You are leaving soon.
Less than seven days.
I am happy-sad delighted-scared
gleeful-grieving.
Mommy
who loved you well
knows the best, final
gift is to let go
Sam’s last Summer day ~
Watching moments click the clock ~
Fourth grade is here, soon
Create a life
Create word pictures
Pictures tell tells
Pictures don’t lie
Lie to me
Lie big monster
Monster to drink
Monster for hire
Hire this servant
Hire this woe
Woe to you
Woe is I
I have fear
I have fear
fear has nothing
fear is powerless
Powerless without me
Powerless all alone
alone is fine
alone welcomes solitude
Solitude bears promise
Solitude holds fear
fear gives in
fear cries gratitude
gratitude sings joy
gratitude opens up
Up look up
Up sky clls
calls Julie Hi
Calls Blue eyes
eyes see light
Eyes see dark
Dark hides facts
Dark brings fear
fear whispers faint
fear urges more
more terror here
More frustration there
there isn’t here
there isn’t now
now breathe slowly
now really hear
Hear dark words
hear tough lessons
lessons arrows find
lesson’s gentle pull
Pull my soul
Pull my pulse
pulse…
soul….
Grateful for teaching what I know and learning a smidge of what I don’t.
Grateful for the chance to sit in the aftermath of destruction. Smelling the fire. Touching it, holding a speck of it, feeling what remained and more learning.
Grateful for Sequoia National monument and now-familiar tree friends.
Grateful for Sam’s love of hosting and adventuring.
Grateful for VAC and a day off from the Mom Schlep.
Grateful for Sam’s love of textures and his expression of it.
Grateful for my very pretty house
Grateful for Free recycled paint!
Grateful for Writing prompts.
Grateful for 750words!
Grateful for Context, context, context!
858 words 104 consecutive days 101,464 total words
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
too many poetic
confessionals with a
slight self indulgent
make that multiple
me me me binges
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
Tzck tzck tzck too
many clackety clackety
heard it, pen and paper
no need to ruminate
onomatopoetical sin
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
sentient sacred
ceremonial salt
tears tucked tautly
my memory morphs
alliteration, ah!
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
103 days in a row/ 100,588 total/ 858 words today so far!
1,146 words today// 98,048 words total// 101 consecutive days
The birthplace of insults is with the giver of the taunt or tease so when insults fly I now recognize it is more about him than me.
for my grit and grime series
Improbability to be
Cast aside like this
Invincibility filling
The inner city scene
Never expecting this
Unexpected flash of
Purple to bring an
Unlikely smile
To my face because
This is grungy and
Gross, isn’t it?
A purple condom,
Used and left behind
Had somehow managed
To fold itself into a heart
Irony: not love at all
this “love” left behind
From the passing car window a question-shout
“Does he have enough water to drink?”
My new friend affirms, “Yeah, there’s…”
From the car window bills are offered
“Oh, anything helps brother, anything…”
We watch, Samuel and I, from ten feet away
“He is fascinated by water meters” I hear
myself say, feebly, from someplace deep
in my belly between courage and shame
“That’s a skutgafdasniecsd meter,” he explains
I lose the word his expertise offered
Before the drive home to write
This poem. Flittered into and out of
My mind as I made a request that
Embarrassed delighted perplexed –
“May we take your photo, please?”
met silence
He spoke to the ground, “I’m no good
With pictures…” and as I said my,
“ok, that’s ok tumbled over his “pictures”
and Samuel brought our conditional
too small anyway addition to his coffer
He allowed us.
To take it.
His picture.
I didn’t predict
When I set out today
To have my head turned by
An intriguing water meter
Zap think “Photo Op!”
To have my gut turned.
By his picture.
859 words so far today
96,902 total
and ofcourse…
100 Day Streak is intact and a reality. And I am not stopping.
1. Completion – I have a plan to bring several of my collected works into completion. Am beginning to bring that into reality starting today.
2. Zumba last night was great fun. Ironic, my knees hurt less when they are getting a butt kicking.
3. Conscious eating rules.
I felt wobbly last night, all the realities of transition are bearing down on my shoulders and my knees feel as if they are buckling.
I could have wrung out towels of tears during/after last night’s examen… and that’s what it is about, right?
Partially, anyway – clearing, cleansing, becoming more intimate with myself and with God. Grateful.
Task for today – make up a worksheet individualized for me… plus I am going to add, at the end, different Saint’s prayers… like Francis and Chiara of Assissi and Juan de la Cruz and Teresa of Avila…
Or, who says you need a pencil and paper to write poetry?
Right where we
Were today
St. Ignacious
Pre-Fire Eruption
Academy of Science
Somersaults back
Into the Valley
Can’t tell exactly
Where I am except
For right here:
Play center, manufactured
Fun looks through my
Squinted eyes like a prison
Metaphor unfolds
Before me
Wal-mart
Tract homes
Flat, withered
Terrain, once green
Yellowed now
Look for clues
And find nothing
Turn my head
To read backwards
Facing highway
Signs as they are
All I can see next
To the John Deere
And bright Oleander
Old headstones dot
A lawn in Ripon
I wonder what words
Are inscribed and
What people live and
Die in that place,
Right there, where
I drive past, it lies
Untouched by my hands
Small town, proud
Of your history?
Does he or she or
You or them enjoy
Your life here?
I am traveling
Through. I hope
You are well.
