Tag Archives: memories

Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

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Groundhogs in Sri Lanka

Groundhog Day (the movie) was frustrating for sure.
When that same day kept happening, there seemed to be no cure.
But this was not reality. It really could not be.
And so to write about it has no appeal for me.

Instead I want to write about something on my mind;
and it, indeed, is something day after day I find.
When I look at my statistics on my blogging site,
I see the countries that have viewed my blog each day and night.

And when I see “Sri Lanka” occur day after day,
I wonder who that person is and what they’d have to say
if they could comment on the words that I have said to them
and wish that I could know a little more of her or him.

So if you read this message and know that it is you
who reads my blog, reveal yourself. Say who you are, please do.
I’ve been to Sri Lanka many years ago and saw
Colombo and the stupas—I viewed them all with awe.

The elephants in Kandy, the tea fields on the way,
the little inn called “Bird’s Nest” where we slept at end of day.
We climbed Anuradhapura, we stood beneath the tree
where Buddha sat 2,000 years ago. (How can this be?)

You probably weren’t born then so I’m sure we didn’t meet;
or as a babe in arms, perhaps you passed me in the street.
But nineteen sixty-seven (or was it sixty-eight?)
is very long ago and so I’m sure it’s not my fate

to reconnect with anyone I might have met back then
and it is not important what happened way back when.
To me, it is more vital to know what’s happening now,
and that is why a day or so ago I made a vow.

I mention this thing only to try to drive you to
share a little bit of what it might be to be you.
I’ve told you all my secrets, kept nothing back in shame;
so dear Sri Lanka viewer, please at least reveal your name!

 The Prompt: Groundhog Week—If you could relive the past week, would you? Would you change anything?

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

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With everyone posting pictures of their moms, I couldn’t find one on my computer, so this will have to do. The wet hair tells me my mom has just finished washing my hair by having me lie on the counter and put my head in the kitchen sink. I have on my pink chenille bathrobe with brown flowers with yellow centers and I’m sure I’m talking to Lynnie Brost on the phone. Someone on our party line might be listening, but what secrets might two five-year-olds have that the whole neighborhood cannot know? Later my mom will put my hair up in curlers for those awful sausage curls that I thought were the only way I would ever wear my hair. Mom, in an hour and a half, I’ll leave to go read a poem about you at Open Circle. Wish you were there in the audience. Perhaps you will be. oxoxoxooxox to Eunice King Dykstra—remembered by all who knew her as “Pat.”

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NaPoWriMo Day 4: Fourteen Lunes

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Day four’s prompt is to write a lune. The lune involves a three-line stanza. The first line has three words. The second line has five, and the third line has three. I have written a poem consisting of four stanzas containing two lunes each, plus another six one-stanza lunes.

Fourteen Lunes

I wake exhausted
from walking in your footsteps
through my dream.
Then I wonder:
were we in my dream
or in yours?

Although you say
I visit you in dreams,
I don’t remember.
Perhaps that ghost
of last night’s lovely dream
was really yours?

If I manage
to find a way tonight
into your dreams,
how many others
will I find awaiting you
when I arrive?

Oh, what if
while I visited your dreams,
you visited mine?
What midnight irony,
if you were here while
I was there.

-0-

Loud morning birds
seem to be speaking together
in different languages.

The wild heart
can choose what lives there
on its own.

It is pointless
to try to choose memories.
They choose us.

I keep forgetting
to look here at home
for my happiness.

At the stoplight,
no poem awaited me.
Only when driving.

A best friend
does not really leave you
when you part.