Tag: Gratitude

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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 14 of #VerseLove2024 with Margaret Simon of Louisiana leading us into Spring Days with Borrowed Line Poetry

Photo by Phil Mitchell on Pexels.com

Margaret Simon of Louisiana is our host today for Day 14 of #VerseLove, inspiring us to use a borrowed line from a poem to inspire a new one. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here. For Margaret’s prompt, she chose a favorite Billy Collins poem entitled Today and challenges us to use the line “If ever there were a spring day so perfect….” I’m letting that line be my title today for this borrowed line poem. With a huge thanks and a salute to Margaret Simon ~ and to Billy Collins.

If Ever There Were a Spring Day So Perfect

sun shining brightly would melt winter’s curse
planes would trail banners of poems and verse

flowers would smile pinkly, swaying in dance
groundhogs would high-five their weather-called chance

jasmine would fragrance porch swing breeze
beckoning readers to carpe this diem seize

sun-brewed sweet tea would pour extra-freely
buds would unfurl on branches green-treely

butterflies would turn pages of poetry books
hummingbirds sip nectar with grateful quick looks

napping hammocks would cradle a snooze
on a perfect spring day, we’ve got nothing to lose

wild bunnies would scamper, tumble, cavort
neighborhood club kids would hide in a fort

cows in the meadow would slumber unflied
folks would seek seashells on shores at low tide

woodpecker bellies would hammer with laughter
and the whole springtime world would live happy hereafter
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Day 11 of #VerseLove with Amber Harrison

Photo by Nathan Cowley on Pexels.com

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 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 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 5 of #VerseLove with Leilya Pitre – Friday Night Date Night Poems

Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com

Leilya Pitre of Louisiana is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com today for our fifth day of #Verselove. You can read her poem here, along with the poem and comments of others. She inspires us to write a date night poem (about a memorable date or a standing date) using sevenlings. To write a sevenling, here is the form:

  1. Think about two contrasting ideas, concepts, people, or events (e.g., good/evil, humor/satire, war/peace, light/darkness, optimist/pessimist, flowers/weeds, etc.)
  2. Write a three-line stanza containing three things about the first one (description or explanation)
  3. Write another three-line stanza containing three other things about the second word. You may oppose the first stanza to the second or try to find some commonalities.
  4. The final line should present a kind of a punchline, a surprise, or an unusual, even oxymoronic conclusion.
  5. Add a title.

Here is my Sevenling: The Swing. 

The Swing

I said NO to a third date.
NO WAY. NEVER AGAIN.
I was running scared, hurt.

But you waited.
You asked again:
Let's go to the park, sit in the swing.

And God winked on us forever.
Actual swing where he proposed on February 16, 2008

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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:

Screenshot

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!

Screenshot
Birthday Surprise Haiku

he's getting a shirt
and a camouflaged fan cap
but not a surprise.
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Chasing Sunrise – Stafford Challenge Day 70, Slice of Life Challenge Day 26

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

I was three minutes late to work one day last week because I was chasing the sunrise. If you’ve ever been on the backside of nowhere in the rural Georgia countryside between 7:45 and 8:00 just after the time springs forward, you’ve seen it: the most gorgeous glowing coral red sunrise ever, so rich and fiery it could be an over-easy orange yolk of a just-laid Buff Orpington egg, the kind still warm upon cracking into the pan, the kind that mesmerizes folks who’ve never seen a yolk so unhormonally free-ranging fresh, that didn’t come from a carton in a store.

Sometimes that egg yolk sun’ll be right in front of you, as it is when it’s waiting for me like a dog who wants to play chase, right at the end of my eastside driveway first thing in the morning on my way to work. Then, it’s like I’ve tossed it a stick. It takes off to the left when I turn south, then stays left when I head back east, only a little lefter than before. At the stop sign, it’s still left, just not as behindish, and then when I turn back to the south right before I turn back east again, I’m approaching what I know is THE MOST beautiful sunrise ribbon of roadway in the entire county and maybe all of Georgia, maybe even all of the southeastern United States or the world or the universe.

And sometimes I slow waaaaaaay down just to take it all in, if there’s nobody behind me.

Photo by Konevi on Pexels.com
How to Chase a Sunrise

I was late for work
watching the sun dance

she curtseys 
through the countryside
a morning meringue
of slide-stepping
just over the next hill, to
do-si-do the meadows

pirouetting periwinkle pasture
just around the next bend
then

stopping to spin
like a 
March Madness
basketball
on the courthouse
clock steeple 

reminding me I'm late

that's how
you chase a
glorious
countryside
sun
           e
       s
    i
r
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Messages in the Sound Machine – Slice of Life Challenge Day 23, The Stafford Challenge Day 67

Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for inspiring writers, especially sleepless ones.

#messages in the madness

The melatonin was working fine, just fine, I thought, but I figured either we had a rogue sound machine with broken buttons or that one of the machines was possessed. I kept hearing things, but my husband didn’t. Just like when the car starts making a sound, only not a car but a tiny little white noise machine.

So finally, finally – – he in his melatoninlessness began hearing mysterious sounds, too. I didn’t know whether to cry, be scared, or celebrate.

If your children tell you they hear funny voices at night, believe them and check the sound machine. They’re in there.

Photo by Mariana Montrazi on Pexels.com
our old fan broke
                but our new fan was too quiet 


     (they don't make 'em like they used to)

so
we bought a second 
                  sound machine 
                           the kind for babies
with the white noise

so we can both sleep
                      if one of us is traveling

but now I’m hearing 
                                              what he
can’t make out
                                   in all the white noise

                     in this Sound Spa machine

     we both hear
            all the usual things: rain, thunder, waves
                       crashing, crickets chirping, owls hooting

             but I roll over half asleep 
                           and I hear
                these:

        computer printer printing
                                                                              washing machine

                        pulsing monitor 

                                                      injured animal

                                                                             Moaning Myrtle
                                                             steel drums

                          robot sirens

                                              Amazon notifications

                   vintage typewriter return dings

                                                                         disco beats 

      messages in the machine

heard by one unpillowed ear

             I'm afraid next I'll hear a murder 
                                                                                                or a confession

                              or a ghost of a soldier who stood where I now sleep

                                             looking for his lost buttons
                                                                and his lost love



                                                                                                   no sleeping here