Cherished – Page 5 – lillian the home poet

Detour

May 20, 2024May 20, 2024lillian22 Comments

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus

Some years back we found ourselves near the town I grew up in – Waukegan, Illinois. I’d not been there in decades. We decided to take a detour in our planned trip and drive by some of my old haunts.

Sadly, the house I lived in for my first nine years was in a state of disrepair. Rickety porch steps, missing shingles. My mother’s beloved lilac bushes were no more. The downtown where I’d “scooped the loop” in the front seat of an old Chevy was barely recognizable. Not one store name was the same. Most jarring was my walk through the Catholic church I grew up in. How could it be so small? I remembered lighting candles inside a hushed space – a side grotto/cavern made of dark rock. There I stood, inside the grotto, looking at battery operated candles and grey plastic simulated stone walls. After lighting a candle and saying a small prayer for my mother, I decided to end our nostalgic tour. I wanted to keep the rest of my memories intact.

stream rushes surely
rocks tumble and change their shape
nothing stays as is

Frank is hosting Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. His prompt for today is to “imbue our haibun with mono no aware. Write on any topic that you like as long as your haibun embodies that wistful sadness marking the beauty of transience.” A haibun combines prose and a haiku. Image is a photo I took some years back on one of our vacations.

Life is what it is . . .

April 25, 2024lillian6 Comments

So many questions I could ask myself.
Why this? Why that?
Why then? Why now?
Why not? Why me?

But those sound too much
like regrets.
I choose to live my life
without regrets.

Regrets indicate a desire
for change in the past.
One change a ripple makes
and then,

life would be different
somewhere along the path.
Life would be different now.
I like my now.

Written for day 25 of NaPoWriMo where the prompt is to “write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire,” a set of questions drawn from Victorian-era parlor games, and adapted by modern interviewers. You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions.”

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Time: the Conundrum

April 24, 2024lillian1 Comment

The future is beginning now.
When I arrive,
I am what was missing before.

Tomorrow always becomes
a yesterday. My past
was once unknown to me.

Time is after all, a glutton.
Best to concentrate on the moment,
every time it comes.

Written for NaPoWriMo day 24.

The prompt is to “write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it.” “The future is beginning now” is from Mark Strand’s poem, The Babies, published in his Collected Poems published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015. He is a former Poet Laureate of the United States and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Image is from Pixabay.com

Lillian as Lily?

April 18, 2024lillian9 Comments

Living my life as a perennial?
Lily of the valley, that would be me.
Closest to forever
I ever would be.

Lily of the valley, that would be me,
planted beneath our family tree.
I ever would be
blooming and seeing generations to come.

Planted beneath our family tree.
Closest to forever,
blooming and seeing generations to come,
living my life as a perennial.

Written to fulfill the prompts for for day 18 of NaPoWriMo and for Meet the Bar Thursday at dVerse the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write a poem where “the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else and explains why.”

Prompt for dVerse today is to write a Pantoum: a poem of any length written in quatrains and using the prescribed line directions below:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8

Last stanza:
Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza

Time in a Bottle

April 17, 2024lillian3 Comments

When I was very young
time meant having fun.
The road ahead of me . . .
well I couldn’t see the end
much less fathom the turns,
detours, or optional routes
in the long journey to come.

A septuagenarian now,
closer to eighty than seventy,
my memories are glued in scrapbooks.
From early marriage days
to birthdays and holidays,
newspaper clippings,
and recital programs.

Wedding albums,
birth announcements.
Photo albums filled with
tent-camping vacations,
early grandparenting days,
family reunions,
scenery shots from cruising days.

There is no doubt about it, time is a glutton.
It eats up seconds, months,
and precious years. But if we could stop it,
collect special events,
and put them in a bottle,
the question is,
at what point would we do that?

What would be the ripple effect?
Which moments might be lost,
what aspects of human development
might be missed in that stutter moment
between stopping the clock and starting it again?
Can we really judge what is significant enough
to stop everyone’s else’s world to save our own?

And just as important to consider,
how many bottles would we need?

Written for NaPoWriMo day 17 where the prompt today is to choose a song, and write a poem whose title is the name of the song. Time in a Bottle was made popular by Jim Croce.

An Anaphora

April 14, 2024lillian2 Comments

What if every dawn illuminated hope?
What if every house was a home?
What if words had only positive meanings?
What if gross only meant twelve dozen?
What if thirst only happened to plants?
What if everyone holding hands produced a circle of love?
What if politicians had no power over a woman’s womb?
What if simple soap and water could eliminate prejudice?
What if war was only a card game?
What if every dawn illuminated peace?

