memories

Cool Waters

lillian5 Comments

I lie perfectly still, face to sky
on a clear plastic air mattress
plumped with my breath.

Sea breeze ruffles tendrils,
flutter-touch my forehead
warmed by afternoon sun.

Softly bobbing near the shore
fingers trail in cool waters
while ocean croons its song.

I drift, eyes closed
through barriers of time
afloat in my mother’s womb.

Jetty-waves_7-08_IMG_1157_Lill

This was a challenging prompt in my September 21 Day Challenge course: Use description but notice the difference between language that shows the reader a world, and language that tells a reader what you (or your speaker) think about it or feel about. 

Riding the Waves

lillian12 Comments

Gin and tonic on the rocks
atop a Cape Cod hill
overlooking white sail dots
on forever ocean scape.

I drift backward on the waves
to days on my old Boot Hill,
surrounded by empty fields
new subdivision coming soon.

Crouched low behind tall weeds
brambles with stick-on burrs
scratched knobby eleven year old knees,
we stalked bad guys never seen.

Rode horses round that dirt mound
inspired by westerns on console tvs.
Buster browns galloped and dusty laces flew,
head strong imaginations with no reins.

Parched by the high noon sun
horses unhitched and left to roam,
we walked home, hand in hand
to lemonade in aluminum glasses.

And we wondered how old
the Lone Ranger really was.

grass-1-1391232

Photo by Elvis Santana.

Time Descending

lillian9 Comments

I flung my arms out wide
to feel the wind
that sun baked day
danced, skirt billowing

cool sand between my toes

I stretched my arms out wide
to erase the fear
eyes locked on yours
step by first step, second, third

you chortled, giggling towards me

I curved my arms out wide
to envelop your leaving self
joyful sad, then turned and watched
the airport swallow you

emptiness descending

I raise these arms
tissue thin sagging skin
eyes search yours

name descending

shawl droops down legs
dancing somewhere
a thin filament

within this brain

disappearing into mist

wheelchair-1430696

Her Legacy

lillian4 Comments

photo

It was a short notice.

Helen Cecile is predeceased
by Charles Andrew and Charles Gruenwald Jr,
her husband and son.
God knows, she’d lived the last eight years
impatiently waiting to join them.

It moved with her when she was left alone.
An eight by ten picture from a 1930s Life Magazine
a dark haired young nurse in white cap
surrounded by an aura of glowing light.

Her nurses’ training lasted six months.
Instead of earning a nurse’s pin
she eloped
and eight months later
put my brother to her breast.

The room was empty when I took it down.
Water-stained backing, script barely readable.
My dearest Helen,
No one can take this away from you.
Sister Everista 1937

For sixty years,
she’d kept her dream
in a plastic frame .

Revised from original post on April 17….to no acclaim except my neice’s phone call about this poem, about her grandma. My mom — 

Dancer Down

lillian5 Comments

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There it was. Audition.
Wanted: 100 dancers
for three months prep
to perform in Boston’s Copley Square.
No experience required.

I did the same thing,
twenty years ago
in Iowa.
Auditioned.
And was selected to perform.
Ninety-nine hoofer-wanna-bees
plus Gene Kelly and me.
Thousands watched us
in the Big-Ten half-time show
or took a trip for hotdogs
and the john.

So I did it. Again.
And made 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
and certainly not digital.

One month to go.
On our burgundy shag carpet
five-six-seven-eight
and again
right-turn-slide-spin.
Repeat at studio
on unforgiving wooden floor.
Five-six-seven-eight……
Crap.……dancer down.

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

Originally posted on March 23, as Self-Portrait: Dancer Down, just my third post ever….revisited and revised. No Likes then, no comments, two followers (my family members)! 

A Study in Tears

lillian10 Comments

photo

I cried today
peeling onions
at our black marble countertop
knife chopping
on the old scarred cutting board.
I laughed at myself
as salty tears seasoned diced sweet yellow
enough for two, waiting for your footsteps.

I cried today
walking in the rain
the Charles covered in mist
damp fog coolness on my face,
your absence by my side.
A young couple scurried by
unaware that my tears ached
with rivulets from the sky.

I cried today
in front of our tv
on our corduroy couch
stained by tears on wales.
Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr,
an Affair to Remember
their ending so bittersweet
ours so not.

And I wondered
if anyone,
beyond these walls
could hear
my silent
primal
scream.

Motivated by rereading a prompt from my poetry mentor, Holly Wren Spaulding, in a previous class with her.  Write a poem using “anaphora” —  repetition of a word or phrase. 

Mirror Image egamI rorriM

lillian8 Comments

I stand here, you there
separated by a chasm of disbelief.

I know me, I feel me.
Who then, are you?

You must be from another place
or time or universe.

When I turn my head away,
will you laugh at my derision?

Will you reach out,
pat my back and mutely say 

There there, you’ll be alright.
Are you sympathetic to what I see?

My memories are inside of me,
hidden to the outside world.

I do not wear them for all to see.
Why then, do you?

luxurious-mirror-1422353

Photo by Torli Roberts

 

Even Song

lillian11 Comments

green tent

Plop
Patter
Ping
Slow steady nocturnal rain
taps on the yellow-green ceiling
of my ancient canvas tent.
Comfort seeps in as I burrow deep
in my cocoon zippered bag,
crisp cold nose, just outside the seam.
Lids shutter slowly as ears perk to listen.
Thoughts float in a cool haze.
A hooting owl sits sheltered
by spring’s green-yellow canopy.
The drip, drop, patter
plops above its feathered head.
Dreaming now,
a moon sliver guides me
to a sleep moment of clarity.
These rain notes are nature’s evensong.
A prayer
for all who sleep in this forested place.

rain-233545_1280

Revised from one of my very first poems written in February, in my first class with Holly Wren Spaulding. Posted so early in March (as Rain Song) , I doubt but five people saw it!
UPDATE:  I am in Alaska, as you read this! Will be posting every other day for two weeks until I return.  Mostly new — poems that is — although I will be rejuvenated (love that word!) even more upon my return to Boston, our city by the sea.