Fitz wants proof
the bagel is
really truly gone
climbs on chairs
stands on tables
wants the evidence
it’s all gone ~
hops back down
food dreams deferred
Fitz Checks Plates: A Tricube Poem
When She Comes Calling
I worry about this one
this sweet little fawn who
used to have a twin
when they
still
had
spots
we’d watched them
from the window
for weeks
clumsily playing
beside mama
just yards
from our front door
near the edge
of the woods
before spotting one
crumpled on the road
near the driveway
near their
dense thicket
and now this one
with her rumpled rump fur
comes calling
alone
so close
to the house
as if she’s trying
to
say
something
Flat Ollie: A Skinny Poem
Have you ever seen a dog that can flatten himself right into a chair, a bed, or the floor? If our Ollie were a poem, he’d be a skinny poem. He could win an upside-down limbo contest and beat a snake at it.
he flattens out
Ollie
rescued
schnoodle
skinny
Ollie
abandoned
neglected
adopted
Ollie
he flattens out
Taken from The Skinny Poetry Nation blog: The “Skinny” is a short poem form that consists of eleven lines. The first and eleventh lines can be any length (although shorter lines are favored). The eleventh and last line must be repeated using the same words from the first and opening line (however, they can be rearranged). The second, sixth, and tenth lines must be identical. All the lines in this form, except for the first and last lines, must be comprised of ONLY one word. The Skinny was created by Truth Thomas in theTony Medina Poetry Workshop at Howard University.
Red-Shouldered Hawks
Last week, I heard them before I saw them – which is rarely the case. Usually, they’re perched up on a tree limb or on a wire watching for the slightest rustling in the underbrush below, looking for living snacks. Not last week, though. The house was quiet, when out of nowhere the familiar cries came nearer. Soon, they seemed right overhead – and sure enough, I stepped out onto the front porch, glanced up, and saw them.
I feared for our families of rabbits and our raccoon (which may actually be one of a pair with little ones) that has just checked in to live among the wild critters at the Johnson Funny Farm. We have a revolving door for all kinds of furry and feathered and scaly and armored friends, from armadillos to foxes to possums to raccoons, to rabbits, field mice, bobcats, fox-squirrels, chipmunks, owls, herds and herds of all-day-deer, rogue donkeys and wayward cattle (even bulls, yes), escaped horses, dogs, snakes, skunks, coyotes, birds of all kinds, and feral cats. We have even had wild boar come through years ago, and a mysterious creature that my parents swear was a Florida panther back in 2010, even though I still question that. We believe we have had a bear, too, on the wilder side of the farm where hunters once took the back gate down and began dumping deer heads and wild hog carcasses like it was a regular landfill back there before we reinstalled a heavier gate and an old non-working camera with a No Trespassing sign.
Seeing hawks, though, as often as it happens, is always a bittersweet sight. I love the majestic presence, but even as I near the age of 60, I am still skittish about the brutal cruelty of nature. And so much of it goes on right here in the woods.
Just like the regular world we live in, where most of us feel more like rabbits right about now.
Red-Shouldered Hawk pair
circles overhead, seeking
unsuspecting prey
PaintChip Patchwork Poem
When my husband goes into the local hardwares store, I never miss a chance to go and admire the paint chips and their color names. Secretly, I want that job. I want to name paint colors based on themes and even literary works. Little Red Riding Hood for the bread baskets in the pantry, lined with Bo Peep White-As-Sheep linen napkins, Little Boy Blue for the nursery, and Green Gables for the metal plant stand. I’m open for any job interviews a paint company would like to offer.
For now, though, while I work my way toward retirement from education as long as my mind will stay sharp enough to think and make sense of logical things, I press on and enjoy the creative side as I piddle in the hardware store while my husband shops for ideas on how to make a flag pole for our camper before camping season gets back in full swing.
I found these colors last night and began arranging them on a theme.
Next, created a chained haiku using the paint chips. I ordered the colors and imagined a countryside with a quaint cottage and a vegetable and herb garden, with a greenhouse right outdoors in the back yard inside a white fence.
