Common Threads

 A Revelation Haiku 

In middle Georgia
a farm was named as a joke – 
but oh, there is truth!

Now for the first time
I understand the reason
no one ever laughs.

 Today, Susan Ahlbrand challenged writers to use a snapshot to inspire a poem. I knew immediately which picture I would choose. Here, a young boy with Down’s Syndrome dances in Covent Garden, London as big as life all around him, in a state of blessed oblivion. I took this picture in June 2019 and it has had a lasting impact on me. Rainer Maria Rilke said, “To allow every impression and germ of a feeling to grow to completion wholly in yourself, in the darkness, in the unutterable, unconscious, inaccessible to your own understanding, and to await with deep humility and patience the hour of birth of a new clarity: that alone is what living as an artist means: in understanding as in creation

I may not live as an artist every day by Rilke’s definition, but I lived as an artist in this moment. And it still germinates in my heart – to live in the simple moments, completely swept up in the enjoyment of the music of life…..this is a lesson about living that I learned from a child on a city street, and it still echoes through time and space.

A few letters to the young poet later, Rilke wrote,”There is not more beauty (in Rome) than elsewhere…..but there is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere.”

Go forth today and find the beauty everywhere! 

Their World

whose view is limited –

   a foot tall and

      a few walls 

        a patch of grass 

who see the world 

    live in the moment 

      more present than most 

We. are. their. entire. life. 

    their universe

       their sun

            their moon 

Snuggle them.

   Pet them.

      Feed them.

          Walk them.

              Love them. 

                 Praise them. 

My 3 

My 3 who endlessly entertain me with their sibling sparring on a group text
who have fowl wars when one decides to start a pretty much professional level birdwatching hobby and the other two stick their feathers in,
never to be outdone
who all fluff their chests and threaten that their own backyard cardinals can beat the backyard butts of their siblings’ lesser birds
My 3 who are in 3 different states for good reason because a state alone
is far too small for more than 1
My 3, 1 of whom believes she will be a Disney Princess feeding her birds from her hand in no time and finds it hilarious that a lady called in to a radio station to rally the town to move the deer crossing signs because the deer should be directed to cross elsewhere but yet believes there is a Tennessee state bird book that confines certain flocks to state lines so they can never be seen by her brother and sister
My 3, another who throws out random
fake bird names to see if anyone can go spot one and send a picture, meanwhile astonished that an unsavory coyote shows up in a Googled bird search and sincerely believes he can rid the entire world of coyotes with self-invented snares using YouTube as his sole snare source
My 3, another of whom has learned that if you plan on hunting with a bird of prey, you need to first bond with it by spitting in its mouth before feeding it fox meats and has stayed up at night researching to learn that wolves are apparently worse about luring innocent dogs into the woods than coyotes and is so heartbroken for the dogs that she hasn’t slept for days and has suffered migraine headaches from sheer exhaustion
My 3 who all love costumed drama, one of whom went in to work swinging her fists at coworkers to get to be the Easter Bunny when no one else even wanted it in the first place and hopped around the Rainforest Cafe for three hours one morning to make all the families laugh and then had to take to the bed with muscle aches for 2 days after that, stating that “this old people thing is happening faster than I expected,” thus prompting the new birdwatching hobby that she considers far less damaging to the knees
My 3 who are forever vying over who is the champion favorite child, who get into arguments and adult-tattle on each other in the group text to try to win more affection and keep the proverbial pot stirred
My 3 who’ve always had festive gas….

…..pump year birthdays: 87, 89, 93 –
an octane trio –
and who revert to younger fighting issues if we go anywhere together in the car: “Mom! She’s looking out MY window! Mommmmmm!”
and
“I think he didn’t hold it, Mom, the seat is wet under him, Mommmmmm!”
My 3 who keep me laughing and wear me slap out even across 3 states
My 3

 

Bullied 

Ugliest Dog Day
Meaner than a Junkyard Dog
on a Three Dog Night

 

Duality Haiku 

How do you honor
her legacy of blessing?
You put others first.

Steeping Summertime 

Jug of sun tea on the back porch

Rocking chairs out front

Tractor mowing pastures

Melons on the vine

Hammock stretched between two trees

in the cool, sweet shade

Book and nap await, I’m 

steeping summertime! 

 

Part 1: wire sculpture/blind sketch poem – Let words flow 

fairy lights
twinkle lights
Christmas lights
fireflies
candlelight
starlight
moonlight
nightlight
sunlight
daylight
lighthouse
lightbulb
spotlight
backlight
strobe light
traffic light
landscape light
heart light
highlight
floodlight
morning light
guiding light
twilight
evening light
headlight
tail light
flashlight
lantern light 

Part 2: write using inspiration from Jennifer Jowett’s lines “twisted fates seek to know”

Lighthearted Night Conductor 

When the world sleeps
the forest playground
bursts into a spontaneous light show
spectacularly choreographed
to the orchestrated throngs of
trilling frogs and chirping crickets

twinkling starlight
flitting fairies
dancing fireflies
all flash on cue,
great great great grandfather oak’s
night-cloaked branches
conducting
a dot-to-dot blueprint
of lighthearted night spirits at play
his face unable to hide his
full-moon laughter

 

Narcissism

Narcissism
changes her ball gowns
and glittery slippers
between her mother’s
visitation and funeral
after she has throned herself
front and center
of both galas
pushing her grieving family
to the sides of her master plan,
playing the solitary victim
without a sceptered Kleenex 

She
alone
is
the
sun
of
her
universe –
controls
her
own
walls
in
her
ever-shrinking
castle

Her grandiose schemes
to conquer new empires?
declare all others incompetent

She’s an extra bride
at her son’s wedding
vying for the spotlight 

the videographer’s most powerful cameras
can’t dare to tell the truth
so he quits this wedding
leaving a prince without proof
(the kingdom overhears two sighs of relief!)

Narcissism believes herself superior
in every way
sneering at all the pitiful others,
yet fueled by their praise 

She schemes in her nail salon,
invites her puppets to tea 

She is entitled:
adjusts her
invisible crown
on the hour 

Her queendom maintains
superior toxicity ratings,
growing lonelier and lonelier
at the top 

as the former queen
rolls over in her grave,
her legacy stained

 

Asking for a Friend

On a red clay hill 

in Georgia

a tiny parachute 

floats down from 

the blue sky 

with a looming

question

from Heaven:

How can the

multitudes 

support 

Christian missions

while 

rejecting the

humanitarianism

of 

social activism?

Asking for a friend.