Teaching skills. Helping. Watching. Too soon the dividing line appeared, between the now and what was coming.
Responsibilities increased. Yours not ours. Your departures, more frequent, measured at first in hours, not miles.
Your wings. Expected, prepared for. We marveled and smiled. Waved at you . . . and then you were gone.
Distance multiplied. Time stretched separations. Hairline fractures of the heart, smiling our love through goodbyes.
Parenting children to adulthood. Learning to live through changing times, adjusting to the moving margins.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Dora asks us to write about a poem that somehow talks about margins. She gives many examples of margins. As a septuagenarian with two happily married children and five grandchildren, I thought about living through moving margins as a parent and thus, this poem.
Praises to the table, the one our family gathered round. You held court with meals, never minded spilled morsels. Gained rings in the process from sloppy milk glasses.
You listened without judgement. Heard the hijinks of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, knock-knock jokes, teacher complaints, family disagreements, high school gossip, vacation plans, college choice deliberations, and joyfully sung table graces.
You welcomed guests who crammed in extra chairs. More elbows leaning in, more spills, raucous laughter. Birthday party guests and gangly teens who occasionally kicked your legs.
Now in another house but still in the family, serving another generation. From toddlers punching playdough to kids’ paints slopping on your surface, you still stand proud after all these years.
Written for day 9, NaPoWriMo. The challenge is to write a poem every day in April, which is National Poetry Writing Month.
The NaPoWriMo challenge today, takes a page from the famous poet Pablo Neruda. His poetry, translated to English, is treasured by many. Among his poetry are a series of Odes. An ode is a poem written in praise of a person, place or object. The challenge today? “Write your own ode celebrating an everyday object.”
Photos are of our family table over the years….could not find any when our kids were infants or toddlers. We sure celebrated many a birthday at this table! The table has been at our daughter’s home since her children were very young. They grew up at the same table their mama and uncle did. Last two photos are of our daughter’s and son’s children sitting at the table in more recent years.
One of four children, her parents died before the age of sixty from massive heart attacks. Her two sisters did the same; as did her brother. She buried her youngest sister on her own birthday and did the same with her only son, who died at fifty-one, also from a heart attack. Her husband died at seventy-three, from complications following open heart surgery. She defied familial medical history and lived to eighty-one, her own heart having been broken many times. She was my mother.
When they called, I rushed to her side. Congestive heart failure finally took its toll. “We’d like to operate,” the doctor said. She quietly shook her head. “I’m so tired, Lillian.” I held her hand and she smiled. But that smile was the last smile to come upon her face. I whispered, “Go and find dad, mom.” And she did.
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa asks us to use the line, “But that smile was the last smile to come upon her face” in a piece of prose, no more than 144 words in length, sans title. The line is from the poem Ballad of Birmingham, written in 1968 by Dudley Randall. My mother, Helen Cecile Petitclair Gruenwald died in 1998. I had the privilege of being at her side as she transitioned to another world. I remember it clearly.
Discover with me your family tree. Ignore online apps promising filigree.
Instead, help me decorate my Christmas tree. String tiny lights round and round with glee. Stand on tip toe to place Grampa’s ribbon rose at the very top, where it always goes.
Hang wooden orange giraffe beside spunky little brown horse. Decades ago they made you laugh, hanging above your crib, of course.
Be extra gentle with the pink glass bell, fragile as a thin egg shell. Your grandmother’s as a small child, looking at it, she always smiled.
Add red ornament with letters painted white, Lillian spelled out, still brings delight. Made by my teacher in first grade, her love for students proudly displayed.
Treasure these ornaments year after year so many belonged to family so dear. Behold this memory filled Christmas tree, see and touch your ancestry.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Grace provides us with the last prompt for 2023 as we will now be on hiatus until January 1. She asks us to write a culinary rhyming recipe poem.
While we do indeed have a number of recipes handed down from generation to generation in my family, I’ve taken a bit of poetic license and written a poem with a “recipe” for my adult children (now 47 and 49; I’m 76) to discover their ancestry/family tree by looking at the ornaments on my Christmas tree. Just a few are mentioned in the poem. There many more including a fragile airplane that was on my father’s tree when he was a little boy. You can see it in the photo, next to my mother’s pink bell. There are ornaments made by my children’s babysitters; two painted by my father; some made by neighbors from the house where we raised our children; some made or given to us by aunts and uncles; sadly some given to us by relatives now gone from this earth. There are ornaments made by our kids when they were 4 and some when they were in grade school. There are ornaments collected from family vacations. It is what I often call a memory tree. Almost every ornament has its own story. In a way, they are the ingredients, melded together and on display, that enable us to reconnect with our family every year, no matter the distance or time that separates us; no matter if they have left this earth and only reside in our hearts.
Whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope they are joyful and shared with loved ones. I also wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year.
O Tannenbaum, holding warm memories. Mother’s eggshell thin glass pink bell, father’s fragile airplane ornament, each almost one-hundred years old. Brother’s handmade Santa with sparse cotton beard, seventy-seven years old. Family long departed from earth, always here this beautiful season, illuminated on my tree.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe, where today Lisa asks us to write a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title, that includes the word “warm” – or a form of the word.
Yes, our Christmas tree is up! And always hung first on the tree, are my three most precious and fragile ornaments: the pink bell was given to my mother’s parents when she was born; the airplane was given to my father when he was about five; and my brother made this Santa Claus when he was in first grade. He was nine years older than me and tragically died of a massive heart attack at age fifty-one – before either of my parents died. All three have been gone for many years. I always hold my breath when I open the box to see if these ornaments have made it to another year. Many other meaningful ornaments on our tree – I actually call it our memory tree. The Unicorn marionette was made by my daughter when she was eight, forty years ago. The orange giraffe with white bird on its head, to the right of the unicorn, was a wooden piece from the mobile that hung on my children’s crib: daughter now forty-eight and son now forty-six. There’s a traditional red ball ornament that has Lillian printed every-so-neatly on it, made by Mrs. Boomer, my first grade teacher. I’m now seventy-five. And so it goes. That’s a cream-colored garland I crocheted many many years ago. I love putting up my tree.
I was with her when she died, only positive memories in my mind. Holding her hand, leaning down close, my mouth so near her ear.
Faith and love seemed to rush in overcome all doubt as I said, “Go toward the light mom. Daddy’s there, he’s missed you.”
Her eyes opened. She smiled at me – and then she was gone. What was the sound I heard before that last breath?
Not a death rattle. A sigh? A wooshing? Surely the machines near her. Or perhaps an angel’s wings? Helping her soar to another universe.
A place to reunite with my father, her son, her sisters and brother, her mother and father. A place with no pain, no loneliness.
I hope so. I truly hope so.
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. We were asked to use the word “wing” or a form of the word, within our poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I got so carried away in the emotional writing of the poem, that I went way over the 44 words. So posting it today for Open Link Night. Photo is one of my favorites of my mom, taken at my nephew’s cabin.
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.
Like young colts galloping through wildflowered fields, all legs in a blur. These teenage grandchildren rush in laughing, talking, a whirlwind of energy. Fast hugs for me, quick words of endearment and they’re out the door.
I sit down, coffee cup in hand, and chuckle at what just was. I marvel, smiling, at what is to come and what will be. The world is theirs to explore, to grapple with, to improve, to endure. But for now, let them gallop in the wildflowered fields.
Posted for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. AND we are LIVE today from 3 to 4 PM Boston time. Read below how to join us!
EXCITING NEWS FOR dVERSE! Mr. Samuel Peralta announced the selection of dVerse Anthology, Chiaroscuro, for inclusion in the LunarCodex Polaris time capsule going to the moon in 2023! It’s true! Not a hoax! Chiaroscuro will be on the moon — I have six poems in the anthology! I’m going to be on the moon! Go to lunarcodex.com to learn more. At the Menu on the right click on MORE….scroll down and you’ll come to an image of Chiaroscuro! Mr. Peralta is interviewed on YouTube about the technology. Google “We”re flying to the moon samuel Peralta” you’ll find it. It’s rather lengthy, but very interesting to read about the technology!
What is OLN LIVE? Go to https://dversepoets.com at 3 PM or shortly thereafter. There will be a link right at the top of the page…Click on it and it will take you to the dVerse pub! You’ll meet many of the dVersers who post here weekly, and some who just come when the spirit moves them (or the prompt does!). Each attendee has the opportunity to read one poem aloud as others listen and appreciate. Alternatively, if you are not comfortable reading for the group, simply join us and listen in! The more the merrier!
I hope to see you at the pub today!!! https://dversepoets.com at 3 PM Boston time or shortly thereafter. We’ll be live until 4 PM.
lillian the home poet 