My friend Linda Levy, a wonderful California artist, sent me this shot of my moss rose photo from yesterday that she turned into wallpaper (cyber wallpaper, not actually on a wall.) I love it so wanted to share it with you.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day prompt.
Mother’s Day
Twenty wooden clothespins, slightly askew,
painted every color of the rainbow,
clipped to an empty Starkist tuna can.
A handful of dirt,
a tiny plant
and a quarter cup
of crushed lava rock.
A gift from an 8-year-old,
it graces my typing table
in front of a painting—
gift from another friend—
that it seems made for.
Thank-you, Yoli, little girl
who makes priceless gifts
for a childless friend.
Like me, my grandmother,
peerless collector of cast-offs,
handicrafter extraordinaire,
would have declared it beautiful.
For Apr 20, 2020 NaPoWriMo we are to write a poem about a handmade gift you have received.
Tableau
She found him obnoxious, he found her inane.
Their thirty-day marriage, suddenly insane.
Both were fatigued by exhausting routine.
The breakfast, the paper, the washing machine.
A giant moth fluttered, beating the screen
and the window glass— imprisoned between.
The cryptic message it beat with its wings
sang of detachment and other sad things.
Both heard its struggles and both moved to free
anxious to end at least one tragedy.
Her hand touched the clasp and his moved the screen.
The moth vanished into the fresh morning green.
A brush of his knuckles on the hair of her arm,
his gentle reminder that he’d meant no harm.
Her turning toward him, a touch and a kiss.
Their world straightened out with nothing remiss.
A silent tableau—solution with no words.
A moth soaring free. A chorus of birds.
Word prompts today are flutter, screen, obnoxious, cryptic and routine.
Empty Spaces
The world has stilled its hectic pace, although its clocks tick on.
We stand at windows peering out, imagining what’s gone.
Rapid passings night and day, our reachings and attainings
have made way for the meantime to leave us our remainings.
There is a little secret the Swiss learned long ago
that has to do with leaving space—the worth of going slow.
Their cheese that is the richest is full of empty spaces—
its flavor made the tangier by what nature erases.
The holes are not just emptiness, for factors that have made them
create a richer cheese than the cheeses that evade them.
The blocks with larger spaces have a better taste.
In short, the empty room they leave is anything but waste.
Perhaps it is the same with the new spaces in our lives.
Perhaps the empty spaces are where the meaning thrives.
Prompts today are Swiss, hectic, attain, secret and clock. Image by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Leavings
Do I walk the long kilometers of beach
to look for the next shell
or stand stable, like that woman
casting and recasting her hook,
patiently waiting to pull her world in to her?
I’m gathering things
that I’ll collect into stories–
pinning them down to use like words.
Nothing wrong in finding meaning
through a piece of driftwood, a stone or shell.
Objects are only things
we cast our minds against
like images against a screen—
a shadow glimpsed crossing a window shade.
My shadow cast in front of me
is such a different thing
from one I cast behind.
In the first, I am constantly hurrying
to catch up to what I’ll never catch up to.
In the other, I am leaving behind
what I can only keep by walking away from it.
I take this place along with me in clear images–
not as they were, but as my mind has cast them;
so every picture taken of the same moment is different,
each of us seeing it through our unique lens.
We cast these things in bronze or silver-gelatin,
stone, clay or poetry.
A grandma holds out pictures of her children
and her grandchildren. See? Her life’s work.
And then this and this, without further effort on her part.
I share stories of children I don’t know
who gently unwind fishing line from a struggling gull,
of a minefield of jellyfish found on the beach
or other treasures nestled in a pile of kelp.
I find my world in both these findings and departings—
the leaving each morning to go in search of them
the part I find most exhilarating,
perhaps teaching this woman
of the death-themed night-terrors
not to worry,
that leaving is just a new adventure.
People forget and let me slip away
when I would have held on, given any encouragement,
yet fingers, letting go,
flex for that next discovered treasure.
Life is all of us letting go constantly—
taking that next step away from and to.
A white shell. I have left it there
turned over to the brown side,
so someone else can discover it, too.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to take a walk and collect objects to turn into a poem.
For Becca’s Sunday trees
Solitary Wanderings While Listening to Kottke on Echo
I’m feeling rather whimsical in spite of guidelines given.
Somehow I can’t remain in the direction I’ve been driven.
I have to hitchhike elsewhere to somewhere I have chosen.
When I go where I’m told to go, I wind up slightly frozen.
I’m sensitive to music. Leo Kottke’s playing now.
Alexa found him for me, though I do not know quite how.
I needed background music that would not completely bore me,
so I gave her directions to play some Leo for me.
Then, feeling sort of friendly, and a little low,
when I asked her favorite music, thinking that she would not know,
she said, “Same as most people, it depends on how I’m feeling.”
With “Sweet Emotions” playing, her comment sent me reeling.
Since even cyber entities seem to have emotions,
I need to be more sensitive in my directive notions.
The afternoon is waning and my thoughts are prone to wander.
I wonder what they thought of as they rambled over yonder?
I guess I’ll never know as I am onto the next thought.
That’s why I never do these poems exactly as I ought!!
Prompt words today are whimsical, guidelines, sensitive, music.
Small Pleasures
That last sip of coffee when you thought that you were through.
A lazy sleep-in Saturday with nothing much to do.
A walk through fields with children or a late-night talk with friends.
When you know just where to look, the pleasure never ends.
That last square of chocolate. The popping of a blister.
Getting there to lick the icing spoon before your sister.
Summer nights with highway noises from a block away.
Knowing that you’ll take that road away from here one day.
Constant daily pleasures are a matter of the mind.
Some pleasures of the present, others of the future kind.
Like Chocolate? Here is a song by someone else who does. Me! Lyrics by Judy Dykstra-Brown, music and presentation by Christin Anfossie:
Today’sNaPoWriMo prompt is to write an ode to small pleasures.
