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Come Fly With Me

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The large guest room hides
from baby squalls, ice cube maker
coffee grinder and garage door sounds
a three floor climb to indoor heaven.

Double bed entices with heirloom quilts.
Wall to wall, three-paned window
frames tall verdant backyard forest
invites dreams,  a portal to the mind.

Mornings are delectable. Sun filters
myriad shades of green, breeze shivers
through leaves, becomes visible in movement
dew evaporates chills to warmth.

Pure luxury to lie in bed, eyes open wide
as sun rays seep through window panes
left to right, flit from branch to branch
like reading nature’s tale revealed in glass.

Morning presents positive possibilities
light unchecked by darkness or distress.
I become the bird that spreads its wings
and flies toward the day.

Summer’s Delights

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NaPoWriMo  April 29  and  Photo Challenge to share a photograph that captures motion and tell the story behind it.  Several summers ago we were delighted to have our daughter and grandchildren join us for a weekend in Provincetown. Oh the joys and innocence of childhood!

IMG_4845

Summer’s Delights

Apple tree blossoms in curly hair
knocked off their branches
during the morning climb
by scraped and knobby knees.

Sidewalks with white chalk not snow
crooked squares and wiggly numbers
smudged by hop scotch jumps
and dripping lime popsicles.

Seaside escapades scented by Coppertone
childhood tag at water’s edge
joy forever captured in portraits
of red-brown freckles on sun flushed cheeks.

Ode to Puttering

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NaPoWriMo  day 23 without a prompt. With a shout-out to Lisa Dingle’s Just Ponderin’ blog for mentioning the word “putter” which got me to thinking, then reminiscing. Words do that, right?

Ode to Puttering

Dawn to dusk wage earner kind of guy
one business suit, five starched shirts
Monday-Tuesday
Wednesday-Thursday-Friday
cubicle confined.

Suit shed
like a snake-wriggled-from-skin
sloppy slippers, baggy pants
uniform is no form
Saturday Sunday putter time.

Basement workshop sets him free
Skippy jars stuffed and ready
screws and bolts, drill bits, nails
epoxy glue and old television tubes
scraped sandpaper sits by stained soft rags.

Puttering
that practical art
relax to see to do
replace a blade, splice a cord
refinish renail a peglegged chair.

Dad the doer, mom the asker
knick knack shelves, built-in whatevers.
Puttering, like Jack Benny and Lawrence Welk
a lost art from today’s rush and run, buy and toss
and buy again kind of world.

Choose the Light

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NaPoWriMo  Day 20:  without a prompt.  Who needs a smile today? This poem should be in my About. 

I choose life in lightness
sun or clouds, day or night
seek the circle’s upturned half
peripheral vision, occasionally required.

We wake up watchful ready
sweetly taste our morning smiles
tickled baby beams a toothless grin
dimples born in happiness and glee.

Grandkids’ knock-knock jokes
silly faces feign gargantuan guffaws
I choose to step lightly through life’s travails
aging knees, fingers stiff, imagination in Neverland.

Dustings by Two

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NaPoWriMo Day 19:  without a prompt.  My mother loved talcum powder. The kind you “dust” all over yourself. I used to go into the bathroom after her and the floor would be slick and the room would have a heavy perfumed scent. One day, after she died in October 1998, I sat on a bench by her yard and watched as several birds found a dirt hole and proceeded to merrily take a dust bath. Sweet sweet memories juxtaposed.

Dustings by Two

Slick wet lavender tiles
window blurred by steam
she gaily sings and trills
pats and swirls a fancy puff
to create lily scented
clouds of talc
her dusting for the day.

Outside the window
hot bereft of rain
a blue bird warbles
wings flap flutter
dried dirt scatters
creates earthy clouds
of cooling swirling dust.

The Framed Dream: cherished series, opus 3

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NaPoWriMo  Day 17 without a prompt.   A constant in everyone’s life is the ability to dream. In your sleep and in your waking time. But what do we do when that dream is unfulfilled – stopped dead in its tracks?  Sometimes by a conscious choice, sometimes by circumstances that present themselves, wanted or not. 

 

The Framed Dream

It was a short notice: Helen is predeceased by Bud
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: young nurse in white cap
surrounded by 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.

Moonwalk

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NaPoWriMo day 10:  without a prompt.
Nostalgia. Reminiscence. As we age, these words come into play. And sometimes, like me, you go back to revisit your childhood haunts.

They warned me
but I still tried to moonwalk.

You remember that smooth
walking backwards to Billie Jean?

This time, I glide back
for a one day return to where I began.

The house at 144 is there. Paint peeling,house 2
flecks of grey-white decorate the yard.

Rusted poles, frayed clothes line
bereft of flapping sheets.

I meander down a one-way
and circle back searching

for the corner shop. Marble topped
counter with stools where we perched

to share chocolate or cherry cokes
and carefree cheerleader talk –

now your friendly neighborhood
hardware store. Without those silver

keys to tighten clamp-on skates and
rush down Washington Street so fast

we didn’t need my brother’s Radio Flyer.
Next door sits a Dunkin’, eclairs filled

with counterfeit custard. Past blurred
in the too-large magnifying glass

of my mind’s eye. The moonwalk was
and still is, well beyond my grasp.

The Table: cherished series, opus 2

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Celebrate National Poetry Writing Month  NaPoWriMo   Writing Prompt Day 7: a poem about something that has value or worth.

Cherished items, people, and places live in our memories. And because we lead transient lives, their meaning and clarity can evolve over time. Old photos call forth recollections. 

 

The Table

She found the table at Marshall Fields
in nineteen forty-nine, and pictured
her family at exactly half-past six each night
four plates, four forks, knives and spoons.

White oak, the Illinois state tree
with tight growth rings
durable, resilient, and
carved with artisan’s care.

Emotions buffed artfully into lustrous patina
over years marred by scratches, chips and burns
tuna-noodle-pea casseroles set forgetfully upon the wood
and forks slammed down in anger.

Keeping up with Rita, Gwen, and Claire
teflon pans and a formica table-topper
emotions erupt on modernity as leftovers
disappear in a single swipe of the hand.