Patchwork Prose and Verse
One type of poem I’ve been writing this year is a gift basket poem – – what would I give a recipient in any given month of the year? For October, the choice is clear: it’ll be filled with orange things.
If I were giving
you a gift basket
I’d go flame-up orange!
you’d receive
a smokeless tabletop fire pit
to light up your night
a pumpkin spice candle
to liven your autumn senses
and a copy of
Ada Limon’s Bright Dead Things
to snuggle your poet’s soul
a basket sure
to awaken all spirits!
This month, I’m sharing some of Dad’s conversations in his final days, and in one of them that you can hear at the bottom of this post, he revealed a surprising thought about how we feel about folks from time to time. His revelation reminded me of a poem that I wrote recently for a small group of women in one of my writing circles.
My Stafford Challenge group meets the first Monday of each month by Zoom to chat and write together, and we’re a group of women who enjoy reading as much as writing. I’ve been writing a form each month called Gift Basket writing, where I choose three things I’d give a person in a gift basket for that month. This one is dedicated especially to my Stafford Writing Group sisters – Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. At the time I wrote this, I’d recently stumbled across a book club I’d love to join, even for the name alone, and there is actually a summer camp in Maine for its readers – this is a real thing. My dream summer is going to this book club’s summer camp, and I’ve added it to the bucket list.
Bad Bitch Book Club
if I were giving you
a gift basket
I’d make it a
Bad Bitch gift basket
to welcome the storms
of the world~
you’d receive
a t-shirt that says
BAD BITCH BOOK CLUB
complete with
a membership to
the Bad Bitch Book Club
(yes ~ it’s a real thing
with its own dot com)
and a mirror
so you’ll always
see the
baddest of the kick-ass bad
right in the palm of your hand~
knowing your Bad Bitch sisters
have your back!
It’s okay to have a BB attitude sometimes……even my preacher Dad in his final days confessed that there are times we are all a little bit badass. You can listen here:
If I were giving
you a gift basket
I’d make it a summertime sensation!
you’d receive
a skin-safe clean sunscreen
to keep you scorch-free and silky
a pair of sunglasses with readers
to soften the sunbeams
and a splishy
lightweight water tumbler
to saturate your senses
a basket sure
to make a splash !
Common Threads 