My childhood dollhouse was a helium balloon,
caught in a tornado with a flock of flying squirrels,
equal novices in these midnight adventures
soaring out into the world away from horses,
wheat fields, henhouses and unpaved roads.
Escape was a constant theme in that jumprope, hopscotch life
where costumes were for Halloween and dreams kept silent under wigs.
Sailing rainwater rivers down deep ditches,
wearing vestigial vernix as protection against inevitable dunkings,
my uncle’s porkpie hat my umbraculum against hot prairie skies.
The only exit from that world I escaped in time was too often an ossuary:
tunafish Catholics buried under Papal supervision in one part of the cemetery,
Methodists in another, lily-white in their observance of the rules:
Sunday morning church a prerequisite for Saturday night dances.
Jazz nights under covers, Jesus Loves me in the light of day.
Inner tube boats traded for planes and ocean liners,
orange juice traded for absinthe, I sailed and flew into the world.
Using my first world as a grounding place,
I seized chance’s fortune as well as its mistakes––
to venture out and earn a life.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Well done! That is quite an abstract list!
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It is. Mine was not to reason why.. Mine was just to do and fly!!!
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It was varied, for sure, as well. I like how such lists lead my mind off in different directions while the poem demands they come back home.
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You were ambitious, using all 20 words! Thanks for the snapshot of a limiting life escaped for a fuller one!
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So how do I sign up to follow your blog? I’m better at sailing and flying than following directions..which I couldn’t find.
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You couldn’t find the subscribe button because Blogger removed it a few years back. A new Word List prompt appears every Sunday and remains good all week. As the week goes on, it may not still be the top post but it’s still there, just scroll.
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To subscribe to a Blogger website, you have to manually add it to your list of follows in the Reader. Go to the Reader view, then off to the right click on Subscriptions. There is a New Subscriptions button up to the right, and you can enter in the site url. It isn’t perfect, but mostly will let you know when content is up. The Blogger folks got started in all this years before WordPress became so dominant.
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“My childhood dollhouse was a helium balloon” – what an opener!
The remainder did not disappoint, Judy. A galloping gambol, and also strangely bittersweet – as childhood and its memory can be…
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My first two books were about my childhood, so makes it easy to remember, Kathy.
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The Book of my Life is also about childhood. I’m still writing it but snatches are here and here
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https://writingpresence.com/2022/08/30/poetic-challenge-from-dverse-shoebag-burdens/ and
https://writingpresence.com/2018/06/12/poem-no-mother-should-have-to-bury-her-daughter/
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Using all 20 words is brilliant, and your poem is amazing, each stanza filled with richness to savor and read over again!
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Thanks, Mary..Your kind appraisal much appreciated.
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Wow! Impressive use of all the words. I so admire the skilfulness. Your poem resonates with me. I loved it. So nice to meet you at The List. Hope you return.
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Thanks, Sherry, for the warm welcome. I will return if I can find it. It seems as though I can’t subscribe to it and although my memory for words has not decreased, my memory for negotiating the Internet and blogs certainly has. If I don’t have a reminder, chances are I won’t find it.
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Well done Judy.
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Thanks, Sadje. I always appreciate your attention and response!!!
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You’re most welcome dear friend
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Very nicely done. It put me in mind of a hopscotch of have and have nots- things that once seemed real and no longer do. I loved it.
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That was the main theme of my life even as a child…dreams of escape..Luckily, they all came true.
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Using every word, making them flow perfectly from floating life of helium to the grounding of a life well earned. Beautiful writing
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This has such a wonderful child energy, escaping from the earth and worldly limitations.
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Thanks, qbit.
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Judy! loved what you did here! my favorite line = “my uncle’s porkpie hat my umbraculum against hot prairie skies.” and you used ALL THE WORDS. ❤
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Ha.. the prompt provided the two unique words in that sentence.
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A vivid image of the lifestyle I never knew – fascinating.
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