Patchwork Prose and Verse
September waves goodbye today, its last day of 2024, when many in Georgia are cleaning up from a storm and heading back to work after power outages. Tomorrow will be the first day of the last quarter of the year, Halloween a few weeks away, then Thanksgiving a few weeks from then, and Christmas a few weeks from then, before 2025 arrives with its own year of life ahead.
lighting fall candles
leaves falling, swirling, turning
welcoming autumn
My book news flashed across my screen at work, proclaiming Olive Kitteridge a fantastic fall read, set in Maine. As a District Literacy Specialist, I get plenty of book reviews for all ages, and years ago I’d purchased Olive Kitteridge with every intention of reading it. But life got busy, and I passed it on when I’d kept it for several years without touching it.
School was being cancelled for the following day, so I took the opportunity to drive over to the library on my lunch break and see if they had a copy available for checkout. My plan was to incorporate some reading time by candlelight during the storm and predicted power outage that might last a few days. So I whipped out my library card and turned left onto Highway 19 South out of the parking lot, then drove a quarter mile and turned right into the J. Joel Edwards Library parking lot in Zebulon, Georgia. Already, the clouds were dark and menacing overhead to my south, but sunlight streamed through on the north side of town. It was that eerie feeling when you know something’s stirring and the sky is trying to tell you to get ready.
I strolled in and found Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout and checked both hardbound copies out to savor as the storm approaches. The reviews are mixed on Goodreads, but I can see my friend Mo Daley of Michigan gave it a good rating, so I have hopes and dreams of snuggling into my comfy chair with my stretchy pajamas that could pass as a dress and leggings if anyone stops by, and gathering the dogs and reading by the window until I have to light a candle if the lights go out.
There is always a silver lining somewhere, even in a storm, and mine is reading.
Olive Kitteridge
a fall story set in Maine
Ready. Chapter 1.
As you read this, we are probably without power. They’ve projected outages for up to 72 hours, with the start being around 2 a.m. Friday morning. I’m posting ahead, but already the preparations for the storm here in middle Georgia are underway. Milk and bread are gone from store shelves, and folks are swapping and filling their propane tanks. I managed to find four bags of ice for our cooler so we can switch our groceries over to stay cold. The generator is here in case we take to the camper for showers from the white tank and air conditioning after the storm on what is predicted to be a hot weekend. Even our wildlife that we enjoy watching each day are taking note – they’re on the move in patterns we don’t normally see. I had picked up Fitz from the vet and was squeaking his turtle squeak toy in the garage when my husband said, “Stop and listen!” We walked out and looked up to see a whole flock of Canadian Geese honking their way east overhead.
“Did you call them?” my husband asked, gesturing to the turtle.
Wherever you are, if you’re in the storm’s path on the coast or inland, stay safe!
during these fierce storms
I worry for our critters
already stirring
they know something’s up
squirrels are gathering food
deer stick together
their whole herd crossing
our driveway together with
babies surrounded
no Weather Channel
needed in the dense forest
these animals know
update: we have power and had very little effect other than the torrential downpours of the rains in the outer bands of the storm, but my dad, brother, and son and their families are all without power now going on 48 hours and we hope they will come and stay until it returns.
No one south of Atlanta should be on these roads today with the storm approaching. Correction: no one south of Atlanta should be on these roads with the Category 4 Hurricane heading our way. They say it’ll still be a Cat 1 clear up to Macon, then a tropical storm before Atlanta. It’s forecast to spin right through our county, right through our pine trees like the Tasmanian devil in all those cartoons. Schools are called off today and tomorrow for best safety practice, and here’s my still-ambitious husband in all his 63 years, heading out to brave the roads in his nylon raincoat, his lunchbox, and his oversized umbrella. He gave our three dogs their morning goodbye treats, and each headed to a separate chair to settle in for their morning naps as he headed down the hall to the garage and out to his truck. But not before I yelled, “Be careful out there. Be extra careful. I need you.”
This isn’t something we say. We’ve always said I love you, and have prided ourselves for all our years of marriage on not actually needing each other but making it a daily choice to want to be with the other – – not to need the other in a dependent kind of way. But this morning needed the truth, and it stopped him in his tracks.
“That’s nice to hear,” he said, closing the door behind him.
A second later, he opened it. “You really don’t, you know, but it is nice to hear.” And then he left for work. I sat sipping cold coffee and admiring the sweet slumber of our pups in their chairs, not a worry on their Schnauzery brows.
We used to believe
we were loved, not needed – but
now we know we’re both
On Sunday, we had our book launch celebration, and we began with……well, what else? Writing! I wrote a 20 Questions Poem, falling short by about 9 questions. Our first 23 minutes includes a writing prompt, and then there is discussion about our books. Enjoy!
How do we celebrate this excitement of our book?
How do we scream and yell loud enough?
How do we jump high enough? Run in place fast enough?
Smile big enough? Laugh loud enough?
How do we let the joy out slowly enough without bursting wide open?
How do we keep our feet on the ground?
How do we remember our names and where we live?
How do we keep our faces from hurting, with these smiles too big
To fit on our faces?
How do we contain all the sugarplums that danced in our heads,
Now here on the pages of our book, our words, our joy, our being?
