happiness

Tillie’s Folly

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NaPoWriMo  without a daily prompt. Some people are bigger than life, right?

Ernestine by name, Tillie by choice
her steps swish with a joi de vivre
cultivated in French 101 enrichment class.

Blinking an eye, she sees the world in pink
through custom made cats eye glasses
with one fuchsia tinted lens.

Treasured childhood memories
hot vacation drives, windows rolled down
rest stops with pralines and all things Florida.

Collector of girlie things
orange blossom eau d’ cologne bottles
among lipsticks on the mirrored vanity.

Milliner by trade, homemade hats
spill from the antique wardrobe
in a cacophony of colors.

Eons of moons ago, a girl of five
learned to live her dreams
a spark of creativity began it all.

Red and yellow feathers molded to rings
she strutted through kindergarten
hand made tiara fit for a queen.

Tillie’s Folly, hat shop to the stars
sold to the highest bidder
her  sashay through life moves on.

Sole Soul View

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NaPoWriMo   Day 13 is to write a riddle poem.  Three descriptive clues/views of the same thing — very pedestrian!

1.
Every day
on floor carpet sidewalk
step briskly to corner office
tap below glass-top desk
by floor to ceiling window
sealed shut to the soul.

2.
Move forward upward onward
stretch tall to top shelf
where dusty books and what-ifs lie
walk run tip on toes
ready-set-go
limp across today’s finish line.

3.
Climb berber covered stairs

to suite with rose trellised paper
quickly untied unshod slip between
slick and silken sheets nuzzling her toes his mates
meeting hopefully so late again this night
like last and last and last.

Sunrise Return to Sweden

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Four years ago, we took a Baltic Cruise, including a day in Stockholm. My husbands’ family is very Swedish. His grandfather, Hjalmer Siegfried immigrated in 1906, at age 22. Painter by trade, he decorated the basement walls to look like the USS Sweden, the ship that brought him to Ellis Island — complete with ship railings, sky, and sea gulls. Some visitors actually got seasick after a Yule drink of homemade glog. Well, honestly, I don’t know if it was the simulated ship or the grain alcohol in grampa’s glog!  Criuise highlight?  The VERY early morning glide through the absolutely quiet and rustic archipelago, leading into Stockholm. Island after island….stunning!  NaPoWriMo day 8 entry, without prompt.

     Dawn in the Archipelago, outside Stockholm….just entering Sweden.  IMG_6095      

Sunrise Return to Sweden                                                             

I stand mesmerized.
Dawn awakens serenity’s beauty
rippled patterns glisten on black sea
gulls hover over softly churning wake.

Moving patterns of white wings
against dark greens and grey rock edges
the occasional light house turns its eye
wood frame homes nestle in their woods.

The ship slowly glides in dark waters
through Sweden’s archipelago
guardian isles to myriad lines of ancestry
protector from the city’s growing girth.

A lone call from among the gulls
pierces still air, a stark welcome
primitive in nature, surely heard before
by our grandfather and his and his and his.

IMG_6136

Monday’s Promise

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April is National Poetry Writing Month.  NaPoWriMo 2015 is a challenge to write a poem every day in April.  Today’s prompt:  write an aubade – a morning poem….perhaps about love, perhaps about Monday.  

Monday’s Promise

Last night’s shooting star
carried my wish
streaking across the sky
someone listening
outside our universe
promised me
tranquility and love
in yesterday’s tomorrow.

Mornings at Sixty-Seven

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Before my rejuvenatement, I was crazed in an all-consuming job  — well, being honest  — I let it be all-consuming. I used to blame caffeine for my hyper and frenzied approach to life.

So here I am, drinking the same amount of coffee, savoring it rather than gulping it, and mea culpa  to the goddess caffeine. Slowing down, my body – not my mind, has made all the difference.


Mornings at Sixty-Seven

Eyes open unbuzzed awake
see him next to me half-covered
grey hair matted with sleep.

Legs stretch with pointed toes
while arms uncoil overhead
the body lumbers out of bed.

Breakfast made and savored
rich aromatic espresso beans
fingers smudged tasting newsprint ink.

At sixty-seven,
my mornings have elongated
into the sublime.

All We Need

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buttercup_meadow_pointed_flower

Have you ever just escaped the craziness of the world by tent camping? It makes you realize how little we really need to be happy.

All We Need

We travel at a hurried pace
away from a stoplight-elevator-world
toward those long-planned
six nights and days.

The tread wheel flattens
heart rates slow
as the green meadow comes into view
scattered clumps of butter-cups and violets.

Personnas molted, we sit
and breathe deeply
the kind of gut-breaths
that expand the good parts of your brain.

Coffee gurgles over the fire
lit by one match
branches, twigs and
scraps of yesterday’s paper.

The one we quickly scanned
standing up at the glass table
gulping from mugs
with ergonomic handles.

With long swishing swallows
of aromatic elixir
we watch our six day world
through the thick mesh of a tent flap.

Rain starts to fall
quietly in that all day soaking way –
so we laugh
and clink our tin cups together.

The Next Stage

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Have you read About me yet?

So here I am, comin’ round the bend in my stages of life. And it occurs to me, there’s a reason why I bought a refrigerator magnet that says Do More of What Makes You Happy. Do you do that?  Guess what I choose in the poem below.

 

The Next Stage

A tectonic shift in life occurs
racing to the next mile marker.
Youth and middle age behind,
we peer
beyond the line.

This time
we will choose.
We’ve earned that right.
Read carefully
and then apply.

Wrinkle-free?
Slap on an age-defying
mystical cream
or pull on press-free
dungarees and tee.

Duty-free?
Must have
a tax-free everything-watch
or toss off the Timex and live,
task-free with exuberant flair.

Self-Portrait: Dancer Down

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Have you ever been asked to “define” yourself?

In Holly Wren Spaulding’s poetry class, we were asked to write a Self-Portrait Poem. That seems a bit softer, less in-your-face and serious than “defining” myself.

By way of explanation, I took dance lessons from age 4 to 17 with Miss Edith Tewes in Waukegan, Illinois. She was one tough lady and for a long time I fancied myself a budding Rockette. Photo is me in one of the many Boston rehearsals mentioned below.

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Self-Portrait: Dancer Down

There it was. Audition.
Wanted: 100 dancers
for three months prep to perform
in Boston’s Copley Square.
No experience required.
I did this twenty years ago –
in Iowa.
Ninety-nine hoofer-wanna-bes
plus Gene Kelly and me.
Thousands saw me
in the big-ten half-time show
or took a trip for hotdogs
and the john.

So I did it. Again.
Ninety-nine plus me
two nights every week.
Loud fast rehearsals
with slow
every day
repeats
at home
to video
online.
I should have known.
I was twenty years older
not newer.

One month to go.
On burgundy shag carpet
right-turn-slide-spin.
Then on wooden
unforgiving studio floor.
Five-six-seven-eight……
Crap.……dancer down.

Legs sagged. Muscles be damned.
Relegated to rice.
Rest-Ice-Compression-and-
–   – oh hell,
I forget what the E stands for.