Family of four, both mother, father gone now. Their love still lives on in the way their children love. Circle of love unending.
A Tanka written for Tuesday Poetics atdVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Kim asks us to write a poem using the title Where Does Love Go and answer the question within the poem.
Love me some spring! In my steps on this morning’s walk in bursting magnolia trees mama goose fluffing her nest forsythias smiling bright and ruffled waving daffodils. Love me some Spring!
NAPOWRIMO Day 15. Prompt: Write about love in some other way than romantic.
Photos actually from my walk yesterday along the Charles river. And I should add, Happy Birthday #18 to Rika!
We were two third-grade girls who often roamed through a nearby overgrown plot of land. In our minds, the vast Old West. That mound of dirt about half-way in? Boot Hill where we’d tether our steeds. We were certain the Lone Ranger rode these parts. We’d gallop many a mile in those days. We’d capture bad guys with unholstered guns using only one index finger and thumb. After a long day of protecting Dodge City, when the sun was about to set we’d adjust our cowboy hats and mosey on home to Martin Avenue in Waukegan, Illinois.
NAPOWRIMO Day 13. Prompt: Write a poem about a cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny stip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal spoken speech – like a rhyme or syntax that feels old fashioned or high-tone (“mosey on home”).
True story from my childhood days. I have no idea what ever became of Mary Alyce. AI image made from Bing Create.
“He went to sea in a thimble of poetry.” Opening line in the poem Poet Warning, by Jim Harrison.
Wynken, Blyken and Nod my childhood friends, lived in the well-turned pages of mother’s Child Craft Poetry Book. So many friends who made me smile. The Old Lady who lived in a shoe, Miss Muffet sitting primly on her tuffet, Old King Cole and Jack Sprat too.
We laughed about the crazy cow who jumped over the moon. I lived in those pages then, where no one yelled at anyone. Sitting on mother’s lap I’d hug my yellow teddy-bear smeared with mother’s lipstick, so at least, it always smiled at me.
When mama took out that book I knew she’d take me to magical places. And for those moments her love for me was real and clear. So calm, so comforting, so warm, so fun, so motherly, in those make-believe lands.
And here I am, decades later near to being an octogenarian, wondering why I write poetry. I’d forgotten this side of her, so many other memories crowding in. I live by the words, “no regrets” always have and always will. So I am thankful to remember this other side of who she was.
NAPOWRIMO Day 12. Prompt:Write a poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.
Image from an illustration in the book, which I still have. Published in 1947, the year I was born.
As if struck by lightning or a slow moving deluge, watching life’s last curtain call aches like hell.
Grief envelops like low-lying overcast sky. Why is the air so thick? So heavy without you. How can I still feel your embrace? Death takes so much more than life.
That biblical allusion, the Valley of Death. More like a chasm with unending depth.
NAPOWRIMO Day 10. Prompt: Write your own meditation of grief. Try using Brock’s form (from his poem “Goodbye”) as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, wtih a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.
I believe this is us forever dear, painted image on a neighbor’s wall. We hold hands in permanence, street artist’s portrait of love. His rendition, always young. No furrowed brows from worries, no age spots upon our arms. He sees us somewhat oddly though, large heads upon small bodies. But we do lean in, faces touching, projecting forever togetherness. Feet dangle above his painted ground, hovering above reality’s sidewalk. He’s placed us in suspension here. . . and I can imagine, my love, this was us so many years ago. How did he know?
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I’m hosting today, and folks are invited to post one poem of their choosing, no required format, topic, or length. OR they may post to the optional prompt I provide which includes three photos of street art I saw in Valparaiso, Chile some years ago. The one above was one of my favorites.
AN INVITATION TO YOU:I’m also hosting our LIVE session (audio and video) on Saturday, April 11, from 10 to 11 AM EST. Please consider joining us! You may read aloud a poem of your choosing, or just come to sit in and listen! We are indeed a global group with folks from Australia, Trinidad Tobago, Kenya, the UK, Pakistan, Sweden, and across the US often in attendance. The more the merrier! If you’d like to join us, go to https://dversepoets.com on Saturday a few minutes before 10 AM EST, and click on the link provided there.
It was the best of times . . . USAID shut down caused global humanitarian crisis. It was the best of times . . . ICE agents wreak havoc, innocents shot and killed.
It was the worst of times . . . Cataract surgery reveals brighter world. It was the worst of times . . . Family reunion brings laughter and love. It was the worst of times . . . Sunshine always glows brightly behind the clouds.
NAPOWRIMO Day 7 Prompt: Write a poem using a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.
. . . our December twenty-fourth dinners with Alice’s jello salad and pineapple-coconut bars. Rather than bowing our heads and saying grace, we shared cards at the table. One for my mother, dad and brother. And theirs to me.
Raising our family, the tradition continued. Handwritten notes inside meant the most. Some just covered with Xs and Os, some with a memory from that year. Always a personalized declaration of love.
Alice’s recipe is long forgotten. But miles away, with children of their own, our children still live the card tradition. Now, almost in our octogenarian years, we still smile knowingly on those nights as we reach for the personalized card on our plate.
It’s NAPOWRIMO (National Poetry Writing Month) day 2! Today we’re asked to “write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.” Photo from an old photo album…note the writing at the bottom of the photo. Yep, that’s me with my brother (9 years older than me) and my mother.
From the time our children were two and four, we’ve held hands before our evening meal and sung a song called The Circle of Love. With a simple and happy tune, the words go like this:
“The circle of love goes around and round the circle of love goes around. Reach out your hands someone needs you. The circle of love goes around. Amen.”
It’s not by others’ standards, a real table grace. Grace is often defined as the free, unmerited favor and love of God toward humanity. And a short prayer before a meal is often called “saying grace”. For us, this singing together before supper was and always is a moment to celebrate family. Smiling at each other, sometimes grinning, we sing loudly and with energy. What we’re really singing about is the unconditional love and happiness we share. No matter the food – from cheesey chicken casserole to shrimp scampi to Thanksgiving turkey, The Circle of Love was always the first course of the meal.
Now, approaching our octogenarian years, with five grandchildren who are twenty, eighteen, and fifteen, and our children and their wonderful spouses in their fifties, we treasure the rare times we are all together. The eleven of us, or a fewer number on occasions when busy lives and miles intervene, still carry on this tradition. When we come to the table for an evening meal, no matter the happenings of the day, the first thing we do is join hands. And then we sing, loud and clear. Grateful for each other and for the meal we share.
Wild flowers in fields different shapes, sizes, colors always face the sun.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Punam is hosting Tuesday Poetics presenting us with the following prompt: “For today’s Poetics, I would love a presence of food in your poems. You can employ any form but touch upon food; vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, desserts you love or hate. It could be about why you love/abhor cooking/baking, your most memorable/miserable meal ever, your relationship with food…the possibilities are endless.” No particular form or length is required. A Haibun is a Japanese poetic form that combines prose with a haiku. I guess you could say I’ve written about my family’s relaionship with the evening meal!
Photo is from a family gathering about six years ago.
lillian the home poet 