memories

Old House. Boston Place.

lillian1 Comment

Our first home in Illinois had no front yard.
Stepped off the front porch at your own peril,
into the dug-out pit for a new college gym.
Construction equipment clanged and buzzed
constantly digging, laying pipes and beams.
Inside, we served visitors spaghetti suppers
on our auction bought wiggly table top
screwed into four tall two-by-fours.
Rotary telephone hung on peeling plastered wall,
rarely used for expensive long distance calls.
We watched Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show
on our nine-inch black and white television.
As the old song goes,
“Those were the days my friends.”

Fifty-six years later, it’s high-rise condo life.
Outside our windows, Boston’s city scape
includes trees, few green areas,
buildings in every direction.
When guests or family arrive,
we serve delicious meals with wine
at our lovely oak claw-foot dining table.
Large screen television streams movies,
24/7 news, sitcoms of every genre.
Our handheld “telephone” is a clock,
calendar, address book and weather man.
It streams music on Spotify.
Reaches friends nearby and across the globe
with audio and video calls.

Gratefully happy then.
Thankfully happy now.
So is the old adage true?
Things are not better,
they’re not worse,
they’re just different.
What say you?


NAPOWRIMO Day 29. Prompt: In your poem today, compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.

AI image created on Bing Create.

Dubbing Me

lillian4 Comments

Mother named me Lillian
her mother’s namesake.
My father’s twin sister’s moniker as well,
much to my mother’s chagrin.
She chose the middle name of Mae
after a favorite aunt,
the likes of who I don’t recall.
But because of her,
twelve cousins called me Lilly Mae.
To everyone else, I was Lillian

The momentous moment of change came
when my parents left me on my own
to begin my college days.
First person I met on that idyllic campus,
I announced my name as Lill
and that’s who I became.
Years later, titles attached themselves.
Mrs. Hallberg, high school teacher.
Dr. Hallberg, the PhD kind.
Dean Hallberg, career topper.

Now rejuvenated (never say retired)
I’m happily back to Lill.
Except when I’m lillian-the-home-poet.
Capitalization not preferred
because after all, it’s just me.


NAPOWRIMO Day 21. Prompt: Write a poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given.

PHOTO of my mother and I and my new two-wheeler bicycle. From tricycle to this. In the 1950s, either they didn’t have small bikes or “training wheels” for kids to learn on or else my folks could only afford to buy me one “big girl’s bike”. One distinct memory I have of my childhood is my dad hanging on to the back of this bike, running along on the sidewalk while I was trying to balance, feeling like I was flying and then looking back and seeing him half-way down the block behind me! I don’t recall if I immediately fell or not….I just remember that feeling and then seeing him so far away, realizing I was riding on my own!

Mary Alyce and I

lillian3 Comments

We were
two third-grade girls who often roamed
through a nearby overgrown plot of land.
In our minds, the vast Old West.
That mound of dirt about half-way in?
Boot Hill where we’d tether our steeds.
We were certain the Lone Ranger rode these parts.
We’d gallop many a mile in those days.
We’d capture bad guys with unholstered guns
using only one index finger and thumb.
After a long day of protecting Dodge City,
when the sun was about to set
we’d adjust our cowboy hats
and mosey on home
to Martin Avenue
in Waukegan,
Illinois.



NAPOWRIMO Day 13. Prompt: Write a poem about a cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny stip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal spoken speech – like a rhyme or syntax that feels old fashioned or high-tone (“mosey on home”).

True story from my childhood days. I have no idea what ever became of Mary Alyce.
AI image made from Bing Create.

She was my mother. . .

lillian6 Comments

“He went to sea in a thimble of poetry.” 
Opening line in the poem Poet Warning, by Jim Harrison.

Wynken, Blyken and Nod
my childhood friends,
lived in the well-turned pages
of mother’s Child Craft Poetry Book.
So many friends who made me smile.
The Old Lady who lived in a shoe,
Miss Muffet sitting primly on her tuffet,
Old King Cole and Jack Sprat too.

We laughed about the crazy cow
who jumped over the moon.
I lived in those pages then,
where no one yelled at anyone.
Sitting on mother’s lap
I’d hug my yellow teddy-bear
smeared with mother’s lipstick,
so at least, it always smiled at me.

When mama took out that book
I knew she’d take me
to magical places.
And for those moments
her love for me was real and clear.
So calm, so comforting,
so warm, so fun, so motherly,
in those make-believe lands.

And here I am, decades later
near to being an octogenarian,
wondering why I write poetry.
I’d forgotten this side of her,
so many other memories crowding in.
I live by the words, “no regrets”
always have and always will.
So I am thankful to remember
this other side of who she was.



NAPOWRIMO Day 12. Prompt: Write a poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

Image from an illustration in the book, which I still have. Published in 1947, the year I was born.

I remember . . .

lillian4 Comments

. . . our December twenty-fourth dinners
with Alice’s jello salad and pineapple-coconut bars.
Rather than bowing our heads and saying grace,
we shared cards at the table.
One for my mother, dad and brother.
And theirs to me.

Raising our family,
the tradition continued.
Handwritten notes inside meant the most.
Some just covered with Xs and Os,
some with a memory from that year.
Always a personalized declaration of love.

