Harbinger

lillian43 Comments

A gift unwanted, disdained,
sat untouched.
Please. Pleaze. Pulllleeeze.
Pleas for lessons.
When you can reach the pedals
we said again and again.

And then . . . young fingers
explored the keys.
Eager feet
moved left then right.
Fingers began to dance
and feet to pump.

Hymns at church
rang out loud,
ten year old dwarfed
by massive pipe organ.
Appendages in synch
matched broad grin on face.

Thank you dad.
Your gift, unwanted once,
became our daughter’s future.
If only you could see her now.

Sarah hosts Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to write about a harbinger…..a sign of something to come.  This posts tells a true story. When my parents retired, they basically sold all their worldy goods and traveled the states in a motor home. My dad gave us his very small Lawrys organ and gave my brother a beautiful antique school clock he’d refinished. For years, I was furious that I was stuck with this musical instrument that no one could play and my brother got this fabulous clock!  And then our daughter started to beg for lessons. The rest is history….as you’ll see by this one minute video! 

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At an early organ competition. Love the knee socks!

Music Returns

lillian58 Comments

Earth warms herself
sun gazes more deeply.
Snow crystals liquify,
trickle downward
through softening hillside,
quicken to rushing rivulets.
Winter stillness disappears.
Stream babbles, meanders,
gains strength through shifting pebbles
as plant life regenerates.
Grasses wave to river’s symphony.
Nature steeped in spring song.

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Mish is hosting Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. “Steep” or a form of the word must be used within our quadrille (poem of exactly 44 words, sans title). Photo in pixabay.com

Confessional

lillian21 Comments

My heart slips,
falls.
Ice encrusted long ago,
disappointed.
Abandoned. Ignored.
Disgorged.

Shattered sound
ricochets.
Too late I understand.
I am the abandoner.
Aortic contractions
in northernmost veins.

Earth shudders
heaves
lets go,
as I have her.

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Anmol hosts Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today, she asks us to explore confessional poetry. In Confessional, whose voice is heard in the first stanza? The confessor appears in the second and third stanza. This is how I felt when we took our trip to Alaska several years ago. I witnessed and heard the calving that is occurring more and more as we ignore the plight of our earth. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Telltale Signs

lillian29 Comments

Dandelion wisps
tangled in hair,
cooing to butterflies
fingers she flutters.
Turning she runs
ready for flight,
clambers on swing
wishing she might.

Higher she shouts
Daddy push higher!
Smiling, he does,
thankful for fairies.
Their magical gift
a changeling,
the child he adores.

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It’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, and De asks us to use the word “change” (or a form of the word) within our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. Image from Pixabay.com. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Alter Ego

lillian39 Comments

Trash art.
But not to me.

Paint brush body
bottle opener arms.
Metal disk eyes
always open.
Clock innard springs
‘neath blooming heart.
Curved metal strip
forever smile.

They say
art speaks to you.

 Pull yourself together,
use what you’ve got.
Uniquely assembled,
bloom where you are.
Wear a perky hat
eyes wide open,
smile at the world
and they’ll smile back.

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I’m hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets – which means I create the prompt. And today’s prompt is “Come hang with me!”  Choose something hanging in your house (on a wall, from a bookcase, in your closet, etc) and write a poem about it! I’ve asked that folks include a photo so we can see what they’re writing about. This lovely piece of “trash art” hangs in my study, on the side of my desk. I see her every morning and she always makes me smile! Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Namrah, Figment of Childhood

lillian28 Comments

Oh why have you deserted me these nights,
your golden wings and glistening silver beak?
We soared through star lit skies to mystic sites
my Namrah, childhood friend, to me unique.

Adulthood now, so taxed by tasks each day
the years have sped, imagination dulled.
My dreams are doors no more, no passage way,
no you. But stress instead, and nightmares mulled.

Oh why have you deserted me these years?
Is there another child who claimed your dreams
whilst I, within the dark, doth shed my tears
for youthful innocence and moonbeam gleams.

As wrinkles steep and footsteps slow my gait,
I see the light in death’s dawn – tis there you wait.

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Written for dVerse MTB where Bjorn hosts and asks us to write a sonnet. Sonnets can take a number of forms. I’ve chosen a Shakespearean Sonnet: 14 lines with the following rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.  I find this form extremely difficult and find myself counting out syllables etc on my fingers. So this is my go at it. A Shakespeare I’m not! PS:  Over the years I’ve written a number of poems about Namrah. Many folks have childhood imaginary friends. I did not – but I’ve created Namrah in a number of poems, speaking in the first person, as if this beautiful mythcal bird is just that. 

Empathy

lillian64 Comments

What if I became you?
A three-letter being instead of a one.
Not won but lost.
In your shoes with one lost sole.
A lost soul.

What if you became them?
A four-letter being instead of a three.
Not a one. Never won.
You as them. Not allowed in.
On the other side.

Outside, like them.
The other’s side.
Not here. Never here.
What if you were them?
You, an other.

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Merril opens the new year at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to consider time and space and what if. Her prompt: “What if you – or someone else – or some THING else – took that less or more-traveled path? Would it make a difference? Will it make a difference?  Look backward, forward, inside, and out. Then wonder, what if?” Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Stop by and begin your 2019 by imbibing some words today!