Patchwork Prose and Verse
Scandinavian
nasty-tempered Fremont Troll
clutches a plucked bug
lurks underneath the
Aurora Avenue Bridge
iconic sculpture
18 feet tall, with
a Volkswagen hubcap eye~
no parking nearby
Troll-o-ween birthday
he sends a concrete message:
stop development!
I’ll take a trip to
Caffeinated Seattle
To Pike Place Market
To see fishmongers
Sling silvery salmon and
Dodge snapping monkfish
To see SkyCity,
Spin atop the Space Needle
Climb the Freemont Troll
Ride the monorail
Cross Puget Sound by ferry
Watch the salmon climb
To curl up, relax
At Elliott Bay Bookstore
Feel blood pressure drop
purple unicorns
a smile that lit up a room
field day blue ribbons
Heaven spelled backwards
a mother’s “little shadow”
a TikTok dancer
piggy bank Disney World dreams
smart and loving son
number four jersey
a quinceanera dress
honor roll student
First Communion day
football pass patterns
premonition child
coffee-making note writer
barbecue griller
a budding photographer
CrossFit calluses
detest-dress diva
make-a-difference lawyer
sketching in Heaven
*Post inspired by an article written by Dey, Douglas, Zhang, and Park in The Texas Tribune on May 27, 2022 found here: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-school-shooting-victims/
My blog theme this month is Changing Perspectives. I’m writing from different spaces and viewpoints. When my friend Glenda Funk shared that she would be traveling through Uvalde, Texas on an upcoming trip and offered to post a written tribute at the monument, I wrote this poem and sent it by email for her to print and take with her. Tears well in my heart for those grieving families who have lost their loved ones. Hope fills my heart as I imagine what really happened that day.
A New School
I’ve often wondered
When horrific things happen
Why God allows it
But we’ll never know
Why they were taken so young
This side of Heaven
I’ve never believed
We die in fear, suffering
But that Jesus comes
In those moments to
Gather us into His arms
Before we die here
I see His presence
Imagine His bright aura
Stepping into class
“Children, come with me,”
He’d said, before the gunman
Ever opened fire
Souls were already
Safely climbing Heaven’s steps ~
Joy, not fear, was theirs
Twenty one sweet souls
Left their bodies, took His hand
Climbed to pearly gates
Leaving holes in hearts
Of all of those who loved them
But feeling no pain
I believe Jesus
Died for us, suffered our death
Comes back to take us
Beautiful angels
Whose learning began anew:
How to Soar with Wings
-Kim Haynes Johnson
*With gratefulness to Glenda Funk, a fellow writer at www.ethicalela.com, who will this poem at the monument on her way through Uvalde. May God’s peace comfort the grieving families who have lost their loved ones in this tragedy.
In the 1970s, I lived on St. Simons Island, Georgia. In the cul-de-sac adjacent to Martin Street, back on King’s Way, we had a tree that we climbed to swing. Someone had nailed long boards in as a ladder, and we’d climb up to the first big branch holding the rope swing attached to a neighboring branch and slide out far enough to clear the trunk, hold on tight, close our eyes, and let go. The rush of pure childhood bliss that comes from a rope swing on an oak tree is second to none.
I had that flashback of childhood today as we kayaked the Flint River from Sprewell Bluff Park to Highway 18 in Upson County. The river was low, and the ride was rocky with only one high-anxiety experience when I ended up sideways on a rock with rushing currents and my boat took on water. Thank goodness my husband came to my aid or the Gypsy Soul would have been a goner for sure. But before the trouble happened, we noticed a group who had stopped to climb a tree hanging over the river and jump from a rope swing.
And that’s when I was reminded of my favorite line from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, when Fern and Avery are out swinging in the barn: “Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.”
For Christmas one year when we were riding through Epworth By the Sea to see all the luminaries lining the roads and driveways, we stopped at a church member’s house, and they gave me a red copy of A Child’s Garden of Verses with gold lettering. It was one of my favorites – that and Childcraft Volume 1, Poems and Rhymes. I think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Swing still today when I see someone swinging and having such fun ~
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
The memories and literature of my childhood came flooding back as swiftly and as powerfully as the river rapids as I watched the group swinging from the rope swing. And while I’m still all about the adrenaline rush of adventure and thrillseeking, I confessed to my husband that I’m turning in my river kayaking card after today. No more rivers for me; I’m sticking to the lakes from here on out. These hands that used to hold onto things tighter than my parents thought they would? They’re ready to let go of some of the riskier endeavors and watch from the shady edge, remembering what it was like to touch the sky.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
I was going to come sit
here on the back porch swing –
this 41st birthday present from
my boyfriend-turned-husband,
15 years ago, so we could sit
after dinner and swing and
do a traffic count
when I lived on a real road –
I was going to come out here
at 3:41 a.m., but there’s a
hungry bobcat on the prowl
right about now
in my woods that somebody
posted on Facebook. They
caught it on their camera
three miles from here, eating
their chickens at 4 a.m..
Which is why our chickens
aren’t here anymore. Nothing
can live out here in the wild.
Which is why I wrote from bed
this morning at dark and waited
until daylight to come out
to write more.
So I sit and think of bobcats
and hawks and wild boars
and coyotes
which all have to
eat.
And wicked people
who don’t have to kill to survive.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
When smoking guns bring
out memory candles, we
weep. We mourn. We grieve.
When nineteen children
and two teachers are murdered
at school, we’re livid.
Nine/eleven brought
security to airports
all across the world
Yet school slaughterings
on our soil still drip bloodied
hands : inaction guilt
Thoughts and prayers don’t get
us on airplanes. We banned all
tweezers from our skies.
Whose rights matter most?
We stand up for our own at
our children’s expense?
