inspiration

Wondrous India

lillian16 Comments

My career took me several times to India. A land of magnificent colors, beautiful people, and simplicity beside urgent modernity.  I was honored to share meals and meet relatives of my students, visit holy places, and experience this wonderful culture. 

Wondrous India

Stone mosque bathed in light,
waits in glistening dark sea
an icon of hope.

Cities teem and swarm
with cars parked beside oxen,
new challenging old.

Low tide finds boardwalk
revealed through waste and debris,
pilgrims’ path to prayer.

Land of paradox:
harsh realities mar the
exalted sublime.

Pristine white heron
scavenges beside children.
Innocent dwellers
of this land called India.

Written for a writing prompt to write in a “series.”  I decided to try my hand at a series of haiku within one larger poem. I found the aspect of “hiding” the haiku form a challenge. To have the sense of the poem meet the reader, rather than the form itself. UPDATE:  

Sunday’s Pauline

lillian3 Comments

We came upon this lovely elderly woman one Sunday morning in Bermuda. A portrait poem. Can you picture her?

Sunday’s Pauline

She stood at the sloped curb’s edge
pleated red dress and feathered church hat
peering up and down the street
craning her neck looking for, what?

Her walker, with pocket book dangling
faced the street, precariously .
Eyes glued on her wheels
we Good Afternooned in the Bermudian way.

Broad shoulders and broader still smile
white gloved hand extended
Good Afternoon. My name’s Pauline
and I sure could use some help.

My hands clutched the walker’s edge
wheels slowly rattled toward the street
walking backwards, eyes locked with Pauline’s
her black oxfords shuffled along.

The Chevy sputtered and gagged
maneuvered to the curb,
aluminum grey, silver shine long gone
primer splotches added to the vintage feel.

Safely inside, walker stowed
window cranked down low
head out with peppered hair flowing
she caught our eye again.

God sure does give you a neighbor
especially when He knows you need one!

Love Dawns, Envelops Still

lillian3 Comments

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What dreams lie within your mind’s eye
lying beside me this autumn’s eve?

Your chest almost imperceptibly rises
and flutter falls, like the owl’s eyes
staring strong and wise
flicker at a moth passing by the moon.

Soft sibilant sounds escape barely open lips
too soon years before, taped tight
received life-sustaining intubated air
machines whirred fear, invaded dreamless sleep.

My lids droop heavy, sleep demanding time
your dreams rest safe, secret till the morrow.
Our morning rite awaits, repeats these many years
Put down the paper dear, and tell me last nights’ tales.

Veil of sleep lifted by sun’s insistent rays
like my bridal veil, pushed back by eager fingers
you sought a promise kiss before God’s altar.
Not deep like later.

Kisses given one thousand times one thousand
over a world of tomorrows. Today we sit content
in time-withered bodies
wizened you beside my wisened self.

Amazed always, that you chose me
my soul complete, enveloped still.

In response to the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge:  what does “envelops” mean to you?  Photo taken at dawn in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Life’s Measures

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There’s a place outside my universe
just across the street
viewed from my living room window
one elevator and a three minute walk away.

Purgatorial stop for innocent souls
once scourged by searing flames
they claw, stretch, adapt to live
ignore death’s too soon call.

Red yellow flames once licked their skin
lit pain in fissures blackened deep
now loved ones stand and pray
plead for angels’ breath to soothe.

Their passage, mythological in scope
an underworld of white-masked faces
wrap and unwrap shrouds of gauze
each treatment claims a toll.

I sit and stare from comfortable skin
commuter rail late, supper cold
he-said-she-said politics at work.
Tears erupt as eyes seek light.

Suddenly see through the panes
eyes pop open, slapped to senses
you have life, move on and live
as they struggle up from hell.

 

This poem resulted from a prompt in my poetry class, to write about something you see all the time, IE perhaps look out your window, or note what you see on your daily walk to work, something in your house….look more carefully at something you see every day. Photo is actual view from our window — motivation for the poem.

