Our host today for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Erica Johnson, who offers inspiration here in a new-to-me form of poetry called a cascade. These remind me of Pantoum poems. Erika explains: It’s a form created by Udit Bhatia and asks that the poet take each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes each one the final line in the stanzas that follow. This results in the poem resembling a tumbling waterfall, which was when I knew I needed to go look through my photos of waterfalls for inspiration!
Erika shares the process with us: Read over the cascade form and write out the pattern you wish to follow: tercet or quatrain. I found that having the structure written as a reminder helped guide my writing.
My mind went straight to Gibbs Gardens, where I’d rather spend the day in flowers than at work. Here, you can check out the bloom report and see where I’d take you if you were spending the day with me. We’d have lunch at The Burger Bus and order daffodils to plant next season.
Let’s Play
I did not want to get up today I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe talk books, catch up, paint daffodils, play
I’d drive to Ball Ground stroll Gibbs Gardens’ spring blooms I did not want to get up today
the tulips have opened, Monet’s pond awaits I’d load up the girls for a quick getaway I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe
we’d laugh and share stories take off work for the day get a slow start, talk books, paint daffodils, play
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for VerseLove is Ann Burg of New York, who inspires us to write haibun poetry. Haibun is a form that includes a prose passage to set the stage for a haiku, which immediately follows the prose. You can read her full prompt here. I reflected on a scene from Saturday morning as we ate breakfast.
The Head and The Feet
Saturday morning breakfast at the Country Kitchen on Pine Mountain we were waiting on our eggs and grits when I saw him shuffle past our table. A young and impatient mother with a crying child pitching a fit was stuck behind the elderly gentleman in in the aisle, clearly frustrated at his slow speed, in his ill-fitting sweatpants with black socks and orthopedic sandals. He veered right n the direction of the restroom and she squeezed left to her table, kid still screaming. My husband’s back was to the action as I gave the play-by-play. Notice him, I urged, when he comes back by. I thought it ironic that his orthopedic sandals looked like hiking sandals. Life can be cruel like that sometimes, but eggs arrive to scramble hard truths. I was taking a bite when my husband asked, Is that a veteran’s hat? We should buy his breakfast. And the next minute, this husband of mine – just like his mother would have done – excuses himself to walk by the man’s table to get a better look. And then I saw them talking. Why did tears fill my eyes? Why, here at this table, over eggs and bacon, coffee and grits and buttered biscuits with muscadine preserves, was I crying as I watched my husband place his hand on the shoulder of the old man and his wife as he thanked him for his service. I escaped to the gift shop to collect myself, wipe away the tears, before my husband returned with the scoop – as his mother would have done: it’s a veteran’s hat. He’s 78, was a sergeant in the Army, and he has four kids who are all currently serving in the military. His wife told me he has cancer, and when he finished chemo and his gray hair came back dark. And he always smiles. So we finished our last bites and I felt the tears welling again, excused myself to the restroom, and was almost fine until the old man walked by and place his hand on my husband’s shoulder in gesture of figuring out who’d treated them to breakfast. And I realized what we’d always said of ourselves when we walk into a place: I look down for snakes, he looks up for bees ~ and though we see things differently, we don’t miss what’s important.
Bryan Ripley Crandall, our host today for Day 9 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives in Stratford, Connecticut, where he directs the Connecticut Writing Project and is Professor of English Education at Fairfield University. He co-hosts National Writing Project’s The Write Time.
He shares his process and the directions by inspiring us to write about our homes and places we’ve lived. I’m not thinking past today – I’m thinking future.
Driving through stunning mountains alongside a clear blue lake on a sunny day
Gayle Sands of Maryland is our host for the first day of the December Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us to use photographs to inspire poems today. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems of others and their responses, here.
Gayle inspires us to walk into a photo and to be present in the photograph in some way—as a bystander, as one of the individuals in the photo, or as someone coming upon the scene. She says, “Use the photo as your starting point and open your senses. What do you see and/or hear? Is there something you can taste or smell? What sensations do you feel? Is there any movement? What thoughts come to your mind as you engage with the photo? Vintage photographs are a good source of inspiration.”
We’ve needed for about 2 years to redesign our front hardscape bed when the river rocks we’d put down many years ago began looking dated and worn. Instead of taking them up, we left them as the base, killed the weeds, and laid new landscape fabric over the top of the lackluster layer. We began the process a month or so ago, knowing that pacing would be important for us at our ages. Still, we wanted to do it ourselves because we’ve always enjoyed creating a vision and making it happen – – together!
We started with bright white rock (which will turn a light gray in about 6 months), curving one edge of the rock to prepare for the next layer. We also wanted to use black rock and possibly some pine straw as a way to blend some landscape into the hardscape – pine straw not really being the first choice, but a budgetary consideration and trade-off for the black rock I really wanted to be able to include in the overall design. It’s a lot like building a house – – you have to make some sacrifices to realize some gains. We added a barn scene Christmas flag and moved the American flag to the Purple Martin pole while we clean out their house, and added a faux boulder to the mix. A few solar pathway lights, a couple of my late mother’s birdbaths, and a pre-lit Christmas wreath with a sparkly red bow completed the design we’d needed to update for a handful of years. We pulled out the elephant ears and the jasmine that was everywhere, even climbing onto the roof.