And then I wrote in my backpack journal. 5-7-5, lines of haiku, loving the challenge and order of counting syllables and making things fit. I tucked the paint chips into my hand to bring them home and re-order them another time. I could have baskets and baskets of paint chips around the house and never grow tired of arranging them. Magnolia Home chips are my favorite – – they are just the right size and texture, have the most appealing font that even my aging eyes can see, are well-named, and are the most appealing paint colors of any of the other brands.
I could live
in the world
of paint chips and poetry
plants and herbal teas and
English gardens
with quaint countryside cottages
bell-peppered container gardens
wildflowers
a rope hammock
in the shade of a towering oak
and a local library within
walking distance so I
could pull my wagon there
and wheel home the stories.
Slippery Elm
Over the past week, I’ve had two close family members suffer sore throats. One was the result of acute aspiration during a medical procedure in which his airway had to be cleared, and the other from the flu. In both cases, as I talked to them, I could hear the raspy crackling of the voice and felt their pain palpably. And in both cases, I wanted to steep each one a cup of Traditional Medicinal Throat Coat Tea, which has slippery elm as a balm for the throat. It soothes, it coats, and it comforts. Sometimes when I have a sore throat, I just want to turn the bottle of honey up and let it drizzle down my throat to keep it protected; this tea does exactly what honey can do without having to walk around with a bottle of upturned honey all day. They both tried it, and they agree – – it works! I’m not trying to be a commercial for this tea, but when I find something I like, I try to share it with others. Today, I’m grateful for these simple remedies for times when we need relief and want something that works quickly.
The Remedy
slippery elm tea
best remedy for sore throats
with a honey spoon
natural approach
(not relying on NyQuil)
~tastier option
Boo Radley (Boo Badly)
We live in the middle of a forest. These massive pine trees surround our home on all sides and shelter us deep in the woods, basically cut off from any form of civilization. We have to get dressed and venture into society to see other living, breathing human souls. What used to be a fully operating cattle farm has been, little by little over the years, turned from cow pasture to pine tree farm – which is why, when I tell my work friends that I must go home and walk the dogs sometimes at lunch, I am met with blank stares. They don’t understand that when I say I live on the Johnson Funny Farm, this basically translates to the Johnson Wayward Wildlife Jungle.
We never know what we’re going to see, and we can’t take risks that our pack of house Schnoodles won’t go chasing anything that moves. Two of the three must be on leashes at all times.
Except Boo Radley~
his dad gives him a leash pass
(doesn’t see the need)
He saw it last night, for the second time in two weeks.
I’d just gone to bed and gotten settled to try to figure out Wordle at the end of a long day that included a two-hour extension to help with registration at our high school when I heard my husband frantically yelling Boo’s name. I sprang up, careful not to slip down on the wood floors after just putting the magnesium cream on my feet to help me sleep better, making it to the closet to get my slippers. I knew instinctively this would require entry into the thicket.
Sure enough, Boo Radley had taken off and was marking territory at the bottom of a pine tree, where once again he’d treed a coon. This happened for the first time less than two weeks ago, but here we were again, another (or maybe the same) frightened raccoon staring down into the high beam of our flashlight, wondering what kind of dogs we are raising in this house.
He gets proud of himself and tries to sport the Alpha Dog swagger after a thing like this, but it’s all lies. He is not the alpha anymore, and he knows it deep inside. He’s just obnoxious.
Take this morning, for example. I’m generally the first one up, and so I take the boys out around 5:00. They usually go right off the edge of the walkway and do their morning business, and it takes less than two minutes………until Boo decides to go over by the gardenia bush and gets wrapped around the birdbath and pulls it over, completely full, right at my feet. I was grateful it was not the block of ice it was two weeks ago.
Still, I laugh at the comedy of it all. We’ve often wondered why Boo was abandoned, needing rescue in his younger years. He isn’t an easy dog by any means…….but we love him, and if it weren’t for him and his brothers and all the wayward wildlife critters who wander up and want to be a part of life here, we wouldn’t be able to call it the Johnson Funny Farm.
You gotta be a little sideways to end up here.
