if I put on lacy anklets
chalk hopscotch on my sidewalk
tie these grey locks into pigtails
and read Golden Books,
will everything be fun again?
Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. I’m “tending the pub today” and look forward to reading all the posts. Photo taken a few weeks ago at the Corvette Diner in San Diego’s Liberty Station – our waitress’ feet!
The small San Diego garden plot lies waiting. Remains stripped bare from summer past. Green straggling leggy vines meander over and under blunt-cut branches of a now anonymous plant. Dried tall corn stalks stand in leaning stance, blown by winds or simply bent from lack of care once the cobs were picked.
Long woody stems are capped by dry flower tops, their name a mystery to me. Brown scaled outer shell still holds tight to popped open pods. Each pod is perhaps six inches across and contains what looks like spiderweb short wisps of silken threads. I am smitten by these long-past-their-prime blooms and try to capture their beauty in photos – some in monotone black and white, others in their natural earth like tones. I am sad to know these plants, beautiful in their drying state, will soon be cleared as new seed is sown.
migratory bird
transports dried seed in plumage
beauty travels far
Photos taken Saturday, on a walk through the beautiful campus of San Diego State University. We came upon a small garden plot by the art buildings. It was obviously left untended until spring, when it will be cleared and replanted.
Written for Haibun Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Frank asks us to write about the coming spring. Haibun: two or three tight paragraphs of prose (must be true) followed by a haiku that invokes a season.
Perk up!
So the path behind is longer
than the trail ahead.
Wild flowers still bloom,
ready for picking along the way.
No more reins to white knuckle.
The children are loose
reining in their own foals,
galloping in fields you planted,
tended many years ago.
Embrace your lover joyfully
as days and weeks slip by.
Love more deeply, gently, surely.
Expect to share the morrow gladly
as you kiss the night goodbye.
Written fordVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Frank is tending bar, asking us to write a soliloquy poem today. Photo from Pixabay.com
“As I left China farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a great universe beyond the plane’s silver wing. I took one more glance over my past life, then turned to the future. I was eager to embrace the world.”
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
Youth and middle age.
I am far past those lanes,
beyond that curve in the road.
Photos framed on shelves.
Who I was and who I loved
all along the way.
Mirrored image returns my gaze.
Silver haired and wizened,
in this, my final season.
No turning back.
Winter’s snow always glistens
even in the setting sun.
I shall embrace this scene.
This my new world forever,
as ever I shall be.
Mish is hosting Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to choose a book near us (or from a link she provides) and look to the last lines at the end of the book….and then let those be our poetic muse for our post today! Thus the last lines to Wild Swans, included before my poem.
Photo from our trip to Norway a few years ago.
Parents, she thought, learned to survive touching their children less and less.
From Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
These were precious moments ~
holding you upon my shoulder
napping with you upon my chest
holding you to my breast
lifting you back up to walk again
reading together, you sitting on my lap
skipping lessons, hand in hand
sharing hugs on grade school days
combing hair and straightening shirt
and wiping tears as you tumbled.
Now you have growing children
and as their independence grows,
touching them is lessening too for you.
But between you and me
at this stage in our lives,
hello and goodbye hugs
seemingly last a bit longer.
Perhaps because we know
time passing, means less time left
and we treasure more
these moments of staying in touch.
generations absent,
younger ones, elders now,
hold hands round the table.
Tofurky on Wedgewood platter,
agave sweetened yams.
Fresh green beans afloat
in organic mushroom soup.
Real-orange jelloed mold
quivers on bed of kale.
Voices sing familiar grace.
Misty eyes . . .
remembering.
De hosts Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. We are to use the word “quiver” or a form of the word, in the body of a quadrille. Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I went light with this one – a bit of humor needed in these days of 24/7 news!
Go forth to seek old friends.
Rise to the occasion as you step into your past.
Play at remembering faces until a
spark of recognition ignites, and memories
flow as smiles grow.
Crush each other in hugs, abandon inhibitions.
Defy years that added stiff knees, sagging skin and sometimes balding heads.
Love simply that you stand with one another, however changed by time.
Wander campus, so different but somehow still the same.
Shine in celebration of life, fifty years later still here . . .
and here again.
Victoria is host at today’s dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. She asks us to consider the world of pop art: think Andy Warhol’s Campbells Tomato Soup Cans. Several suggestions for poems arise from her prompt, including using a product as the subject of a poem. This cereal box resides within our kitchen cupboard so I’ve used its words to begin each line of my poem. And oh yes…..the Class of 1969 at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois was indeed an original and unique one. Photos from this past weekend’s 50th college reunion below. What a wonderful time we had renewing old friendships and taking a walk down the proverbial memory lane!
I shall not go quietly.
Monocolors about to shift
enabled by passing time.
A last hurrah.
Flashing reds and golds
kicking up my heels,
swirling dervish as I let loose.
Revelry earned by business suits,
years of accountability
must-dos and many don’ts.
I shall dance the can-can.
precisely because I can
and am.
My name may not be Autumn,
but watch me go out
in a blaze of glory.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Bjorn asks us to write using metaphor. Photo cropped from one in Pixabay.com.
Arboreal cobwebs.
Ethereal threads glimmer in sun,
intricate patterns
cling leaf to leaf.
Familial cobwebs.
Wisps of the past,
displayed on tables
ready for yard sale.
Charlotte’s cobwebs.
Eager youngsters
admire the spinning,
imagination’s delight.
Gray matter cobwebs,
clammy uneasiness.
Disturbed cluttered thoughts
provoked by age,
exasperated by twenty-four-seven news.
Sometimes I think . . .
we are all but two legged steeds
ruled by stop watch and finish lines.
Some struggle to keep the pace.
Others never leave the race,
gates open and off they go
pasture be damned.
Some claim the roses
only to have them wither and die,
first place noted on fraying record book.
Has beens, almost and never weres.
Frenetic trotters round the track
until age ultimately claims its due.
Then woe the beast who suddenly sees.
Blinders stripped away
peripheral vision cleared,
too late the lesson learned:
there were others along the way.
I was simply galloping too fast
flying past, eyes ahead.
I should have known,
they were the ultimate prize.
