Patchwork Prose and Verse
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s form is a Tricube – 3 stanzas of 3 lines with 3 syllables each. Topic today: Not good nor bad – just writing. Card 41.
skies of blue
clouds of white
apples red
brand new shoes
classroom light
comfy bed
Elmer's glue
craft delight
(tape instead)
This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt inspires us to take the line of a book by Louise Erdrich, The Round House, and use this sentence to start writing. Here’s the line: I had three friends. I still keep up with two of them.
I had three friends. I
still keep up with two of them.
The other has died.
This is a true poem. Back in the early 1990s, we moved to a new subdivision full of young families. Between the time I left a job teaching preschoolers and the time I went back to school and began subbing and teaching full time, I was a stay-at-home mom. Four of us would gather to play cards and use coupons we’d clipped from the Sunday newspaper inserts as our betting money. We all had old recipe boxes we used to file our coupons into categories. Diaper coupons were the hot ones – we all wanted those! We passed the time together while our older children were at school a couple of days each week.
Two people (that I know of) from that subdivision ultimately developed MLS, and I must wonder if it is environmental with soil brought in as they graded those homesite lots in coastal South Carolina. One was a young child who is now an adult and fully confined to a wheelchair, and one was my cardplaying friend who had two young boys. She’d married her much older sweetheart in high school and smoked most of her adult life. She went back to college and got a degree in nursing, then retired from Hospice care a few years before she began experiencing the symptoms of MLS. That’s when my friend, a Hospice nurse, called in her own team of Hospice caregivers in the Spring of 2025 and died in July-only a few weeks after my father died.
I still have the ladder back chairs she and her husband gave us one year. I painted and recushioned them to match the dining room table from my great grandmother. The kitchen spirits are alive with stories and memories. I laugh and cry when I pause and think of all the love and laughter there in six chairs at that table.
Oh, the fun we had!
I thought of her last night as my brother and I attended the inaugural fundraiser for Hospice of the Golden Isles, where my father gained his wings. Bourbon and Bites at Village Landing on St. Simon’s Island was a huge success, and I’m pretty sure there were more spirits present than just the liquid variety. Cheers to all Hospice caregivers and to our friends and family who have known their comfort and care.
This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt is to write about a doctor you know or one you went to – or their waiting room – or any memory in a medical office.
I always wanted children, and the dream at one point was to have a full quiver. I would have lived and breathed forever full time motherhood and had thought that would be my lot in life. When we found out the first one was on the way just a few months into marriage, arriving only one year and two months after our wedding day, much of the joy became worry about how we would make ends meet. But we welcomed our first child and found that we could make the necessary sacrifices for me to stay home after a trial run at working when she was 6 weeks old. When I tried to go back to work and leave her at a daycare, I cried all day there and all the way home. It was the only time in my life I’d ever been blinded by tears to the point I had to pull over and wait out the cry in order to drive. That evening, I gave notice and became a full time mother the next day.
the timing wasn’t
the best in the world to hear
the news: you’s pregnant!
I’ve never once regretted not working when my children were little, even though now I would be well into retirement if I had stayed the planned course. I knew that there would come a day they’d fledge the nest and take up with families of their own, but I didn’t want to miss those golden years of their childhood – so I took time on the front end of life and stayed home until all 3 were in school. And I cried in the primary school parking lot each time one started kindergarten.
Above all, in thinking of the prompt today, I can still remember the nurse in the now late Dr. Gregory Whitaker’s office in Savannah. She had short blond hair and was thin and friendly, and her Southern charm was reassuring and comforting as she read the result: yep, you’s pregnant!
I rejoice today for the individuality of my children – their uniquenesses, their strengths and interests, and what they have brought to the world. And I would say to any young mothers out there who aren’t sure how it will all work out: it will.
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s asks to share about a pair of shoes we loved. Or a dress. Or anything worn or how we dressed all wrong. You get the idea.