Our goal was to create a low-maintenance garden look that doesn’t require a lot of weeding or fluffing. Our budget was to not break the bank. But with rocks being $12 a bag and covering the space of the bag itself times 2, we were only within budget for the white rock section. Added plants will only happen minimally henceforth, and only in pots so that we can keep the pruning and weeding under control and raise the pots if we can’t bend.
The finished hardscape
We’re satisfied with the finished look, and more than happy that the front bed work will carry us to the next decade….and now, once we’ve let our backs recover for the winter, there’ll be the beds in the back of the house that will need some attention come springtime. For the first time in my life, I see why senior citizens choose condominium living complete with groundskeeping fees. It’s tempting. Very, very tempting.
This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt asks to tell our stories of love.
Perhaps there is no better day for this prompt than today, the day of the wedding of my college roommate and best friend’s younger daughter, Sarah. Stacey and Keith Jackson and their two daughters are friends who have been there through it all with my family, and ours with theirs. College, graduations, losses of parents, births of children, vacations together, my divorce and relocation to live closer them and then my remarriage (Stacey found the love of my life when my first attempt failed), kids’ weddings, and grandchildren. There’s been more love in this strong friendship than there is in many families. And this is why this day is so special and meaningful.
I left work early yesterday after a tough meeting, feeling drained and not knowing whether there was a single smile left in me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through the wedding rehearsal, hoping the headache I was feeling behind my left eye was not another onset of vertigo. I pulled through Chick Fil A and got a real Coca Cola, the one with caffeine, to try to help stave it off, and I did a few eye exercises the way I’ve been taught. I pulled up my GPS to get to Forest Hill Park in Perry, Georgia – – one hour and 18 minutes south. The sun was lowering itself in the sky on my right, and the chill in the crisp fall air with a few leaves beginning to turn tuned my heart back to the right station in my silent car. I wanted it that way after the long meeting. Silence is truly as golden as the sunset, and I needed to do all I could to calm my mind and shift gears back to what truly matters.
I turned the years back through my mind, to the days of helping my own mother, a pastor’s wife, coordinate weddings since I was 7 years old, the year I won second place at the local airport’s 1973 Christmas Flower Show only because she guided my hands and told me where to stick the greenery and each flower. She taught me a little about floral design, she showed me how she met with brides to prepare catered meals, she showed me how to use a hot glue gun and attach Galax leaves to an entire tablecloth when a bride wanted the venue to look like a forest with the huge cake sitting on that table, and she taught me how to be aware when the lights needed dimming or the train needed straightening. Her company, Elegant Thymes, offered the full package of wedding services, right down to the preacher and the church. Mom’s voice speaks and nudges quite presently from Heaven at weddings.
Just a few years ago, it seemed, Stacey and I were making table arrangements and bridesmaids’ bouquets for Sarah’s first wedding, and then using golf tees for attendant placement in my absence as I directed her other daughter Hannah’s wedding rehearsal a few years later from the road on my way to Pascagoula, Mississippi. Since I couldn’t get there in person for that rehearsal, I’d sketched a diagram and suggested using golf tees in the ground to help position the wedding party. It worked, and she pulled it off beautifully as I made my way in time for her to pass the baton to me for the big day. We have always worked as a team that way.
We didn’t have to use golf tees last night. I left work early enough to get there, meet the groom’s side of the family, and have a few minutes to catch up before the rehearsal began. There’s a steeple and an altar in the small park, and a covered bridge that brides cross to walk down the bricked path to the altar. The ladies get dressed in an old train car, while the men go into the old church-turned-wedding-venue and remain in their designated place until time to join two hearts into the forever kind of love everyone hopes to find someday.
Sarah and Brian have found theirs, and it’s as real and palpable, as certain as the sun setting behind the steeple beneath which they will take their vows this evening at 5:30. You see, this couple knows about commitment. Brian has two sons he and Sarah have committed to raising, one with severe Cerebral Palsy. The other, so polite and helpful, is his Best Man. From the time I arrived, I saw Brian making every consideration for his son in his wheelchair and for Sarah, who has a degenerative muscular disease and knows that his arm will be there for her every step of the journey ahead. What you or I might consider a challenge, they embrace joyfully and gratefully as their life —and they have committed to it and will live it together in love.
From this day forward. For better or worse. For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as they both shall live.
Every wedding director knows there is no right way and no wrong way to “do” a wedding. We tend to start in the middle with placement, then run through the recessional, run through a processional, and then recess a final time to be sure everyone is comfortable. We remind the groomsmen to clasp their hands in front, bridesmaids to hold bouquets just above their waist so the pictures look great. We take note of the sun’s position and the weather report if it’s an outdoor wedding. Stacey calls it “herding cats.” We check with the bride on all decisions, and humorously but seriously remind the groom that the first rule of marriage is learning to listen to the bride, and that it’s all been practice until the wedding, and then it’s officially signed onto paper, so he’d better be ready. We all laugh.
