It’s this day again. It’s come every year since this day nine years ago. An emotionally tough day in this autumnal time of year.
I awaken before dawn. Sleep elusive, memories churning. You cheated death on this day, nine years ago today.
I lie listening to your breath, thankful you are here. Thankful for angels along the way who helped tether you, tether you to earth and me.
This afternoon we will walk meander along the glistening Charles. We’ll scuff leaves with our feet, admire fall’s cacophony of colors and revel in a new day of love.
Photo taken last year along the Charles River in Boston.
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.
What spirits roam this earth? Moon gods no longer constant fatigued by cloud-strung battles, wax and wane their beams. Seasons test the sun, warmth succumbs to winter gales.
Spirits gone these many years hover o’er our heads. Their whispers ride the winds. Arise my children, each day sublime, whether warm or cold or dark or light, reach out, touch hands, and dance.
Smile hope upon your neighbors be they far or near. Smile hope upon your loved ones be they on earth, or in the heavenly sphere. All gaze upon the same bright stars.
Love this day together, my children, for I am with you as they are too. Greet each day sublime, hearts flush with gratitude, no fear. Listen for their whispers they are always there to hear.
Every time I see them it creates an image in the present which in seconds or hours or a day or years, depending on recall, is always in my past.
We gathered to honor the matriarch. From Texas, Illinois, California, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Carolina, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Virginia too.
She was the rock, the foundation. Granddaughter of Swedish immigrants, upholding the traditions. Her life, lived for so many.
A career in nursing, a ministry of sorts. She offered healing to the afflicted. From surgical assistance to the elderly’s pains, to the scrapes of school-age youth.
She taught her children compassion. Lessons passed on to grandchildren and their children. To nieces, extended family, friends and neighbors too.
She faced the depths of loss and pain, courageous and resilient. Sustained by faith in God and love of life, she taught us even through her death.
Family gathered to pray, to sing, to share a meal. Tears and smiles comingled. Yesterday’s emotional today, so filled with love and caring support. That is the essence of this family, what we share and treasure most.
Those moments of yesterday’s today, far too quickly in our past. But still they give us hope and strength, to face all of our coming tomorrows.
Written in memory of Janice Stewart. The family gathered on Saturday, December 11th at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wheaton, Illinois to celebrate her life. She will be missed by so many.
PHOTOS: Hjalmer Hallberg immigrated from Sweden. He and his wife, Anna, settled in Chicago, Illinois. The photo on the left shows their five grandchildren. From left to right: George Hallberg, Nancy Jahnke, Lynne Gehrke, Janice Stewart, Donald Hallberg. Neil Netherton, Nancy’s brother, passed away many years ago. He was Hjalmer and Anna’s sixth grandchild. The second photo was taken immediately following the celebration of Janice’s life at St. Paul’s Churchon Saturday, December 11th.
There is a pain too raw. Too personal to write down. Wrapped in the shrouds of death it came too near, but for angels along the way.
Pain of illness, threat of death, most astute tutors of life. Love every mundane moment, cherish them as a gift. Celebrate every dawn.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Ingrid asks us to consider pain and how we can come out on the other side of it stronger. Photo of dawn from one of our many trips.
There is no silence here. Not in my mind not in the landscape not in the memories.
Damp sand between my toes. Infinitesimal salty granules gathered on my upper lip. Nothing registers.
Remnants of another time though they are happening now. You kissed the salt away and now you never will.
The swishing of waves, those white capped petals of the sea. I have stood many a time at the doorway of dreaming.
But you always stood with me. Your laughter. Your gentle eyes. Your hand holding mine.
We dreamed together. Now I stand alone facing this vast sea. Shall I simply wade into the darkness or shall I sit and pray?
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Sanaa is hosting. She asks us to use one line of her poetry in our poem….but we are to substitute derivatives for one or two of the words and see where that takes us in writing an original poem of our own. I’ve chosen the line “The rustling of leaves; I have stood many a time at the doorway of dreaming” from Buck Moon ~ Part two: Seeing things. I’ve substituted “swishing” for rustling and “petals of the sea” for leaves. Photo from Bermuda a number of years ago.
In the night of day Luna lights the path over oceans deep. Vast sea of glistening caps ever gleaming, beckoning me. Your visage when last we met, only that has kept me safely undone by storms and cloudy skies.
There is no fear, no dread, nothing vague. No questioning of time. Row on, row on, this cursed ship. My dreams, my thoughts aswirl, I shall reach you, my everlasting joy.
An Acrostic Plus, written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.
I’m hosting and ask folks to either write a poem related to something that puzzles them, use the word “puzzle” in their poem . . . or extra points for writing an Acrostic Plus, a form I created: Read down the first letters in the lines of the first stanza and see what they spell; then read down the last letters of the lines in the second stanza and see what they spell. You should then have a message related to the poem!
To love, the risk is vulnerability. To not is loneliness.
Loneliness, quite different from being alone.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today we are asked to include the word “risk” in a poem. This is one of my most favorite images by Klimt.
lillian the home poet 