aging

What Was, Never Was

lillian40 Comments

Devout small child, sought cave
lit by red-orange candle flames,
mysterious grotto somehow carved
into side of large gothic church.

Dark stone curved inward
away from gold tabernacle,
winged angels and all the saints
beside mother Mary, gowned in blue.

Solemn under flickering shadows,
knees on kneeler, eyes squeezed shut.
Surely god listens, even to the young
deep within this special place.

Why did I return after decades away?

Priest stands at makeshift altar
watches people, back to tabernacle,
shining not. Statuary stands about,
coarse in detail. And there. . .

dim plastered niche. Grey stones layered
upon layer of faux black, some askew
like mislaid bricks. Yellowed plastic electric
candles flutter, dull and duller.

This off-to-the-side
push-a-button prayer place
is not, and never shall be
what was for me.

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Written for Wednesday Poetics, dVerse Pub for Poets. If you’ve not checked it out, this is a wonderful virtual spot — great group of folks — and always interesting challenges. Today, Mary tends the “bar” and talks about rooms, citing some wonderful poetry, and asks us to write about a room we remember. I did return to this place of my childhood some five years back. I wished I had not. So many things seem so large and magical when we are young. Somehow with height comes a different perspective. Photo Credit: Therese Branton.

…and She is Beautiful

lillian35 Comments

A merry heart does good like a medicine
the yellowed brittle fortune
rest where he’d last touched it.
Beside the faded red envelope,
embroidered stitches now soft to touch.

She sipped her green tea, waiting.
The sun had set long ago
and now the rains were here.
Soon the streets would be a cacophony
drums, shouts, tourists and parades.

And from her window, she would see
the dragon dancing down the street,
her sign ever present, every new year
even in this approaching time,
the Year of the Monkey.

Closing her eyes, she saw again
mother, father, the land, and river
heavy rains bringing fish to the fields.
Images swam in and out in waves,
and memories filled her heart.

She sat, and sipped her tea,
waiting patiently.

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Written for Toni’s Chinese New Year’s prompt at dVerse, a Poet’s Pub. Toni provided several fortune cookie slips and we were to choose one, and use it as the first line in our poem.

Photo credit: Yenhoon

Ebb and Flow

lillian47 Comments

Life is a path between the stars.
Tantrums at two were not my youth,
long before those days
cicadas nested in cedar trees.

Old age will not be defined
by creaking limbs and bleached bones.
I will float with abandon,
as myriad shades of liquid blue.

I shall become the ocean wide
waves crashing upon the rocks
seeping in and out,
among the sands of time.

The lunar tug shall continue me
and my waters shall lap the earth.

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Abhra hosts dVerse Poets’ Pub, Tuesday Poetics and asks us to answer the question, what would you like to be reborn as or return as?
Photos: from Bermuda, myriad shades of blue!
Interesting fact: cicadas were dependant on Bermuda Cedar trees for their survival, and when the cedar forests died in the 1940s, the cicadas began to quickly disappear. They are now extinct.

In Response to Death

lillian39 Comments

I shall be more than a visitor upon this earth.
Cities and countries stabbed with green push pins
in a yellow brittle map upon the wall.
Dog-eared journals full of must-sees checked off in red.
Christmas cards sent round the world
Best Wishes from lillian embossed in gold.

When I die, my life shall not flash before me
like quick bold lightning, jagged and gone.
I shall keep everyday images seared in my heart.

Eraser smudges on valentine red, paled with years.
The familiar slant of my daughter’s hand,
scribbled note stuck on refrigerator door.
The love of my life, head bowed, dozing in his chair.
Our white house, its wide open yard
where we chased fireflies on warm Iowa nights.

Visitors tread imprints upon the ground
disturbed, then gone with the slightest breeze.
My death shall leave my laughter and my grin
my dancing spirit and my quirky ways,
some of me in those I leave behind,
having lived and loved upon this earth.

Ah serentiy

For today’s Poetics on dVerse, the Poets’ Pub, Mary asked us to write a poem in response to another poet’s work. I’ve chosen to respond to Mary Oliver’s When Death Comes. You’ll notice that my first line cues off her last line.  History:  I wrote the first “edition” of this poem as my very first assignment in a poetry class I took in February 2015. Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems Volume One is the first poetry book I ever bought. This Pulitzer Prize winning poet, motivated my first attempt in the start of my poetry writing. This new version is quite quite different. I like to think I’ve improved in my creative writing attempts over this past year!

 

Dementia

lillian47 Comments

Memory spiders twirling thoughts.
Nurse-white whisper shoes
sidle by. Clocks in freezer
stopped time when I knew me.
Thawed too fast, so they came
in loud tapping shoes.
And we danced ourselves into lucidity,
spotlight shining bright.
I remember tomorrow
like it was yesterday.

FullSizeRenderQuadrile 1 for dVerse Pub for Poets. Word count 44, using a form of the word dance – as in dance into a condition.

Dear Peter Pan

lillian7 Comments

I need your help,
the crocodile is getting close.
Time just seems to disappear
even on ho hum days.

Please send Tinker Bell
to flit round my head.
I’ll remember then
to think wonderful things.

And the starry sky
outside my window
will look more inviting
when it’s my turn to fly.

lillian

peter pan

 

Quickly’s Winter Doldrums Jan 10 Prompt: write an epistolary poem – a poem in the form of a letter.

 

Happiness Extended

lillian4 Comments

She enjoyed decorating for the season
memories gently removed from tissue paper,
placed about the room.

Christmas cards from years gone by
ornaments of glass and styrofoam
some misshapen, now glitter bare.

Each year’s new wreath carefully selected
artificial greens bedecked in happines
meant to last well beyond her window.

And as Epiphany dawned
she readied herself for church
donned this year’s circle of golden stars.

Her wreath of choice, her Sunday hat.
And she wore the Christmas spirit
well beyond the new year.

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In response to the Daily Photo Challenge to let a familiar shape, the circle, inspire you. Poem motivated by photo, taken at the White House December 2015.

Mrs. Ambrose

lillian22 Comments

“I’d like a cup of hot chocolate, please.”

She’d walked out of the nursing home, no interest in the craft for the day. She couldn’t handle origami and hated working with glitter.

So here she sat on Christmas Eve day. Across from a young couple who chatted quietly, packages beside them. She remembered those kind of stolen moments with Ben. Their kids home with the sitter, last minute shopping done.

She sipped the sweetness, eyes closed, remembering.

“Mrs. Ambrose? You need to come back now.” She pulled the old coat closer to her chest and walked back across the street.

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Word Count: 100   Photo credit: Jean L Hayes.  Story motivated by Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers photo. Thank you Rochelle, for your work this past year and here’s to an inspirational 2016!