Month: April 2023

Katrina Morrison of Tulsa, Oklahoma is our host today for Day 20 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. She invites us to write poems about our favorite places to look and think as we write. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others. I write in the early mornings in my comfy chair in the living room, but it’s not my favorite place to write – – my favorite place is in my camper in the wee hours of the morning, long before the sun rises, with dogs piled on both sides of me and in my lap (we call them our “dog chocks” because they lock us in just like tire chocks keep the camper from rolling away). Without the deadlines and chores of being at home, time to write is savored at a campsite.

The Max: Minimalistic Writing

a Lagun table
swings sideways, allowing me
access to my seat

in the Little Guy
Max camper, my favorite
space to look and think

my back to the door
windows cracked just a smidgen
ushering fresh air

hot coffee gurgling 
welcoming familiar words
I had forgotten

perspective sharpens
moments come into focus
small spaces do that

a simple teardrop
uncluttered necessities
essentials only

less is truly more
dogs, Chromebook, gray throw blanket
wrapping “4” writers

strumming my fingers
on the ridges of my cup
words percolating

ideas swirl like steam
materializing just
above the cup rim

playing hide and seek
Marco Polo swimming words
….slippery words, caught! 

Andy Schoenborn of Michigan is our host today for Day 17 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems about why we write poems in certain times. You can read his full prompt here and the poems of others. I’m sharing mine on my blog today.

Why Do You Write Poems When The World Is Asleep, (Even the Sun Has Not Risen), And There is Death All Around?

because over on the kitchen counter, a Jericho Flower has come back to life in my late mother’s pristine white milk glass, taking water into its dry, brittle brown fingers, slowly unfurling for the world and me to see that even in death, there is faith and hope and love - and life.  Leave it to my daughter to send me a Resurrection Plant for Easter - it’s the most perfect Easter gift EVER, Mom, wait ‘til you see! - and when the plastic envelope with four baby tumbleweeds arrived in my mailbox, I wondered - WTH?? (yes, even wondered it with Easter and all), so I Googled and discovered it was a Resurrection plant ~
Thank you, dear, I can’t wait to plant it!  A perfect Easter gift indeed! ~ to which she promptly replied: Mom. You don’t plant it. You put it in a bowl of water and sit back and before your very eyes it will come to life.  No dirt….. ~ 
and so I packed these dead quadruplets in the camper thinking with the purple martin house assembly and this tumbleweed show, our picnic table by the lake would hold more fun than Disney World.  I just had no idea how spectacular, how moving, how positively enchanting it would be to watch.  I poured water on one in a clear plastic tub. Sat back in my camp chair, feet on the picnic table bench, Cherry Coke Zero in one hand, dry salted peanut shells in the other, waiting. This thing came to life, from a mail order twig to a beautiful green floof of a plant that now graces my kitchen.  And I felt the nudge from Mom to put it in her milk glass bowl, the one I used to use for bananas that was sitting empty with no life and now holds the promise of her presence even in death, along with my daughter’s amazing tumbleweed thinking, in my kitchen, holding three generations of women who know a little bit about what it means to regenerate, to unfurl brown, brittle fingers into green again. 

Because stories need to be told.  That’s why I write poems when the world is asleep, the sun is not yet up, and there is death all around.