Tag: family

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Day 20 of #VerseLove with Susan Ahlbrand

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Susan Ahlbrand of Indiana is our host today for the 20th day of #VerseLove. She inspires us to write Noteworthy poems. You can read her full prompt here.

She shares the process for writing these poems: reflect on communications you’ve had in the past . . . notes like mine, phone calls, letters, texts, Facetimes, and then work them into a poem. Feel free to tinker with an inventive form.

Getting the Picture

there was this picture

this picture of a watermelon

A WATERMELON!

a watermelon sliced

sliced like cries

cries of a mother

a mother with cancer

cancer that consumed

consumed her, piece by piece

piece by piece, like a watermelon

like a watermelon, there was

there was this picture

picture a mother

a mother crying for mercy

for mercy denied

denied until the end

the end, after the pain

the pain of loss

loss of a body, loss of a family

a family broken, a shattered picture

picture a mother

a mother who mattered

mattered to her sons

her sons who loved her

loved her and listened

listened and heard

heard her pleas

her pleas for mercy

for mercy denied

denied by others

others who refused

refused to believe

believe she felt pain

pain that consumed, piece by piece

piece by piece consumed their mother

a mother who mattered

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Day 15 of #VerseLove2024 with Angie Braaten

Angie Braaten is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 15th day of #VerseLove2024. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems and comments of others, here. Today, Angie inspires us to write elegies in the style of Clint Smith. You can read two of Clint Smith’s poems here:

Clint Smith’s “Playground Elegy” and “No More Elegies Today”

Honey Buttered Toast

Today I will

write a poem

about a dog eating honey buttered toast

it will not be a metaphor for a land of milk and honey or savior-style pet rescue

it will not be an allegory for a character named Boo Radley, white as a ghost, who saved people, found standing behind a door

but rather about bottled wildflowers

sweetly spun nectar of honeybees

dancing through the meadow, kissing blossoms

but rather about buttery cream

freshly churned from Guernseys

grazing green grasses of the meadow

but rather about chaffed wheat

grain gleaned from the meadow

ground and baked and sliced and toasted

but rather about the blending of ordinary meadow things

that become the extraordinary

when the world doesn’t want to read another dog poem

Boo Radley and Briar eating honey buttered toast for breakfast

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Day 11 of #VerseLove with Amber Harrison

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Amber Harrison of Oklahoma is our host today for the 11th day of #VerseLove. She inspires us to write Surprising Supplies poems, and explains the process. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.

I want a meadow ~ I think it could supply all the needs a person ever truly has. 

Heavenly Meadow

a royal fortress 
meadow 

cloaked
in Mother
Earth’s 
embrace

arms 
cradling 
us 
carrying 
us
crossing
us

from
 bosom
to 
 heaven
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Day 10 of #VerseLove with Joanne Emery

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Our host today at http://www.ethialela.com for Day 10 of #VerseLove2024 is Joanne Emery, who inspires us to borrow ideas and lines from another poem to inspire our own. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.

She explains her process: Find a line in the poem that stands out to you, expresses something about yourself. Then continue the poem while reflecting how you live your life. 

We used Jane Hirschfield’s poem My Life Was the Size of My Life, and I borrowed this line from hers:

and closed its hands, its windows

I also chose one from Joanne’s poem Larger than My Life

with perfect white teeth, smiling

Keystones

our house with keystones

with perfect white teeth, smiling

to raise our children

you pulled all its teeth

and closed its hands, its windows

we bloomed in the dark

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Day 9 of #VerseLove2024 with Denise Krebs: List Poems

Denise Krebs of California is our host today for #VerseLove2024. She inspires us to write List Poems. You can read her full prompt here. I’ve added some pictures, just for fun – – a quick glimpse of our wedding weekend on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where my brother Ken and his bride Jennifer were wed on Saturday afternoon. Narrowing it down to the top ten – – that was a tough challenge!

I love a list poem because it doesn’t have to rhyme, it can be random, and it can be completely out of order or it can run in a countdown fashion to the top of the list. Mine is random, and it’s a photographic prose list poem, a blend of all my favorite kinds. I could not pick a single favorite moment.

Top 10 Wedding Weekend Moments

Straight-from-the-soul smiles on my brother and his bride’s faces, so full of happiness and love,

meeting my brother’s new family and feeling both sides merge into one big family,

getting a new sister-in-law,

placing flowers on the altar in memory of our mothers,

seeing the shoes of my son and husband and feeling them lift me up when I fell,

watching the dads dance – one with a cane, one with bionic knees, but believe it: these two can groove,

watching my brother watch the love of his life come down the aisle,

spending time with extended family and close family (5 of our 6 grandchildren),

figuring out how to win the dinner bill argument with my son since I own nearly one million shares of Shiba Inu (only worth about $25.00 total at .00002 a share, but hey – – it worked),

playing and having a picnic in the parks and hearing my 5 year old grandson’s response when I tried to tell him my ice cream was mashed potatoes and he took the folded arm stance and firmly stated, “that’s impossible!” (they all got ice cream).

