Remembering Miriam on Her Heavenly Birthday – Stafford Challenge Day 34

Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of February’s Open Write is Dr. Sarah Donovan, who inspires us to write poems that experiment with broken lines. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others.

I took the ghazal form today of 5 couplets with AA BA CA DA EA rhyme scheme and measured meter, reframed the whole form, relaxed the rules and broke the lines as I thought of my mother’s 81st birthday and the moments I’m so glad my camera captured before she left us in December 2015 with Parkinson’s disease. Above, she reads to her great grandson from The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.

Shaping Future Tense

when nothing else
made any sense

when family strangers
made you tense

your lap unfolded
picture books

that tore down
every guarded fence

great grandson's
heart and mind you shaped
each page
a moment so immense

your fingers curled
his eyes unfurled
his focus on you
so intense

when nothing else
made any sense
picture books
wrote future tense