Barb Edler of Iowa is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the final day of our September Open Write. She encourages us to celebrate our writing group through poetry of any form today. You can read her full prompt here and read the poems of others. On the heels of a celebration of the Labor Day launch of our books Words that Mend and 90 Ways of Community earlier this week, I can’t think of a better way to write today than in thanksgiving and heartfelt gratitude for a group of writers who make a difference in how we live and how we think.
If you don’t have a writing group, I encourage you to find one ~ and you can use this one as a great model for a face to face group in your own corner of the world after spending a few hours looking back at the prompts and the feedback. Get the books, read them, and feel the deep need to fix places you never knew were broken. Too many of us have lost our footing and found ourselves floundering and then discovered the power of writing and what it can do. Today is a day to celebrate the power of the pen and the ways it connects us with others. Anna Roseboro said it best at our celebration: if poetry can do this for us, imagine what it can do for our students. We all need poetry and writing in our lives.
Belonging
we step from shadows
into glowing candlelight
from our scars
we discover soothing balm
from mourning and grief
into reassurance there is
reason to go on
we come from loneliness
to take a hand of belonging
from disconnectedness
to welcoming acceptance
we leave our fears
step into the fold of peace
we leave disappointments
find spiritual hope
we feel our hearts
pulled at the words
someone else’s
shadows
scars
mourning
grief
loneliness
disconnectedness
fears
disappointments
are our own moments
our own memories
and we know
we know
we know
this is no ordinary
writing group
these are
our lifelines
our people
our friends
our family
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the September Open Write is Larin of Oklahoma. She inspires us to write “I Thought You Should Know” poems in any form of our choice. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others.
To the Craftsman in Kentucky Who Made the Secretariat
I thought you should know
this piece has been in my family
since 1966, and we won’t give it up~
it sits in the dining room by the table
here in the heat of Georgia
with a fake plant on top since I
can’t keep real ones alive
like the matriarchs did
and I only wish I could rewind
time through all its days and
relive some of the simplest
moments next to it
through the years
as hash browns fried,
cinnamon toast browned,
bacon sizzled,
teaspoons swirled in steaming mugs
and family talked
~ really talked ~
in those hours like they’d have forever
only they didn’t
and we don’t
which is why, Craftsman, your
work of art is safe with us
turning back the years
in ghostly oak
memories
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of the September Open Write, Tammi Belko of Ohio is our host. She inspires us to write music of the decade poems by creating new original poetry from borrowed lines of favorite songs, mashed up like a Cento poem all from lyrics. You can read her full prompt here.
When the Moon is in the Seventh House
do you…..YOU….
feel like I do?
would you like to swing on a star,
carry moonbeams home in a jar?
could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?
if it all fell to pieces tomorrow
would you still be mine?
where have all the
cowboys gone?
where have all the flowers gone?
are you going to San Francisco?
do you want to know a secret?
do you promise not to tell?
{{this is the dawning of the
age of Aquarius}}
Dave Wooley is our host for Day 2 of the September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com, inviting us to write poems today about mirrors. Come write with us or read our poems.
Join us today for our book launch party, too! September 22, 2024 – we are having an Online Publication Party to celebrate this bounteous time in our poetry community. Please join us for a live event on Zoom/YouTube at 12 PM PST/2 PM CST/3PM EST and bring friends with you…we are going to celebrate!
Mirrors
mirrors
of life
in art
Picasso
exhibit
in Nashville
with my
daughter
we sat
admiring
wondering
taking it
all in
then my
birthday~
she sent
blank journals
with
Picasso art
covers
fronts and backs
mirrors
mirrors
of life
these words
conversations
with Fran
we chatted
on writing
on family
on pens
and pencils
then a
Ticonderoga
Noir
Holographic
Hexagon
flat sections
mirrors
7:30 a.m. – Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, we are writing poems in our writing community. Join us and read the poems, and maybe write your own. Check back later to see how I’ve spun the prompt for today.
Maureen, our host at www.ethicalela.com, has offered several prompts in celebration of our book launch party tomorrow. I have chosen three to write today, and I share them below. Please join us tomorrow for our book launch. I’ll be wearing light blue for prostate cancer and dark blue for colon cancer to cheer Dad as he begins his treatments in the coming days. Ironically, one of our book covers is light blue, and another is dark blue.
Tomorrow – September 22, 2024 – we are having an Online Publication Party to celebrate this bounteous time in our poetry community. Please join us for a live event on Zoom/YouTube at 12 PM PST/2 PM CST/3PM EST and bring friends with you…we are going to celebrate!Â
Guts (a triolet nod to Fran)
adopting a diet for healthier guts
black beans and yogurts and probiotics
changing our diets for glands and but(t)s
adopting a diet for healthier guts
cheering on polyphenols in nuts
guarding our colons from xenobiotics
adopting a diet for healthier guts
black beans and yogurts and probiotics
Jiu-jitsu Dodoitsu For the Win (a dodoitsu nod to Mo)
I’m shopping today for blues
two new cancer-ribbon hues
for dad’s diagnosis news
this fight he won’t lose
Bonny Blue Naani (a naani nod to Leilya)
a light blue ribbon
worn through September
on a dark blue shirt
we’re cheering Dad’s treatments
Common Threads 