Patchwork Prose and Verse
Mo Daley of Illinois is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 14th day of VerseLove. She inspires us to write haiku poems of three lines with a 17-syllable count about tax day, tomorrow. You can read her full prompt here. My One Little Word comes to mind today regarding taxes: Onward! They’re unavoidable. We pay them, we cringe, we brush our hands, and we move on to the next thing. Enough said.
The Tax Man Cometh
Caesar’s rendering
my travel fund cindering
all fun hindering
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for VerseLove is Ann Burg of New York, who inspires us to write haibun poetry. Haibun is a form that includes a prose passage to set the stage for a haiku, which immediately follows the prose. You can read her full prompt here. I reflected on a scene from Saturday morning as we ate breakfast.
The Head and The Feet
Saturday morning breakfast at the Country Kitchen on Pine Mountain we were waiting on our eggs and grits when I saw him shuffle past our table. A young and impatient mother with a crying child pitching a fit was stuck behind the elderly gentleman in in the aisle, clearly frustrated at his slow speed, in his ill-fitting sweatpants with black socks and orthopedic sandals. He veered right n the direction of the restroom and she squeezed left to her table, kid still screaming. My husband’s back was to the action as I gave the play-by-play. Notice him, I urged, when he comes back by. I thought it ironic that his orthopedic sandals looked like hiking sandals. Life can be cruel like that sometimes, but eggs arrive to scramble hard truths. I was taking a bite when my husband asked, Is that a veteran’s hat? We should buy his breakfast. And the next minute, this husband of mine – just like his mother would have done – excuses himself to walk by the man’s table to get a better look. And then I saw them talking. Why did tears fill my eyes? Why, here at this table, over eggs and bacon, coffee and grits and buttered biscuits with muscadine preserves, was I crying as I watched my husband place his hand on the shoulder of the old man and his wife as he thanked him for his service. I escaped to the gift shop to collect myself, wipe away the tears, before my husband returned with the scoop – as his mother would have done: it’s a veteran’s hat. He’s 78, was a sergeant in the Army, and he has four kids who are all currently serving in the military. His wife told me he has cancer, and when he finished chemo and his gray hair came back dark. And he always smiles. So we finished our last bites and I felt the tears welling again, excused myself to the restroom, and was almost fine until the old man walked by and place his hand on my husband’s shoulder in gesture of figuring out who’d treated them to breakfast. And I realized what we’d always said of ourselves when we walk into a place: I look down for snakes, he looks up for bees ~ and though we see things differently, we don’t miss what’s important.
I looked down, old feet
my husband looked up, saw him ~
a soldier marching
Rita DiCarne of Pennsylvania is our host today for the 12th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us to write list poems, prose-style or with line, about all the things we love. It makes me think of Tom T. Hall’s song, “I Love.” You can read Rita’s full prompt here.
You can hear Tom T. Hall’s “I Love” here.
The Nest
I like going places~
camping, girls’ trips, weekend getaways
but I love coming home
I love bone-tired sleep, the kind where
you don’t move all night and have sheet imprints
on your face from the weight of
not carrying anything with you to bed
putting it all down at the foot
climbing in, clocking out, cloud-drifting off
I love waking up to dog noses
in my face saying Let’s Go Outside!
I love Skechers Slip-Ins for when the grass
is too tall and wet with dew for the regular slippers
I love opening the front door for the sun
to barge in, full of life and light and laughter
I love checking the bird nests, finding
a clutch of four brown-headed nuthatches
snuggled under mama bird on a
bright, cool Sunday morning
like a prayerful blessing of their own
a place where they will learn
to fledge, fly, and face a lifetime
of setting out and coming home
to their feathered nests
the places they’ll grow to love best
Our host today is former high school English teacher, Kate Sjostrom , a teacher educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Writer in Residence at the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park.
You can read Kate’s full prompt here as she inspires us to write about emotions in concrete and abstract terms.
Elation Over the Song of the Wood Thrush
it’s 6:38 a.m. when I hear it
we’ve just taken the boys out
to do their morning business
when a familiar note plays
from the branch-pew of a tree
on Pine Mountain
like a retro diner Jukebox favorite
a song to stir the heart
not call-like,
not chatty or operatic
definitely not theatric
(like that one lady in church,
thinks she can sing)
still, this voice offers hymn
praise to its maker and in
that way they are alike
this voice isn’t
wearing colorful Gucci garments –
picture instead
a simple watercolor painting of
dark, milk, and white chocolates
splotched with dots
and caramel feathers
the star voice of the woods
and doesn’t even know it
doesn’t show off or sing louder
like I would do with a voice
like that ~ why would I
ever say anything?