We put up checkpoints ~
Uterus security
at Planned Parenthood?
But we’ll watch them starve.
And we’ll let them be murdered
as long as they’re born.
Thoughts and prayers don’t feed.
Thoughts and prayers don’t stop bullets.
They’re pious copouts.
Enough is enough.
Let’s bear what is in our arms.
Whose rights matter most?
*Changing Perspectives – this post was written in bed beginning at 3:41 a.m. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about all the logical fallacies in our world.
See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
I notice whenever I travel that my sense of awareness and my attentiveness to detail are heightened in ways that they never seem to be when I’m at home. I’m kind of a creature of habit, putting the RAV4 on autopilot and getting caught up in my prayer time without fully taking in all that I pass on the road. I don’t have to think about each turn or notice landmarks to find my way back on the familiar roads.
But it’s not like that at all when I travel. I notice in new places things I’d never think to notice in my own town – the way the sugar packets are arranged at the tables where I dine, the light fixtures outdoors at night, the signs (not just what they say, but whether they’re metal or painted wood, and the colors, and whether they match anything around them). I don’t know why my sensory dial gets turned up on full blast in other places, but it happens.
On the last three school break trips I’ve taken – to San Antonio, Texas; to Rockport, Massachussetts; and to Asheville, North Carolina – I was drawn to the window boxes and the outdoor seating arrangements that seemed so artistic and welcoming. I’m sharing some of these today. I’m wondering how many others find the same fascinations when traveling. What are the things that draw you in about other places that you don’t often notice at home?
Hebrews 13:2 – Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
we didn’t cook out
grilling chicken was our plan
he’d had an idea
Let’s pack a picnic
for supper he’d suggested
spontaneously
camper smorgasbord
a hodgepodge of leftovers
along west shore shade
we picked the playlist
packed the soft-sided cooler
paddled to sunset
Calypso, Shannon,
I Love the Way You Love Me,
Love Can Build a Bridge
no schnoodles this time –
just the two of us, plus food
sky blue Pelicans
We should do this more
often, he quipped, munching chips
I smiled….you’re right, dear
resting in the shade
kicked back, admiring nature,
we took it all in
*Written from the hull of the Gypsy Soul, my blue Pelican kayak, on Sunday, May 29, 2022
So that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.
When I visited San Antonio, Texas in February, the kitchen in the VRBO I’d rented had a counter with some mid-century modern stools that were heavenly for writing. They had a bottom-cradling seat, a buttery leatherish look and feel, and sturdy feet. I sat in that space and wrote in those early morning hours, savoring coffee and quiet solitude – just me and my thoughts.
I wish I had a writing space like this at home, I thought.
When I visited the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina in April, I stayed directly across the hall from the rooms where F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed (his room overlooked the front doors, reportedly so he could see the fashionable women arriving and decide whether to go downstairs and meet them). His writing desk, which has been moved downstairs for display, was of solid oak and of perfect size.
I wish I had a writing desk like that at home, I thought.
What I have is a sage green living room chair and an undersized lap desk – the space where I generally write, which is driven more strongly by the hours I keep; most days, I’m up long before daybreak trying to avoid disturbing my still-sleeping husband and our dogs.
All of these writing spaces have inspired my thinking. I once wrote about famous authors and their affinity for certain fountain pens, which prompted my thinking about writers and their spaces. I did some research and have linked some articles in the sections below.
In his book On Writing, Stephen King says to put the desk in the corner of the room and turn so you’re facing the wall to avoid all distractions (he once wrote on a makeshift desk in a laundry room). That wasn’t the case with Mark Twain; he wrote in his own study, an octagon shape with windows, built for him by his sister-in-law because she didn’t like the pipe smoke in her parents’ house when he summered with them.
Lauretta Hannon, author of The Cracker Queen, has her own writing she-shed in Rome, Georgia. She also hosts writing sessions in The Labyrinth, an outdoor amphitheater in Rome, inviting guests to sit on the tiered seating levels to write.
Other writers, too, had small spaces designed specifically for writing. Roald Dahl had his own writing hut and sat in a comfortable chair with a board propped across the armpieces.
Like F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Grove Park Inn, J. K. Rowling also stayed in a hotel as she completed one of her books.
Edward Albee had quite the rolltop desk.
Ben Franklin reportedly wrote in the bathtub, and so did Agatha Christie, as she ate apples.
These varied perspectives of writing in different places fascinate me. The visual noise of other places is appealing; I find my sensory awareness elevated in places with which I’m unfamiliar. As I write this post, I’m sitting at the table inside our camper on Site 8 at Dames Ferry Campground in Juliette, Georgia – the lake is out the rear living window, and I see pedal boats, kayaks, swimmers with neon colored flotation devices so they don’t get hit by boats, and fishing boats all making waves on the lake. Out my table window, there’s a boy on a motorized scooter driving past a neighboring camper where a family is seated around the campfire at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time on this Sunday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend. It looks like three generations of women are walking past in their shorts and swimsuits, towels hanging from their arms, hair wet as they head in from the lake. The couple camping two sites down from us is driving by on an afternoon golf cart ride with their two little white Westies taking it all in from the back of the cart. And there are two boys with remote controlled cars jumping the speed humps at high speed right down the way.
My sage green chair offers none of these sights, but instead the comfort of writing at home – it’s predictable, it’s comfortable, it’s stationary and unchanging. Of all the places in this world that are growing increasingly unsafe, my green sage chair feels safe. But getting out into different places and writing from different locations breaks the monontony and keeps daily writing exciting.
My theme for June is changing perspectives, and I will challenge myself to get out of my chair and write from at least 15 different locations throughout the month. What’s the most unexpected or unique place where you have written, and what are your favorite writing spots? I’m all ears!
But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
Common Threads 