Which Pair?
there’s been this pair and that pair, even
Great Granny’s bronzed pair, but nothing
compares to my birthday gift
Ugg pair from my sister-
in-law and brother
(a much loved pair)
for-sore-feet-
repair-
pair
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today, the post asks about the secret life or hidden dialogue of our pets or plants – or whatever lives in our homes.
Cat and Mouse Games
I think our garage ghost’s name is Felix
born in Waycross, Georgia in 1944
died in Brunswick, Georgia in 2025
a real cat all his life, a preacher
who knew the pleasures of wine
and wanted to taste the whole world
with every taste bud on heightened
sensory awareness because when
my brother and I left Five Star Bank
we ran into Al Brown
the church drummer who told
us in the Tramici’s parking lot that
our dad had come to him in a dream
and told him Heaven was great, that
…you can go anywhere you want, Al!
I was just in Minnesota yesterday….
and I stopped in my tracks
drew in my breath ~ because
that told me Dad and Gus
my sister-in-law’s father
are paying visits to their children
that they’d been to see Greg in
Minnesota (we know no other
soul in Minnesota)
Greg, my sister-in-law’s brother
who knew me well enough already
at the reception during the
sibling speeches to fear I might
push him in the pool
and now the cat and mouse are
on the loose
prowling around in my
garage posing as orbs
for the cameras
keeping me up all night
putting me on heightened
sensory awareness
Felix and Gus
a cat and a mouse
playing games
….as always….
*references to Felix the Cat and Gus, a mouse from Disney’s Cinderella
**Dr. Felix Haynes and Dr, Gus Hernandez died three months apart earlier this year
***One was a Southern Baptist, one a devout Catholic…..and now we have a Baptist and a Catholic ghost teamed up visiting friends and family in the afterlife. One shows up as an orb on Ring cameras, and one sets off fire alarm. Shenanigans.
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt asks us to tell about teeth – – any story about teeth.
The Tooth Fairy’s Silver Box
somewhere in all the rubble lies a
tiny metal time capsule with
a tooth fairy’s pearled keepsakes
a sterling silver box
with bones of her bone
she could not bear
to toss out
way back
when
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa in our Stafford Challenge small group. I’m continuing so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. One thing I appreciate as a writer is that during times when I’ve barely got my head above water with all the energy and demands from life and work, there are prompts to get me started – – which, of course, is the most important spark. Today, the prompt hits home in tender spots, asking us to write about what we feel when we see a homeless person holding a sign on the corner or to tell about a specific person that perhaps we didn’t pay attention to.
Here’s Your Sign
some topics hit deep
too deep to think into ~ I’ve
known a sign holder
and what got her there
I’ve witnessed her miracle
of overcoming
I know the power
of a mother’s fervent prayers
for a daughter lost
when I see homeless
sign holders I feel this pain:
that’s a mother’s child
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I continue this month to forge through the deck. Today’s prompt inspires us to tell something we are good at.
I was never good
at facing the truth but am
good at telling it
This month, I am continuing writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. Today’s prompt, card 33 of 60, asks us to write down, in 15 minutes, everything we can name that will not last and to keep the pen moving.
What Remains
faith
hope
and
love
will
remain
those
three
all
else
will
fade
especially
truth
in the age of AI
Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt is about what brings peace and what is not peaceful in your day. As a fan of visual poetry, I chose the form of the breathing wave today the way it may appear on a screen in a medical office (scroll fast and you can see the wave appear in the line breaks.
Where Peace Lives
I’m up at 5 a.m. writing
most days, even today – a
weekend I’ve longed for
after months of long
trips home to clean out
Dad’s house. Peace awaits
~ coffee, silence, cool gray screen
backlit keyboard, eye masks ~ where
the meditations of mind and memory
converge without to-do lists
and deadlines and data
keeping the pulse in
check, breathing
slowly, deeply
where I belong
before the clock
kicks in, governing
routine like a thief of
time, getting in the way
of the relaxed pace of
living without all the
demands awaiting
outside these
doors in the
real world
I find my
peace
here
…..
Common Threads 