I’d sing it all, asking where the
tomatoes are in the grocery store
and what is my balance
at the bank and I’d be the
talk of the town for all the
wrong reasons ~ folks
would say I’ve gone off
the deep end
……but if I were a bird
I’d hope to be a Wood Thrush
the best voice in the choir
so humble
so unassuming
so musical
turning heads
with elation just to listen
and even sour Simon
Cowell would look up
and smile, knowing
there’s the talent
and press the Golden Buzzer
but with my Wood Thrush ways
I’d shun the competition
not needing his endorsement
I’d crap on his head
my own golden buzzer
on my way to another branch
still singing
Susan Ahlbrand of Indiana is our host today for Day 10 of Verselove at http://www.ethicalela, com, and she inspires us to write love letters to a place we love. She challenged us to try a villanelle, a 19-line poem of five tercets and a quatrain with a rhyme scheme and refrain sequence. As I sit on the campsite of a Georgia State Park recharging my batteries this week, I could not think of a more fitting place to pay tribute.
Villanelle Tribute to Georgia State Parks
out in the woods on a state park campsite
nestled in shade by meandering creek
Pollock-splashed beams of breeze-filtered sunlight
shelter from life’s woes, respite from plight
renewal blooms hope when refuge we seek
out in the wild on a state park campsite
Swallowtails air-dance on blackened blue-brights
welcoming wings, meditative mystique
sashaying rays of oak-splattered sunlight
flame-flickered campfires on stargazing nights
embers leap up to kiss Pegasus’ cheek
out in the wild on a state park campsite
mosaic edges softened by twilight
for life’s jagged junctures, outdoors re-key
shadowy brushstrokes, dusk-darkened moonlight
birdsong awakens, euphoric daylight
new trails to hike, fresh air to seize
out in the woods on a state park campsite
canvassing nature, the soul re-ignites
In honor of National Poem In My Pocket Day…..
I have a poem in my pocket
a perfect way to start
hummer at my feeder
hope restores my heart
Bryan Ripley Crandall, our host today for Day 9 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives in Stratford, Connecticut, where he directs the Connecticut Writing Project and is Professor of English Education at Fairfield University. He co-hosts National Writing Project’s The Write Time.
Bryan explains his process and directions for writing, which you can read more about here.
He shares his process and the directions by inspiring us to write about our homes and places we’ve lived. I’m not thinking past today – I’m thinking future.
My Open Road Retirement Home
a teardrop
a fifth-wheel
a bumper pull
no tent
no yurt
no fort in a tree
a camper van ~
Class A, B, or C
anywhere I can take to the road
most any RV will do for me
but with this old back and
collapsible knees
no tearjerkers for me, please
a full tank of gas
a State Park Pass
dogs by my side, ready to ride
(husband can come, too, if he’d like)
pens to write and books to read
and that is all I’ll ever need
Our host today for the 8th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is, Linda, who lives in Virginia, where she teaches from a middle school library. Linda inspires us to write prose sentences in the form of poetry the way we would say it in verse. You can read her full prompt here. She gives us this example: “In English, we might say, ‘I feel lost in the chaos of life,” but in poetry we say, ‘The heart wanders through the storm, seeking sunlight in shadows.'”
She shares a process we can use: Take a sentence from English. Translate it via the phrase, in poetry we say…
My chosen phrase is Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
swells of earth in hillock
and knoll
hummocks and mounds
hills of ant and of mole
can ne’er be vast as the sky
nor the sea
to hold all the love
I feel for thee
nay, it shan’t hold me back
but shall let me pass
into thine own dear presence
where we shall be one ~ you and me
at long last
Luke Bensing of Valparaiso, IN, our host today for the 7th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, teaches 9th Grade English in Merrillville, IN. Since it’s Tuesday, I’m also writing with the bloggers at Twowritingteachers.org, slicing about a reflection or part of my day.
Luke inspires us to write poems that have alliterative beginning and ending lines and that are inspired by a photo on our camera roll or any other image. You can read his full prompt here. Lately I’ve been dabbling in the fun and challenge of watercolor painting after seeing so many friends’ lovely paintings last month as part of the Slice of Life Challenge. A couple of them were using Emily Lex guides to take them step by step through the process, and it prompted me to pick up a set of watercolors and see what the paint brought out. I started with an inexpensive Hobby Lobby version similar to the Lex guides – this one with a nature and floral theme.
