Your cardiac arrest
like a lifetime –
until it wasn’t.
live for today
A Boston Tradition
Mother’s Day. Exhausted, incredulous. Home from the parade, she sat sipping sherry, flipping through albums. Pictures of children covered in yellow feathers. Thirty years of moms pushing buggies, pulling wagons, kids quacking.
Roberta surprised her this year. Came cross-country for this Boston tradition. And her costume! She manipulated poles so the wings stretched six feet above the crowds. More like a chicken but no mind. She drew oohs and ahs.
Mrs. McCloskey smiled through tears. Make Way for Ducklings, Caldecott book and so much more. How proud her father would be. His legacy for this city’s children and the world!
100 words. Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle provides a photo for a 100-word story. Tales vary widely. Photo this week is by Luther Siler.
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, first published in 1941. A Caldecott Medal Winner it motivated a popular sculpture in Boston’s Public Gardens of Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings, and the annual mothers’ day Ducklings parade.
Sweet Times
Fourth grade mimic,
knee socks rolled down to puffy anklets
like sophisticated high school girls.
Three nickels clink and plunk,
bus fare to my Saturday dream.
Past Neisner’s Five and Dime
where the mynah bird sqwaks at little fingers,
guards balls and jacks in the wooden cubby.
One aisle over from ladies cotton underpants.
Past Durkin and Durkins, that grown-up place
where daddy buys one suit, every other year.
And there it is, bakery supreme.
Plastic number thirty-four, I wait and wait.
One chocolate éclair please.
Deep, yellow, cold, smooth custard
slathered between puffy sweet dough,
cut in uneven halves. Lips first lick
dark chocolate swirled on top.
Nothing ever tasted so good,
standing on linoleum floor
in black and white saddle shoes,
knee socks rolled down.
Photo Credit: Daniel West. Day 3 Winter Poetry Challenge: Write about a candy or something sweet that you loved as a child.
Respite
houseboat river meander
sun glistened water
rain ping roof and ripple swish base
doe eyes stare from woods across
myriad shades of green
priceless time away
feeds my soul
soothes my mind
city life be gone
Mama’s Refrain
Hatless, wind ruffled hair
winter snow flake dandruff
red ears and mustache icicles.
Iowa snow gnome I am
when I see my breath.
Ninety percent of your body heat
escapes from your head.
Well mom, that’s why I’m so cool!
Photo: corner of Boston’s Court and Tremont Streets several winters ago. Story behind the giant tea kettle: manufactured in 1873 by Hicks & Badger; a “sign” outside the old Oriental Tea Kettle shop. Signs were common in early Boston to identify shops for those who could not read. On January 1, 1875 a contest was held to guess its capacity and Boston’s Sealer of Weights & Measures officially measured it. 10,000 spectators stood by as 8 boys and 1 tall man concealed themselves inside the kettle. The court was officially measured to hold 227 gallons, 2 quarts, 1 pint, and 3 gills. An attached mechanism produced steam. To this day, in the cold winter months, steam is seen coming out of the kettle. Starbucks made a wise decision to place their store here!
Poetry prompt: final assignment in Fall 2015 Poetry Apprenticeship with Holly Wren Spaulding: write an “advice” poem — perhaps from shoulds and should nots of your early days!
Parameters
You said twenty miles as the crow flies.
On a hot still day, with a tail wind
or through an electrical storm?
Your six minute cardiac arrest,
like a lifetime. Until it wasn’t.
Birthday note penned in blue,
seventy is the new fifty.
Like a wilted brown-edged rose
is a pink rose bud? Hardly.
Sun rays pierce gathering clouds
as blackness sits beside my pane.
Quoth the raven, nevermore.
Or evermore? Never sure.
And there is a world of difference,
but how do I measure that?
Motivated by a Fall Poetry Apprenticeship Week 7 assignment: consider a misunderstood or misquoted line of a poem, or something you misunderstood or misheard.
Cousin Janice
Carmen Miranda,
her dancing model supreme
only not with fruit.
Carmen Miranda, pictured on Click cover, was a Portugese Brazilian singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star popular in the 1930s to 1950s. Photo on right is cousin Janice, always a very happy and lively dancer!
Bells
peal in raucous victory
chime a noon-time angelus
clang loud children back to school
announce the hour upon a ship
graph a normal distribution
style the levi’s bottom flare
ring upon a guest’s arrival
tinkle at the butler’s call
and when the journey
comes to end,
toll for thee
In reponse to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Victory. Three photos from our Panama Canal Cruise: hanging bells in the courtyard outside the Museum of the Inquisition in Cartegena, Colombia; and the cathedral’s bell tower in Puerto Vallarta, with the sun making a perfect halo around the cross. Ship’s bell from our Baltic Cruise.
Some We Leave Behind
Stubborn firs stand warm and smug
beside the giving trees,
shadows now of skeletons
against clear blue skies.
Ground glitters red and gold,
cracks beneath the rakers’ feet
as he piles the oldest, most brittle
atop the crimson bright.
Tis time to take our leave
and slowly say goodbye
to those once colorful days
of leaping, laughing youth.
Photos from walks and visits this past week.
Old Woman?
I am an old woman
with the audacity to hope.
I shall wear purple
and travel to 1,000 places,
walk in the woods, eat, pray
and make love to a staggering genius.
I shall write letters from the earth
to all my friends above.
Tell them plain and simple,
at this age, the heart leaps
much higher than leaden feet
and I intend to do the long jump.
I will not stay off camera.
And I will settle for nothing less
than a raucous standing ovation
when I do decide to exit
center stage.
In the form of Found Poetry: created from book titles on my shelf – When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, The Audacity of Hope, 1,000 Places to Live, A Walk in the Woods; Eat, Pray, Love; A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Letters from the Earth, Plain and Simple, and Off Camera.
October 31, 2015
lillian the home poet 