Tag: life

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Day 10 of #VerseLove with Joanne Emery

Photo by travis blessing on Pexels.com

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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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
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May 12 – How Could I Have Known?

I’m missing my hairdresser and friend of 18 years, who died in May 2021. In our small town, everyone knows everyone, and my former hairdresser’s son is a school teacher in my district. I see her young grandson in one of our buildings, and I see so much of her in him. It reminds me to treasure every single moment. Tomorrow holds no guarantees for any of us. April 30 was National Hairstylist Appreciation Day, and I’m sending up a belated appreciation to Heaven for my friend and miracle-worker Penny. 

Be Like Leo 

how could I have known
sitting in front of the mirror
in your swivel chair
as you snipped split ends 
that by the next haircut
you’d be walking
down your hall, laughing,
talking one moment
and fall over and die the next

leaving your husband
your children
your grandchildren
your dog
smiling through their
knotty tears
scattering your ashes 
a mile off shore from 
your favorite spot in Florida
then all getting
GPS tattoos of your
final destination points

how could I have known
that one month shy
of two years later
your husband would suffer
a heart attack and die, too,
leaving two young married sons
their wives 
your grandchildren
anchorless 
and your banana-loving
goldendoodle 
masterless
searching for her people
ferrying out to sea once again
to scatter more ashes

how could I have known
that unexpected tears
out of nowhere would well up
in my eyes when 
your little grandson Leo arrived
for his first day of preschool
hair tousled
half-crooked smile
an image of you
(only not the hair, not the hair)
backpacked-out like a rocket man
his tiny hands clinging tight
to his lunch
something he could hold onto 

and that I let the tears fall for a moment
then took his picture on his first day 
of big school 
sent it to his daddy
in his science classroom 
at the middle school
greeting those who’d 
surely lost grandparents, too
only not this young

Your mama would be so proud
I texted him

I still have that picture
and more like it that I take
whenever I see sweet Leo

like yesterday
when the teacher was 
giving the hero compliment
to the line leader, who stood
with one hand on a hip, 
the other pressing a pointer finger
over his lips
still and quiet
(he knows a lot about that)
telling the others, 
I like how Leo is leading.
He’s quiet.  
He’s not touching anybody.
Let's see if we
can be like Leo.

how could I have known
that would be 
the last time I 
sat in your
chair?