Home Repair

April 4, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

How many times
Can a body be cut open?
How many times
Can that body bounce back?
What is the limit—six times? Seven, eight?

A body is so much more than just a body—
It’s a home.
It can grow other bodies,
Shelter them from harm,
Sustain them.
A body is a temple,
Made sacred by the presence of a soul.

But a body cannot be
Continuously sliced, sampled,
Diced, drilled into.
There is always pain attendant.
A body can only withstand so much.

Some pain never goes entirely away.

Sleep Away

April 3, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

Sleepytime buds. 🙂

It’s a beautiful day to be curled
Up beneath a cozy blanket with a
Good book in hand
And a mug of tea at my side.

But it’s been the same
Every day this week,
And I am so very tired.

I slip so easily into
Morpheus’ arms,
Regardless of hour,
Regardless of obligations,
And I linger much longer
Than I ought.

I cannot help it.
No matter how long I sleep,
It’s never enough.
Morpheus is impossible to resist,
And I would prefer not to most of the time.

Time to Change

April 2, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

March might feel more like
Spring if it didn’t cram four
Seasons into one.

I miss the April
Showers of my youth, but not
The more recent floods.

Will these new April
Showers bring Mayflowers? Or
Will they bring more mud?

I long to witness
Springtime fieldwork once again.
Impossible now.

The Zephyr

April 1, 2022April 5, 2022Leave a comment

Well, it sure has been a while, hasn’t it? I can’t believe I’ve taken this long a break from blogging, but it feels like I’ve had so much on my plate lately, whether or not I actually have. Pero, así es la vida, cariño.

So in order to help me get my blogging habit back on track, I’m going to start NaPoWriMo off right with a free verse poem on one of my favorite topics: Iowa’s crazy weather. I hope you like it!

Dying evergreens stand
Tall in the gale outside
My windows, but
Their remaining needles
Pay the price
For decades of fortitude.

Will I have the strength
To withstand the coming storms?
Or will I,
Like my home’s failing windbreak,
One day bow to the Zephyr,
Exhausted and broken-backed
From my struggle?

It’s the climb

January 29, 2021January 29, 2021Leave a comment

Well, November sure was a blur, wasn’t it? I think this is the first year I’ve failed at NaBloPoMo. Well, the first year I’ve signed up to do it and failed – the college years don’t count. 😉😄

It bothers me to start things and then not finish them, but I think I just needed to focus on other things in November, like catching up on the sleep I haven’t been getting. Not that focusing on my sleep deprivation improved things any. It probably made them worse. On the bright side, I’ve been doing a lot of writing… 🙃

I used to love the holidays, but it seems like the older I get, the harder it is to find that Christmas spirit. This year, for whatever reason, it’s been unusually difficult. Maybe it’s because this whole year has been unusually difficult, maybe it’s because I’m once again in the midst of a writerly crisis of confidence – I don’t know.

I do know that I’ve had “The Christmas Waltz” stuck in my head most of the day and I am super sick of it. Maybe that’ll be the next Christmas song I parody…

My post editor has assured me that the last time I edited this post was at 11:40 p.m. on December 7 (“a date which will live in infamy”), 2020. Clearly, not finishing things I’ve started bothers me less than I want to admit, or I’d have posted this already.

Can I just blame it on 2020? I think I’ll just blame it on 2020.

😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

At any rate, 2021 hasn’t seemed a whole lot better yet, but I’m holding out hope. I mean, things HAVE to get better, right?

Of course they do.

Anyway, I know I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I finally got around to watching this video of Amanda Gorman reading “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration last week, and it gave me chills. This is the sort of writing I aspire to produce: writing that speaks to people, that says something important about who we are and who we want to be. If you haven’t yet seen this reading, do yourself a favor and check it out.

And now, because it’s my birthday and I have the house to myself, I’m going to go and read more poems (and maybe revise a few of my own). Here’s to accomplishing more goals in 2021!

Magic nostalgia time

November 10, 2020Leave a comment

I’ve been working on a poem lately about how different this summer was compared to summers past. And as I was pondering exactly what I was trying to get at with my poem, this came to me:

Summer is a magic time, full of nostalgia for the bygone days of my youth. But as summer fades inevitably into fall, I find myself growing wistful, for summer lasts but a short time, and it seems to grow shorter with each passing year.

Covid time has transformed ordinary seasonal longing for carefree summer fun into a yearning of the acutest kind; I crave a true return to normal life, the kind that will not be possible for some time. With fall fading fast into winter and case counts rapidly rising, it’s hard to hang onto hope.

I wish I could cast all my doubts and fears aside as easily as if I were tossing an anchor over the starboard bow; I wish I could pluck hope from the lake as easily as master anglers pull fish from the deep; I wish I could read the world’s future in my cards.

But since I can’t do any of that, I’ll keep writing about it all instead.

Pink

November 2, 2020November 8, 20204 Comments

Pink looks better
On fingernails and roses
Than it does on my eyes.

Pink feels better on
Fingers and toesies
Than it does on my lips or my nose.

But pink is the best
In the sky at sunset
When it softens the day into night.

What a beautiful morning

January 2, 2020March 9, 20202 Comments

I got today’s video knocked out a bit earlier than yesterday’s. There was a beautiful sunrise this morning, and I couldn’t help shooting it:

Mornings are so pretty in Iowa. But it would be even more peaceful if the boys didn’t argue about every little thing.

Of course, since I’m me, I decided to add to the challenge by writing a poem to go with each day’s video. Yesterday I wrote a haiku about two of my kitties; today I wrote another one about how nice it would be if my kids did’t spend each morning’s wait for the bus in an argument over something. They argue about everything lately.

I’m excited about the poem aspect of this challenge. I’ve gotten back to work on The Lokana Chronicles, but I don’t want my poetry to fall to the wayside, and this will be a great opportunity to keep those poetic muscles in shape.

Well, that and the two poetry groups I’ve joined in the last six months. 😄

What about you – have you set any new year’s resolutions?

Thirty days

May 1, 20172 Comments

Thirty days of poetry is a heck of a feat. Thirty days of alphabet poetry is something even more.

I can hear it now, the chorus of people asking, “More what?”

But you know something? I don’t know. It’s just more. More of a pain, more of a triumph. More exciting, more maddening. It’s just more, okay?

I wasn’t sure I’d do it. I wasn’t sure I’d make it. But here I am, thirty days later, with a few more poems under my belt and a sense of accomplishment I haven’t felt in a while. It’s a good feeling.

What about you – what have you been up to these last thirty days? How have the last thirty days changed you?

I’m too fill in the blank for this!

December 6, 20165 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since I posted my stressed-out-Mom version of “Jingle Bells,” but it’s true. It’s that time of year again, and just like this time last year, I’m feeling the blues. The holiday stress began in earnest with Thanksgiving and trying to squeeze in trips to family, trips to friends, and trips to the store on Black Friday (not for the deals, but because we actually needed things) without going bonkers. This week I’ve got two Christmas concerts, church for the kids, a basketball game, a house to decorate, family pictures to take, and 20 dozen cookies to bake before Saturday.

It’s gonna be a crazy…