Written for NaPoWriMo day 14. The prompt is to write an anaphora: a poem of 10 lines where each line begins with the same word. Photo is from Cape Cod some years ago.

Namrah

April 12, 2024April 13, 2024lillian1 Comment

Namrah soared through night skies,
finding his way back to the Pepperdine home.
He’d not returned for many years.
He’d spent that time in Europe,
delighting so many children,
guiding them through star dust fields
until they grew beyond what adults called
their pretend years.

Namrah is not an imagined creature.
He appears at night, silver wings softly flapping,
golden beak tapping upon a child’s window.
He hums softly, the reverse of a lullaby tune,
waking them from the deepest of sleeps.
They climb upon his back, fingers entwined in crimson feathers,
flying past Venus into the glorious galaxy.
Namrah tells them wondrous tales and listens to their dreams.

Once the elders agreed Namrah was ready to join the fleet,
Jarrad Pepperdine had been his first assignment.
He remembered Jarrad’s soft brown eyes, opened wide as they flew.
The whispered secrets he’d shared and how carefully he listened.
His job was to instill everlasting wonder and hope in children,
understanding that far too soon, they would inevitably part.
Tonight, Namrah breaks every rule he agreed to long ago,
returning to the Pepperdine’s street,
hoping for a glimpse, if not a visit, with Jarrad, the adult.

Written for Day 12 of NaPoWriMo where the prompt today is to “write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.” American tall tales feature larger-than-life characters like Paul Bunyan (who is literally larger than life), Bulltop Stormalong (also gigantic), and Pecos Bill (apparently normal-sized, but he doesn’t let it slow him down). If you’d like to see a modern poetic take on the tall tale, try Jennifer L. Knox’s hilarious poem, “Burt Reynolds FAQ.” Your poem can revolve around a mythical character, one you make up entirely, or add fantastical elements into a real person’s biography.”

Namrah is a wonderful creature I wrote about frequently in the early days of this blog. Go to the search function on this page and plug in the word Namrah and you’ll find some very early poems about this wonderful imaginary friend. Have not written about him in many years so very fun to revisit him.

Image created in Bing Create.

Ode to a Family Table

April 9, 2024lillian3 Comments

Praises to the table,
the one our family gathered round.
You held court with meals,
never minded spilled morsels.
Gained rings in the process
from sloppy milk glasses.

You listened without judgement.
Heard the hijinks of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle,
knock-knock jokes, teacher complaints,
family disagreements, high school gossip,
vacation plans, college choice deliberations,
and joyfully sung table graces.

You welcomed guests
who crammed in extra chairs.
More elbows leaning in,
more spills, raucous laughter.
Birthday party guests and gangly teens
who occasionally kicked your legs.

Now in another house
but still in the family,
serving another generation.
From toddlers punching playdough
to kids’ paints slopping on your surface,
you still stand proud after all these years.

Written for day 9, NaPoWriMo. The challenge is to write a poem every day in April, which is National Poetry Writing Month.

The NaPoWriMo challenge today, takes a page from the famous poet Pablo Neruda. His poetry, translated to English, is treasured by many. Among his poetry are a series of Odes. An ode is a poem written in praise of a person, place or object. The challenge today? “Write your own ode celebrating an everyday object.”

Photos are of our family table over the years….could not find any when our kids were infants or toddlers. We sure celebrated many a birthday at this table! The table has been at our daughter’s home since her children were very young. They grew up at the same table their mama and uncle did. Last two photos are of our daughter’s and son’s children sitting at the table in more recent years.

They said it wouldn’t work . . .

April 8, 2024lillian1 Comment

There are certain phrases we hear so often
we just naturally assume they’re true,
or at the very least, in our experience
we never hear them as new.

All through our married life
we always had dogs, as in two,
because everyone knows
“two is easier than one” is true.

You’ve heard that well worn phrase,
“they fight like cats and dogs.”
We always assumed adding a cat to the mix
would result in a myriad of scrappy conflicts.

So it was with great trepidation,
we agreed with significant hesitation.
Buckling under to our daughter’s frustration
we agreed to her pleas, with much consternation.

We added a cat to the mix
expecting a storm of scrappy conflicts.
Blossom was a Siamese kitten
so cute, we were all quickly quite smitten.

And weren’t we incredibly surprised
when our fears were never realized.

Lyra stretched out her long Shepherd frame,
Blossom circled round, staking out her claim.
Lyra settled in for a nice long nap
and Blossom curled up, at home in her lap.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 8. The challenge is to write a poem every day in April, National Poetry Writing Month.

The prompt at NaPoWriMo today is to “write a poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason.” Photo is of our very large German Shepherd, Lyra, and our Siamese kitten, Blossom: taken many many years ago when our kids were very young.