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Day 8 of #VerseLove with Mo Daley: Zip Odes

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Mo Daley of Michigan is our host today for the 8th day of #VerseLove2024, inspiring us to write Zip Odes (an ode to our Zip Codes) by considering our place and our zip code. You can read Mo’s full prompt and the poems and comments of others here.

To write a zip ode, write the numbers of your zip code down the left-hand side of the page. Each number determines the number of words in that line. For a zero, you can leave it blank, insert an emoji or symbol, or use any number of words between 1 and 9.

I thought of the meaning of my name as a connection between where I live and who I am.

From the Royal Fortress Meadow

3 royal fortress meadow

0 =

2 Kimberly‘s meaning

9 green pastures, rolling hillsides, fields full of countryside charms

2 rural Georgia

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Day 6 of #VerseLove with Katrina Morrison

Katrina Morrison is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the sixth day of #VerseLove2024. Her prompt inspires writers to share a photo and write a poem from our photo stream on our phones.

She explains how: Select a photo from your photostream or capture an image of a photo you have on hand. Ideally, you should appear in the photo. If you remember what was going on in the photo, draw from your memories to recreate the scene. If you do not remember what was happening when the photo was taken, use your imagination to create a scene. 

I chose a photo from yesterday’s wedding rehearsal. My baby brother is getting married today at 4:30 on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, and we could not be happier for him and his bride.


They Do

these two join hands, hearts

forever as one today

my brother, his bride

their blind date restored

hope, led to love, commitment ~

two become one flesh

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Day 2 of #VerseLove with Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut, Inspiring Magic Box Poems

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Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut has quite a Magic Box process of turning out nonsense, whimsical poems that make us smile. You can read his full prompt along with the process (this one is loads of fun) and the poems of others here.

Just let words roll off the pen and see what pops up!

Turning the Tables

vintage green stamps in rose-hued sunglasses
sewing thimble, dogtag, thumbs of young lasses
Cracker Jack prizes
   trinkets and toys
     but pencils for scholarly girls and boys
crocheted tablecloth clamps
     stitched by all our Aunt Mabels
clothespinned lottery tickets turn all the tables
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Happy Anniversary, Baby! Stafford Challenge Day 73, Slice of Life Challenge Day 29

Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers

We celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary today. For a couple of divorcees who found each other a little later in life and had given up on ever marrying again, we realize now that when God winks on love, it’s a dream come true.

There we were, on a swing in a park, where he proposed while wearing a royal blue button-down shirt. There just happened to be a royal blue car driving by with a teenage kid cheering and fist pumping out the window as the love of my life was down on a knee asking for my hand (is there any wonder that I drive a bright blue Caribbean colored RAV4, even though my personality is more of a muted silver or pearly white?).

I think back to that day, on that swing, and count the joys.

A photo of our swing in the reading room of our home
Marriage Proposal Haiku

a swing proposal
with a smashed Cracker Jack ring
you'd resurrected

and still I said yes
with a yes-er yes because
you'd fixed the broken


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Gratitude for Marshall – Slice of Life Challenge Day 27, Stafford Challenge Day 71

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers
My son (r) with hunting face camo, and his buddy (l)

My middle child of my gas station Octane Trio, the one born in 1989, turns 35 today. He loves hunting, fishing, Nascar racing, and spending time with his family of 7, plus 3 labs. I’m proud of him – he makes good choices, and I was even fine with that mullet he had going on for a couple of years. He and his good buddy recently sent me the photo above, smiling and proud of the tickets they’d gotten for not having the proper number of life vests in their boat while they were out duck hunting (turns out they were warnings – which explains the smiles).

I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and our conversation went something like this:

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This got his attention. He knew I’d find a book about how salt marsh species cooperate to survive the harsh conditions of the marsh. I learned it throwing quadrants in the marsh when I took marine biology at University of South Carolina, where he also graduated years later. Spartina marsh grass survives in extreme salty conditions because the periwinkle shells attached to the base thrive on salt and take it in. In this way, both species can survive.

There is a story there for another time, but I guess he didn’t want to learn more about the marshgrass in his back yard. He replied, thoughtfully, moments later:

Screenshot

Since I haven’t physically seen him since Christmas and know my own battles with quick weight change, I asked about the size. I decided on the medium, but wanted him to know to be on the lookout for the gifts since sometimes with prankster kids (who learned it from him), a box might disappear off the front porch before anyone knew it was ever there. I put him on alert:

Screenshot

I am so proud of my son and wish him the happiest birthday ever. His family loves him too!

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Birthday Surprise Haiku

he's getting a shirt
and a camouflaged fan cap
but not a surprise.