Travel Muse

From Boston, Paul Revere, Take Notice!

lillian2 Comments

NaPoWriMo  Writing Prompt:   it’s the eighteenth of April, the 240th anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.  In keeping with the theme of rush and warning, write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message.

Boston marathoners
poised and ready again
take over streets
race their way
to a 21st century
interpretation
of words you once lived.
Boston Strong

A time to remember those killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, pay tribute to first responders on that day of pain and resolution, and praise the indomitable human spririt that rises in the face of evil.  

This Holy Place

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NaPoWriMo  Day 11: no prompt. 

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The candle is lit.
Her resolute hand
sparks bright yellow flames
as gold iconography shimmers.

Statuary bears witness.
Tears spill sadness
as hearts laid open
silently name their fears away.

Well worn kneelers
impress needlepoint cross or dove
on bared knees of any age
bent in supplication.

Tourists shuffle
up and down aisles
whisper loudly
ignore the calligraphy hush.

Believers turned gawkers
their occasional donation
a tip for service
we pay for with our souls.

Sunrise Return to Sweden

lillian1 Comment

Four years ago, we took a Baltic Cruise, including a day in Stockholm. My husbands’ family is very Swedish. His grandfather, Hjalmer Siegfried immigrated in 1906, at age 22. Painter by trade, he decorated the basement walls to look like the USS Sweden, the ship that brought him to Ellis Island — complete with ship railings, sky, and sea gulls. Some visitors actually got seasick after a Yule drink of homemade glog. Well, honestly, I don’t know if it was the simulated ship or the grain alcohol in grampa’s glog!  Criuise highlight?  The VERY early morning glide through the absolutely quiet and rustic archipelago, leading into Stockholm. Island after island….stunning!  NaPoWriMo day 8 entry, without prompt.

     Dawn in the Archipelago, outside Stockholm….just entering Sweden.  IMG_6095      

Sunrise Return to Sweden                                                             

I stand mesmerized.
Dawn awakens serenity’s beauty
rippled patterns glisten on black sea
gulls hover over softly churning wake.

Moving patterns of white wings
against dark greens and grey rock edges
the occasional light house turns its eye
wood frame homes nestle in their woods.

The ship slowly glides in dark waters
through Sweden’s archipelago
guardian isles to myriad lines of ancestry
protector from the city’s growing girth.

A lone call from among the gulls
pierces still air, a stark welcome
primitive in nature, surely heard before
by our grandfather and his and his and his.

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