Believing the Best

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Believing the Best

Whoever visited my yard through the fence’s breach
and climbed up in my fruit tree to commandeer a peach—
did you need to hack the ivy twined around the post
and also steal the single rose that I loved the most?
Did you need to do the worst, then leave without a clue
of who had done the damage you felt inclined to do?

I only hope this selfishness will not become a trend,
and so this single message is the one I wish to send.
I hope the peach you ate was sweet and the rose you took
was for a special one you loved, who pressed it in a book.
I hope you took the ivy to twine into a crown
to place around a spill of hair that she had taken down

to fall around her shoulders—and that is why you chose
to not only sate your hunger, but to also take the rose.
And then, these thefts completed, you pilfered one thing more
when you spied the ivy vine and you thoughtfully tore
just a little bit of it for your true love’s hair.
This one act excused all and made your pilferage most rare.

 

Prompts for the day are breach, hack, trend, twine and clue.

Tiny Tuesday #9

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Enjoyed this tiny concert so I’m sharing it.

Songshine Sounds

Graphic graphic for the "Tiny Tuesdays" post

If you’re anything like us, you’re missing your regular drip of live music to keep you going. Luckily, lots of mini-concerts are still happening online, and we can tune into to get an intimate musical fix.

In November of 2019, Jon Batiste performed his tiny desk concert for NPR with a special twist. Instead of his regular band, he performed this four song concert with all-female collaborators — Endea Owens on acoustic bass, Negah Santos on percussion, Sarah Thawer on drums, and Celisse Henderson on guitar and vocals — and the outcome was outstanding.


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Concrete Poem

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Photo by Glenn Buttkus


Concrete Poem
(Exposed Aggregate)

You cut a channel through my flat heart,
straight and sure, as though it had not already been set.
Miracle worker. Perfect craftsman,
sculpting the impossible medium.

 

 

For the dVerse Poets Pub prompt. Go HERE to see poems by other poets answering the prompt.

Flower of the Day, June 16, 2021

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I gave Yoli this clip for her hair but this was the first time I saw it in her hair. Gorgeous!!! What look like white hairs are only light reflecting off her hair as she is only 9 years old.  Look at that hair!!!!

For Cee’s FOTD June 16, 2021

Peddler’s Daughter

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Peddler’s Daughter

My father was a spruiker. At the juncture of each road,
he pulled his wagon to the side and spilled out all his load.
His wagon, heavy-laden, contained such treasures that
he knew he would sell something. He had his spiel down flat.

He had an old pump organ whose callithumpian tunes
filled the air with music from the treetops to the dunes.
People came from miles away to see what caused the din,
then grouped around the wagon to see what was within.

This commenced the distribution of all my papa’s treasures:
clothes and pans and furbelows and other worldly pleasures:
squeezeboxes and vases and women’s pantaloons,
chamber pots and laces and inflatable pontoons.

Pre-loved dolls for little girls and balls for little boys.
Jump ropes, checkers, building blocks, assorted wind-up toys.
Tobacco  plugs for Grandpa and canning jars for Gran.
Corsets for vain ladies to decrease their middle span.

Bridles for one’s horses and ropes to lead their cows.
Chicken feed and saddles and feeding trays for sows.
There was hardly anything that wagon did not hold,
and my father’s selling spiel was loud and brash and bold.

“Huzzah huzzah, huzzzah!” he’d call out to the crowd,
his bounty spread for viewing and touching was allowed.
Everything available–all that you could see
except for one thing on the wagon seat, and that small girl was me!!!!

 

Prompt words today are spruiker, juncture, callithumpian, lade and distribution. Image by Tamara Garcevic on Unsplash, used with permission.

spruiker noun at spruik verb. DEFINITIONS1. 1. (Australian English) someone who tries to persuade people to buy something, use a service, etc often in a dishonest or exaggerated way.

Callithumpian refers to a band of discordant instruments or a noisy parade.

Whirlwind

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Whirlwind

Cookie crumbs, pumpkin seeds pepper the floor
beneath the stool of this child I adore—
a slovenly child who is perfectly able
to spill half her milk on the floor near the table.
As she sits cutting paper dolls, paper bits flutter
down from the piles of snippets and clutter

she amasses around her in  any room where
I’ve worked half the morning just to prepare
for the meeting with friends that occurs in an hour.
The sofa cushions she spread in a tower
are ringing the sofa back, placed in a mound
to catch mountaineer Barbie should she fall to the ground.

Covered by green napkins, the pillows now pass
for a fantasy hillside all covered in grass.
I scoop up the clutter and then the small miss,
ransom the cookies for a small kiss,
then hurry to try to clean up the room.
Locate new napkins, then brandish the broom,

sweeping up crumbs and paper and things
left in her wake just before the bell rings
and the first guest enters, surveying the scene
now cleared of the mess. Perfectly serene.
“I don’t know how you do it, with work and a kid,”
my friend says, not knowing the stuff that I hid

just two minutes ago behind the hall door
that once only held coats but now holds a lot more:
Barbie dolls, crayons and scissors and scraps
as well as neat rows of sweaters and wraps.
Family secrets that we’ll never tell
that every mommy knows all too well.

 

Prompt words today are seed, flutter, grounds, sloven and milk.