How many times around life’s stationary wheel? Eight times ten, nine times ten? Apex reached at twenty-five or fifty? Maybe thirty and three-quarters? Down cycle begins later, much later, or maybe it did? Back then. There should be a view from the top, everything spread out in miniature but recognizable. Broken fulcrum invevitable, timed entrance tickets do end. Others clamor to get on, their turn. What’s that saying? We’re just along for the ride.
Rise up this morn, ingenue divine. Sing joy unto the skies for youth, for energy and love. Live now to dance in flower laden fields. Soon enough petals shall shrivel upon their stalks, energy depleted. But love, if tended well, will never desert you.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Monday, August 22nd is Quadrille Monday. Linda asks us to write a quadrille (poem of exactly 44 words, sans title) including the word “morning” or a form of the word. If you look carefully in the first line of Ode to Love, morning is there, albeit broken in to two words.
Apologies to dVersers!I am on a cruise until September 2nd and have very little access to the internet…and when I do, it is intermittant. Therefore I am unable to read your posts to dVerse prompts. Do not feel the necessity to read or post comments on my poems during this time since I can rarely reciprocate.
PS: Poem before this one on my blog, includes photos from our first cruise to the Norwegian Fjords. We are on back-to-back cruises and have just begun the second leg, our Best of Scandinavia cruise.
Schooldays, schooldays, good old golden rule days . . . familiar words from a song my mother sang to me as she tucked me into bed. Generations later, I sang these words at bedtime to our young children, and then again to their children.
As a septuagenarian, I’ve been entrenched in schooldays from when I went to kindergarten until I rejuvenated (never say retired) in December 2012. Schooldays were part of my life as a student, a parent of school-aged children, a teacher, and finally as a university administrator. Whether we lived in rural Iowa, or a city, August always signaled summer’s end. More importantly for me, it was the harbinger of schooldays to come. Depending on my age, it could mean cutting up brown paper grocery sacks to make textbook covers; or shopping for new crayons, knee socks for my uniform, #2 yellow pencils, new Bic pens and notebooks, or a new sweater set. Later it signaled filling out a new lesson plan book, or noting upcoming meetings in a day planner. At seventy-five, back-to-school ads on television bring back memories of August days gone by.
sweetcorn season done seed corn soon to fill silos school bells ring again
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa is hosting and asks us to write about what August means to us. We can use any poetic form we choose. I decided to write a haibun.
Haibun: a poetic form that includes one or two succint paragraphs of prose followed by a haiku. The prose cannot be fiction. The haiku must include a seasonal reference.
My life is like a fragile hourglass sand grains drop through. Some moments I savor slip past me before I can taste them. Other times lag behind move so slowly I can not stand it and so I open my mouth and scream aloud. I want to control each and every grain of my life, especially now in our winter season when the path ahead is far shorter than the glorious one we’ve been blessed to share.
Written for NAPOWRIMO, DAY 28. Today the prompt is to write a concrete poem, in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. Also shared with dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where today it’s OLN: Open LInk Night where we can share any one poem of our choosing.
Society’s expectations? She doesn’t give two hoots about being who she’s not.
It’s taken her a while to get there, seven decades to be exact. Wrinkle creams and hair dye be damned.
She wears flat shoes on every occasion, air-dries her hair in all its grey glory and orders dessert, which is mandatory.
Happily sleeveless when it’s hot, just stare if you dare at her crepe-like skin and notice her knees with those very high hems.
Stereotypical sayings are bantered about, she’s older and wiser and been round the block but look at her now as she picks her own route.
Written for NAPOWRIMO, Day 15. Today we’re asked to “write a poem about something you have absolutely no interest in.” We’re invited “to investigate some of the ‘why’ behind resolutely not giving two hoots about something.” Although my poem is written in third person, this is how I feel at seventy-five.
I choose flat dress shoes instead of stiletto heels. My balance isn’t what it used to be. I choose a romance novel or best seller. Headlines raise my blood pressure and I don’t want to take another pill. I choose strolling the well-worn path. Young people can push the boulders up hill. I choose biting into a blushing velvet peach, sectioning an orange takes too long. I choose creating my own sunshine on a cloudy rainy day. I choose to be me. My age, right here, right now, with you by my side.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Sarah asks us to consider anaphora: a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending emphasis. She gives us a list of verbs to choose from for the word we’d like to repeat. I selected the word choose.
The second half of joy is shorter than the first. Emily Dickinson
everyday a gift wildflowers along the road – snow falls silently
Written for the NAPOWRIMO prompt given the day before National Poetry Writing Month begins. We are to respond to one of Emily Dickinson’s lines of poetry. Several are provided or we may choose our own.
Also will appear at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is OLN: Open Link Night. Ingrid is hosting and we may post any one poem of our choosing. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. NAPOWRIMO begins officially tomorrow. April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write a poem every day of the month. Photo is from our trip to Ireland a number of years ago.
lillian the home poet 