow” as the Quadrille prompt. Folks must use the word “glow” or a form of the word within the body of their poem. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Stop on by!
lillian the home poet 