Alice’s recipe is long forgotten.
But miles away, with children of their own,
our children still live the card tradition.
Now, almost in our octogenarian years,
we still smile knowingly on those nights
as we reach for the personalized card on our plate.

It’s NAPOWRIMO (National Poetry Writing Month) day 2! Today we’re asked to “write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.” Photo from an old photo album…note the writing at the bottom of the photo. Yep, that’s me with my brother (9 years older than me) and my mother.

A Haibun: Family Tradition

lillian6 Comments

From the time our children were two and four, we’ve held hands before our evening meal and sung a song called The Circle of Love. With a simple and happy tune, the words go like this:

“The circle of love goes around and round
the circle of love goes around.
Reach out your hands someone needs you.
The circle of love goes around. Amen.”

It’s not by others’ standards, a real table grace. Grace is often defined as the free, unmerited favor and love of God toward humanity. And a short prayer before a meal is often called “saying grace”. For us, this singing together before supper was and always is a moment to celebrate family. Smiling at each other, sometimes grinning, we sing loudly and with energy. What we’re really singing about is the unconditional love and happiness we share. No matter the food – from cheesey chicken casserole to shrimp scampi to Thanksgiving turkey, The Circle of Love was always the first course of the meal.

Now, approaching our octogenarian years, with five grandchildren who are twenty, eighteen, and fifteen, and our children and their wonderful spouses in their fifties, we treasure the rare times we are all together. The eleven of us, or a fewer number on occasions when busy lives and miles intervene, still carry on this tradition. When we come to the table for an evening meal, no matter the happenings of the day, the first thing we do is join hands. And then we sing, loud and clear. Grateful for each other and for the meal we share.

Wild flowers in fields
different shapes, sizes, colors
always face the sun.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Punam is hosting Tuesday Poetics presenting us with the following prompt: “For today’s Poetics, I would love a presence of food in your poems. You can employ any form but touch upon food; vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, desserts you love or hate. It could be about why you love/abhor cooking/baking, your most memorable/miserable meal ever, your relationship with food…the possibilities are endless.” No particular form or length is required.
A Haibun is a Japanese poetic form that combines prose with a haiku.
I guess you could say I’ve written about my family’s relaionship with the evening meal!

Photo is from a family gathering about six years ago.

Set Aside

lillian23 Comments

Summer of letters.
Days of thinking slowly,
rolling words around
until they landed just right.
Days of ink to vellum,
sometimes blurred by tears.
Hidden away for so many years.
Flowers beneath ribbon ties,
now brittle and dry.
Love never consummated,
memories still blush.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. It’s Quadrille Monday and De asks us to include the word “flower” or a form of the word, within the body of our poem of just 44 words, sans title. Image created on Bing Create.

Are You Out There, Uncle Bob?

lillian7 Comments

Never planned to join the circus,
although there is a hereditary tendency.
My Uncle Bob ran away to the circus,
several times. But he always came back.

Never planned to join the circus,
but what a circus we’re living in now!
Twenty-four-seven news cycle,
clown leading buffoons under the big top.

Never planned to join the circus,
but it’s tempting to become an escape artist.
I’d lose myself in romance novels and Netflix,
or any kind of my own-made cocoon.

Uncle Bob, if you’re anywhere out there,
somewhere in the cosmos,
help us find our way back home again.
Just like you always did.

Kim is hosting Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She asks us to write a poem “that starts with a surprising hook, which can be one to three lines, but must develop into a fully-fledged poem.”

A bit of explanation: in a few years, I’ll become an octogenarian. I actually did have an Uncle Bob, who every time his wife became pregnant, ran away to the circus. Absolutely true – he had four children so he ran away four times! But he always came back- well before they were born. He was a wonderful uncle and as my childhood memories recall, had a lot of fun with his kids.

PS: here in the U.S., this is no time for any of us to be escape artists. It’s time to speak out, stand up, and resist!

Parenting

lillian12 Comments

Chrysalis like. Our arms, our home.
Enveloping, nurturing,
encouraging evolving independence.

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.

Smoke Rings . . .

lillian20 Comments

The last of my generation. Savoring my cigarette, I sit blowing smoke rings. They dissipate into wispy nothingness, metaphorical for my existence these days. I’m not alone in this assisted living complex. But I am lonely. With my failing eyesight, I no longer escape on adventures with Agatha Christie or James Patterson.

I have so few pleasures. Sometimes I’ll listen to Duke Ellington records and I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook with the photographs there. And the moss that I imagine in my dreams, always beneath my husband’s feet. I can see it when I bend over the pages with my magnifying glass, in the picture of John standing beside our first tent. Memories come alive on the pages. My children’s birthday celebrations, cheeks pooched out, blowing candles. I’ve been blessed. My life has been good. But oh Lord, it’s time. It’s time.


Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Kim asks us to include the line “And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moss” in our piece of flash fiction that is 144 words in length, sans title. The line is from the poem Take This Waltz by Leonard Cohen. We may change the punctuation of the required line, but must use the words exactly, in the exact order as appears in Cohen’s poem.

Image created on Bing Create.