Poetry in Motion

lillian6 Comments

Watch closely. The mundane
becomes sublime, if we care to see.
Fields of timothy grass ruffled by wind
black steed glistens galloping through fields
sinewy athlete leaps to float over highest titanium bar
sunflowers smile, heads turn to bask in their namesake’s rays
Swan Lake dancers glide and spin across soft lit stage
gulls with wings spread wide, soar above the sea.
I look up from crowded city streets
to see this artisan’s creation
shift colors in the wind
urban ethereal
beauty.

Janet Echelman’s aerial sculpture, As If It Were Already There, soars above Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. It’s made by hand-splicing rope and knotting twine into an interconnected mesh of more than a half-million nodes. Whenever any one of its elements moves, every other element is affected. Its fibers are 15 times stronger than steel but appear lace like. Do watch the short videos. They’re breathtaking! We were mesmerized.  We’ll go back to see it at night, when it is lit with thousands of LED lights knotted into its threads. 

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Follow the Clouds

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Follow the Clouds

Stairs direct eyes, climb to clouds
holy canopy to this house of God
inside wooden warmth minus marble cold
simplicity defines Divine.

Four elderly black women
dressed in crimson choir garb
raise voices in praise
sing hymns as ancestors sleep

I sit ramrod straight, cedar bench stiff
then kneel on threadbare cushions
and for the first time in many years
my spirit soars.

My Photos:  Her Majesties Chappel, St Peter’s Church, is the oldest surviving Anglican church in continuous use outside the British Isles, and the oldest Protestant Church in continuous use in the New World. Located in St. George, Bermuda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the interior is filled with pew boxes and ceiling rafters of cedar wood that was long ago, plentiful on the island — and then depleted by ship building and disease. The land to the west of the church was reserved for burying slaves prior to the British Empire’s emancipation of slaves in 1834. We were privileged to worship here every Sunday in February, 2015. Also using this for a photo challenge on CLOUDS

Forever

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Sometimes, things happen in life that truly truly make you thankful for every day. I’ve been 46 + years now with the love of my life — and we are grateful for every day in this “rejuvenatement” period of our lives  (see my About for an explanation of the term). This poem was motivated by a poetry class assignment:  look very very closely at things around you and write about something you want to save from oblivion.  The mind jumps around and makes various connections, the pen writes, scratches out, and writes again…and this is the result.

Forever

Two gulls skitter about the shore’s edge
leaving track upon track, their dance notation.
Voices sound cacophonous shrills
wings flap, contract, and flap again.

IMG_4004Two children skip, swinging hand in hand
suddenly unjoin. Side by side, in unison
arms wide, they leap and jump
like gulls ahead who splash, lift and soar.

Waves rollick and return, out and always in.
Sea, animals, and children seen in twos
assault my oneness, so recently assumed
etched into being, sears and spills my tears.

Hands rest upon this familiar rail
seek coolness from the seasons’ heat
instead, send chills from hand to heart
my body, an eclipse of the sun.

Let go the rail. Come stand with me, my love
your life, not death, forever.

Waves in Fury

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Waves in Fury

Waves spew anger
again and again
batter rocks to granular bits
like cruel words
batter the vulnerable heart
crush self esteem to nothingness.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Forces of Nature.”  Tobacco Bay, Bermuda – February 2015.  Amazing to feel the wind so strong it made us lean forward to move. Back at our rental, I licked my upper lip and could still taste the salt from these glorious and angry waves! I think I must have been a sea creature in a past life — how I love the ocean!

New Life Abounds

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Early buds of spring tempt
like sizzling popcorn kernels
suddenly burst open
to joyful oohs and ahs.

Cheerful yellow daffodils
beside candy-striped tulips
nestle in new mown grass.

Wide-eyed passersby
enjoy blue hyacinth perfume
beneath canopies of creamy
white magnolia trees.

Discarded bulky coats reveal
bright topped pregnant bellies
as young women strut
like ducklings on parade.
New life popping everywhere!

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Photos of the sculpture Make Way for Ducklings, in Boston Commons. A mysterious unknown person always puts seasonal hats on the ducklings — these are their Easter bonnets!