Two years ago, when the cats knocked over both of the huge precolumbian replica statues my husband and I bought to go on our entrance pedestals the day we bought our house 19 years ago, I decided to turn them into planters. The male has ferns planted in him and the female these moss roses. They decided to bloom for Easter. Happy Easter, everyone.
For Cee’s FOTD
Easter Hunts
My toy cannon muffled by an egg stuffed in its snout.
Easter grass and sugar eggs hidden inside and out.
My parents’ Easter soirees were things of grand design.
The pink nests were sister’s and the yellow ones were mine.
One disappeared behind the mirror, one behind father’s chair.
At the end, still one nest to be found, I knew not where.
Suckers, Peeps and sugar eggs, jelly beans and gummies—
sought out and stuffed in Easter baskets, then stuffed in our tummies.
My folks went to such bother, whereas I must say in truth,
If I’d been asked, I’d rather have just had a Baby Ruth!
Prompt words this Easter Sunday are truth, soiree, disappear, cannon and mirror. (You didn’t make it east this time, folks!)
With Workmen Here
The cats have flown, I know not where.
They’ve chosen to remain aloof.
They don’t await me on the stair.
The cats have flown, I know not where.
Not one to steal my favorite chair.
I do not hear them on the roof.
The cats have flown, I know not where.
They’ve chosen to remain aloof.
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a triolet. A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetrameter (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) ABaAabAB.
Holding Back the Moon
Standby. I think I love you, though I’m not completely certain.
But when I see the ship of moon through my bedroom curtain,
then watch it disappear as the sky takes up its space,
as though its crew has moved it to another time and place,
I hope that you can moor yourself and stay your bullish pride
while you wait for my decision. Please stem restlessness. Abide.
Prompt words today are standby, moon, disappear, crew and pride.
Click on flowers to enlarge photos.
Every Flower
Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.
They pick up your thoughts by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.
Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.
Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.
When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.
Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.
To read another poem on the significance of flowers and memory, go HERE.
TheNaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem about the meaning of flowers.
Also, for Cee’s FOTD.
Memory Management
I’ve finally calculated the amount my head can hold—
sorted, classified and filed, folded, stacked or rolled.
It’s just enough to get me by and leave room there for me.
If you want to learn some more, you’ve got to leave space free.
Don’t jump to the conclusion I don’t prioritize.
One’s got to be selective in what they memorize.
Keep the best stuff handy in your mental cache.
Put some stuff on a higher shelf and throw away the trash.
Heads do not get bigger like hips and waists and ears,
so if you are forgetting things, let me calm your fears.
It’s nature’s way of making room for more important thought.
Emphasizing what we are, erasing what we’re not.
Prompts for today are finally, head, jump, cache and amount.
Building Paradise
A Tropical Illusion
They’ve spiffied up the island. It was a piece of cake.
No one will ever know that the volcano is a fake.
No amount of protest would stay them from this action
even though of course there was a non-supportive faction
who thought the former real grass was better than the new
which never needed mowing and was such a lovely hue.
The battle raged throughout, but in spite of it, by June
They had all the equipment for the holographic Moon.
They’d planned their big Grand Opening and advertised online.
From all the folks who liked their ads, they knew that they’d do fine.
They’d made their Island great again. Not one guest disagreed.
Every problem engineered, there was no lack or need.
An homogenized vacation, a prefab honeymoon—
Every month of every year went by the name of June.
Ships came in and ships went out and zombies came and went.
on simulated adventures where life was just for rent!
Prompt words for Thursday are cake, ship, island, battle and amount.
Kitten on the Keys
Four
months gone
or maybe more
still
she hears
a closing door
thinks
it’s him
walking the floor
but
all is empty
space and time
no
kisses fond
or words sublime
footsteps
are but
creak and groan
she
lies here
listening all alone
footsteps
on the
roof top rafter
found
in type
the morning after
once
a wife
no regrets sold
she
doesn’t know
the story told
kitten
paws heed
no man’s barriers
make
the perfect
love note carriers
This is a true story. Today while cleaning and organizing my art studio, I found a bag with old notes from my husband in it. Included was this message found typed out on my computer a few months after he died. The kittens loved to walk over the keys and I had heard Talulah or Annie do so the night before. What came out was gobbledygook with “once a wife no regrets sold.” typed out in the middle of it. For nineteen years, I’ve been trying to figure out what the “sold” was about unless it was that we’d put our house up for sale and bought one in Mexico three weeks before my husband died. This message was received as I lay on the floor on an inflatable mattress in the bedroom of the house we would have shared in Mexico. Nope. No regrets, ever, concerning the move to Mexico, but it took me 8 years to stop feeling married.
This is Annie about 16 years later, perhaps remembering her one successful message on those keys she walked over so many times in the 19 years she shared here with me. She was just a kitten in the time period this poem describes.
The day 10 prompt for NaPoWriMo is to write a haynaku. Six word stanzas with lines of 1, then 2, then 3 words.
