Life

Mrs. Jester

lillian11 Comments

She was a primary color kind of gal
young at heart, year after year.

Neon chalk streaks adorned her hair
blue moon ice cream colored her tongue.
She wore bright yellow boots to walk in the rain.
Smiley face balloons attached at the wrist,
always her shadow of choice.

Her happy place
was wearing a clown-face red nose
making you laugh, wherever you met
in a car or a train or a bus or a van
or rocking in chairs here at the home.

We missed her after she died.
But the old man now in her room
wakes every day with a smile,
seeing the large crooked rainbow
painted wheel-chair height,
directly across from his bed.

Rainbow02

 

Memories in Black and White

lillian8 Comments

Phyllis Groat, Billy Behr and Timmy Drew
Francis somebody with Jimmy Fisher
and Mary Buckley too.

Black robed nuns that seemed to glide
feet and hair a mystery
rulers that reached a mile.

Lunch time stools swung in and out
from tables that disappeared
into Mary blue block walls.

Holy card for first place prize.
Priests mumbled Latin mass
and girls watched holy backs.

Third grade fell out of mother’s drawer,
a stained photo stuck between dried up pens
and a Tupperware orange peeler.

Three days after we buried her
in a Catholics only plot,
she made me remember
what I deliberately forgot.

uniform      communion

Photos:  3rd grade class photo mentioned was tossed….but these were also in the drawer.  Me in my 3d grade Immaculate Conception School navy blue uniform  and my first communion picture. I actually won a third grade competition to see who could learn the altar boy responses in Latin first (our third grade boys were lagging in this important task — it was thought this would spur them on). Silly me – I thought if I won I could be an altar boy. See that word?  “Boy.”  Nope.  I did win a gold embossed holy card of St. Francis of Assisi and the boys all went on to assist with Mass.  Memories…..

A New Day Dawns

lillian6 Comments

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And the sun shall break forth,
blush clouds pink then shift
seep tinges of deep warm reds.

A lonely gull sits sentinel,
witness to the changing palette
as waves stir the sands.

And somewhere a newborn cries
seeks her mother’s breast
as seedlings sprout in a monet garden.

For this is a new day to claim
cause and determination for joy
because we can.

We touch, we live to love
this day another,
thankful
together.

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Mirror Image egamI rorriM

lillian8 Comments

I stand here, you there
separated by a chasm of disbelief.

I know me, I feel me.
Who then, are you?

You must be from another place
or time or universe.

When I turn my head away,
will you laugh at my derision?

Will you reach out,
pat my back and mutely say 

There there, you’ll be alright.
Are you sympathetic to what I see?

My memories are inside of me,
hidden to the outside world.

I do not wear them for all to see.
Why then, do you?

luxurious-mirror-1422353

Photo by Torli Roberts

 

Outside In

lillian7 Comments

Stainless steel body and lid
small glass knob at top
black cord with electric plug
wake-up percolates
like ideas
poets play with words
children plot make-believe
imaginary friend or foe
hands slap high-fives
or hit
metal basket filled with grinds
crushed to bits, tampered down
tempered up with heat
bubbles clear then dark
then darker still
anger boils over
outside glassed in walls
balance shifts in hand
to pour the pot
pungent morning elixir
eyes wide shut
as outside
the world explodes.

 

I”ve taken a different approach to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Inspiration. Although there are many things that inspire my living and my love (family and my spouse of 45 years at the top), it seems that my morning cup of coffee beside my journal, at a carved-out early time in the AM, inspires my words. And so, a photo of my coffee and the words it inspired this morning.

What’s in a Shoe?

lillian7 Comments

They sit behind closed closet doors
in back of the shoe rack, gathering dust.
Two-toned in black and white,
four inch heels to elongate the leg
toes so narrow their tips turn up
after years of emptiness.
Ground-in talc mottles the inside
used oh so many times to smooth the sole,
pressure points etched in long dried sweat
from happier bare legged days.

Witness to her previous life
they sat primly crossed in corporate talks
hid behind podiums and knelt at pews
clicked down hallways, sat quietly grieving
in cold rooms filled with overwhelming floral scent,
danced at weddings and stood higher still,
tips of heels up off the floor
for a lifetime of New Year’s kisses.
These Spectators, aptly named
sit waiting to see the sun again.