Tea and Writing With Friends
Unexpected kindnesses can happen anytime, in the most needed ways. A couple of weeks ago, fellow slicer and friend Barb Edler of Iowa reached out to see if I wanted to be part of a small group she was putting together for The Stafford Challenge of daily writers in our second year of writing a poem a day for one full year. Each of us writes in three common writing groups and have met in person to make presentations at NCTE. We keep in touch, and I’ve often thought that my friends in the midwest and west coast and I share deeper connections than friends sitting next to me each day at work – – because we share the bond of kinship through writing. And I’m so thankful for this, because along with Denise Krebs and Glenda Funk, we found we were kindred spirits all seeming to need a lift right about now. Each of us shared a poem via Zoom that we’ve written recently and found a common thread – a numbness, disbelief, sadness about what is happening in our world with its shocking politics, heartbreaking plane crashes, and other woeful wreckage.
There are no words to capture the deep feeling of comfort that comes when you sit with friends, near or far, with a cup of tea and spend time sharing writing. I’m thanking each of you today, because that’s what slicing does, too. It brings us together to share what is foremost on our minds and hearts and keeps us in touch with what is going on in our lives across the globe. I love having my gardening friends, my RV bloggers, my travel buddies, my fellow grandmothers who share amazing ideas, fellow readers and birdwatchers and more. Thank you for being a writer in my life.
I’m sharing my tricube (three stanzas, three lines per stanza, three syllables per line) that I shared last night (below). I’m also making plans for March slicing – – I’ve sectioned out the waking hours of a typical day, and I plan to write a poem for every 31-minute time slot about something happening during that time, just to feel the real-lifeness of each moment, just because there can be deep comfort in things as simple as stirring honey into a cup of hot green tea and accepting that it’s okay not to want to read the tea leaves.
I don’t know
I don’t know
what to say
words fail me
I don’t know
what to do
verbs fail me
I don’t know
what to think
thoughts fail me
When Boo Radley Treed A Coon
Each night, we take the boys out right before bed – our three rescue Schnoodles, ready to do their business and settle in for the night. We shine a high-beam flashlight into the woods to see if there is anything out there that looks menacing before we venture out too far – – living deep in these woods of rural Georgia, we never know what could be lurking in the dark at any distance from the door. Two of our dogs must be on a leash, but the third dog begs his daddy for mercy and gets it every time: freedom from restraint.
And that is how Boo Radley (a Schnoodle – – not a coonhound) treed a raccoon week before last.
We heard a sudden scuttle around the corner, and Boo took off like a shooting star straight to the source of the sound. I caught my breath, certain that his time had come. The dog knows no fear. All we heard was claws on pine bark, so we knew something had scurried up into a tree. My first thought was a bobcat – – we see them from time to time, and one had just crossed the road in front of me as I’d driven home a couple of weeks ago. We shone the light up into the trees, searching for whatever it was this time. He’s chased it all – – foxes, stray dogs, feral cats, squirrels, possums, deer, chickens, donkeys, and even a wayward herd of cattle, bull included. This time, a mischievous little raccoon face was staring down at us from the crook of a tree limb, as curious about us as we were about him.
So here we are, with yet another critter that wants to hang out with us here on the east side of the Johnson Funny Farm. We’ve named him Ringo Starr for the rings around his eyes and the shooting star dog that gives chase to anything that moves in these parts. And since it’s coyote mating season on top of everything else, Boo Radley has lost all mercy of being off the leash for night walks.
our Schoodle Boo Radley treed a coon
in the deep, dark night at the edge
of the deeper, darker woods
where we never know what
all lurks by the eyes
shining in the
flashlight beam
back at
us
The Silver Lining
during the coming reign, a friend says
she’ll turn off all news and stay in
and read more books than ever
and snuggle with her dogs
and I understand ~
I think she’s found
the silver
lining
here
**I’ll be reading with my book club (we met tonight at our local coffee shop on the town square to discuss The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend) and sharing Goodreads reviews with my one of my daughters as we continue in the tradition of reading ever since she was little. Somewhere in all the buzz happening around us, there is a portal to another world in the pages of great books.
Common Threads 