It’s a perfect camping hobby since it doesn’t take a lot of equipment or space, is inexpensive without a ton of supplies or brush cleaners needed, and you can mess up and still fix it. My lofty aspiration in a dream world would be to be like one of those plain-air painters who can sit outside and paint whatever they see. If the water stays wet, I’ll be one of those low-grade types, never having true talent like my children have (they got that from their father), but just enough skill for the trying will make me happy. In retirement, I dream of traveling the United States in a Winnebago View model 24D and paint the sunsets in the National Parks and write poetry with my 3 schnoodles curled around my feet, behaving like normal dogs (if I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming big). So today, I’m going for the gusto. I’m in the learning phase in an InTech Aucta Willow Rover in a Georgia State Park painting lilacs from a step by step guide.
If it all falls to pieces, I’ll go for the paint by number sets next.
I chose a lilac for an alliterative haiku, inspired by this image below. A novice attempt at the painting, but a start nevertheless.
Lilac Haiku
purple-pink petals
watercolor blossoming
bristles brushing blooms
Wendy Everard of New York is our host today for the sixth day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, encouraging us to write forgiveness poems. You can visit the website for her original prompt, which I’m sharing in part here as she quotes Joseph Bruchac from his book A Year of Moons: “It’s January here in our Adirondack foothills. The time of Alamikos, the Abenaki term for the first moon of the new year. In English, it’s the New Year’s Greeting Moon. It’s the time when people would go from one wigwam to another – nowadays one house to another – and speak the New Year’s greeting,
Anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan. Its meaning, translated into English, is, ‘Forgive me for any wrong I may have done you,’ a recognition of the fact that there is always more than one way to look at any situation, any human interaction, because it would be said not just to people you know you’ve wronged, but to everyone. Everyone.”
She goes on to describe the process we can take writing our poems:
“Your poem can take any form you wish. Bruchac urges us to ‘think of the times when your own feelings were injured by a word or deed from someone who was totally oblivious to the fact that they’d wounded you. It happens more often than we think. We’re in a hurry and we brush someone off. We make a remark offhandedly or say something that we may think is humorous but in fact cuts another person to the quick.’ Or think of a time that this happened to you. Or just write a general poem of forgiveness – giving it, asking for it, or struggling with it. Reflect, and write a poem that captures the spirit of “anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan.”
I’m not gonna lie. I’ve forgiven some doozies, and I’ve been forgiven for some doozies, others of which I may never be forgiven for, but I’m struggling with one that needs a lot of head space and heart space. I’m still chiseling away at it, ten months later. And poetry helps me see that I’m not alone in my struggle.
Jesus, Take the Reese’s Rabbits
His first Easter in Heaven yesterday
and here I am
his child,
His child,
recipient of God’s
ultimate sacrificial forgiveness
~ in the forgivingest season of all ~
and yet I struggle
after all the trying
to make things right
clear his hoarding
clean his messes
he curmudgeonly says NO on repeat
I hum Jesus, Take the Wheel on repeat
I cuss on repeat too
even in the midst of prayers
….and then he up and dies
with all this unfinished business
no U-Haul behind the hearse
like a final take that!
and I hope to good gracious
he gets none of the feast
of the blessed Easter lamb
or the chocolate bunnies or
especially any of those Reese’s cup rabbits
until we get the rest of his stuff
cleaned up and that may
take a few more Easters
but if he’d just listened
to his children
we wouldn’t be praying he’s
in time out up there
having to watch all the angels
who weren’t so stubborn
eat of the lamb and the chocolate
licking their angel fingers
at him on his antique stool
in a corner of Heaven
To bard or not to bard? That is today’s question from Jennifer Jowett of Michigan, our host for Day 5 of VerseLove at ethicalELA.com. Please join us to read poems, or write one of you own to share.
Jennifer encourages us to UNfind lines, making them opposite and see what they bring us in poetry. She says: “We’ve played with found lines. Sorted through them. Rearranged them. Created new poems from them. But have we ever un-found them? Find a line of poetry that speaks to you. Un-find it by exchanging the main words with their antonyms. You may choose to keep smaller words like helping verbs, prepositions, and articles or use an opposite for those too. Write one line or several and join them together. Or use a line as a starting point for a longer piece.”
I’ve been reading Steam Laundry by Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, a living poet in Alaska, and I’m using lines from her collection today. Here are the original lines from the book:
Not the way I came (At Last an Invitation from Eldorado)
I thought of the egg (In the House of our New Marriage)
So we each took turns in the water (Tom and Elmer Dive for the Gun)
Some towns glitter (The New Camp)
When I lose myself (At Last an Invitation from Eldorado)
But here the sun spins around (Lost Luxury)
Here is my Antonymic Revelation Poem for today, and I’m grateful to Jennifer Jowett for inspiring us to write today.
Go on, Figure it out For Yourself
surely the way you stormed out
you did not consider the chicken
they didn’t brood-bathe in the dust
all farms lack luster
as you’ll discover for yourself ~
over yonder the moon hangs frozen
Common Threads 