But last night, the groom stepped in with his own request I wasn’t expecting. The walkway to the altar is on the right side of the chairs leading up to the steeple – there is no “middle aisle.” Brian asked to flip tradition and bring the bridesmaids to the right side, groomsmen on the left, to make it easier for his bride to navigate her journey to the altar. My heart melted. Why hadn’t I seen that??
I knew right then: he is THE ONE for our Sarah. Not only is he so completely in love with her that you can see it in his eyes every time he beholds her, but he is also tender in his care of her. He knows what commitment means, and his “I Do” is the forever kind that will carry his family forward through the years, into the togetherness that isn’t afraid to ask to throw out tradition when it comes to what’s best for them. God has winked in the most loving way on our sweet Sarah, on her groom, and on this new young family.
Commitment with tenderness, always self-sacrificing, is the truest kind of love there is, and I will be there with a Kleenex, grateful to be in the shadows of the trees back by the old covered bridge, directing the wedding of my truest-ever friend’s daughter and her new husband, ready to embrace life and love in a deeper way than most of us may ever know.
A Toast
to life
to love
to Sarah and Brian
as they begin
their new life
together
This will be the sun’s position at 5:30 today, Sarah and Brian’s wedding day, as they take their vows at Forest Hill Park in Perry, Georgia.
The flower show trophy from 1973 – my first training experience that prepared me to work by Mom as she coordinated weddings and events
This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. Today’s post inspires us to write about how we learned to drive.
In a Volkswagen
I learned how to drive in a
red Squareback stick shift
I still remember those days vividly – especially the day I pulled out in front of a car coming around a curve to make a left-hand turn at the last minute, thinking I had time. I don’t know how I avoided a collision, but I am convinced it was the other driver’s reaction time that kept us from wrecking. My mother was on the passenger side, and I remember the look of sheer fear on her face. She screamed, and the other driver laid on the horn.
This is what comes to mind when I think of the patience of my mother. She didn’t take my license away or put me on restriction – she quietly reminded me of the consequences of decisions that are made too quickly without enough forethought. Unintended consequences often have impacts on others that can’t always be undone.
Some lessons are never forgotten, and some words come rippling back right through the years.
Last night at our County Commissioners’ meeting, in a count of 4 to 1, our Commissioners did something no other Board has ever done in Georgia history. In a “hold my beer” move by one Commissioner who confused courage with a lack of sense, he made a motion to reject the school board’s millage rate proposal. The consequences for this are now that our county Tax Commissioner will not be able to collect taxes until the millage rate is submitted. The deadline is September 1. Today is August 27. I fear for the ripple effect that may close our library doors or other county departments; this impacts far more people than school leaders who are charged with making the best decisions for their schools and taxpayers worried about pennies on the dollar in their own pockets.
The one vote against this act of senselessness was my husband, I’m proud to say. As one who rarely comments or gets involved in politics on any level, I applaud his standing up for what is right in the face of overwhelming opposition. He voted for what was right.
It’s comforting to know that there are drivers who, unlike me in my learning days, do not put others in jeopardy. I rest fully in the confidence of his ability to lead and to drive. I pray for the ones who do not know what they do not know and do not count the costs.
In Dad’s final days, he shared words about his love of our mother with us. We are grateful to have had parents who loved each other their whole lives. In this conversation and in the audio clips we share today, we find great peace. Dad knew where he was going, and he knew he would be with her when he arrived. We’re confident today that he is there and that they have been reunited. In our grief, this brings us the greatest joy!
This month, I’m sharing stories I captured on audio in the final days of Dad’s life. There were funny moments, serious moments, sad moments – – all of them with levity and meaning. In today’s audio below, listen for the phrase “the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” Translation: someone passed every level of acceptance and had made it to the inner circle of the Haynes family. While every family has its way of declaring their acceptance of a new member of the fold, this was Dad’s – – and, of course, we as his children had to get through the tests of our own spouses’ families’ gate keeping systems, too.
At our family dinner following the graveside burial, all in attendance were invited to share stories. My husband, eyes brimming with tears as they often do when something hits deep, stood and shared the story of the day he’d “done the old-fashioned thing and asked Felix if he could marry his daughter.” He described the scene: there they were, standing at the top of the dock along the Sapelo River, Spanish Moss gently blowing in the limbs of the Live Oaks, where Briar had expected it to be just him and Felix.
Only it wasn’t.
Felix was “the easy one to get by,” he shared. Miriam……..not so much. But there he was, face to face Felix AND with Miriam and all her intuition, when Dad looked over at Mom and saw that Briar got a passing score – so Dad gave Briar his blessing with two conditions: 1) “get your arms around the kids;” and 2) “encourage Kim to finish her doctoral program.” Briar had just received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
He was in! And 17 years into our marriage, Briar has done both of the things my father asked of him – the kids love him, and I finished my doctoral program, ten months after Mom died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease. Even though she wasn’t physically present to see these things happen, somehow I know she knew. She knows everything, still.
Fast forward to June 2025. In the hospital room with Felix were Ken and Jennifer and I. Somewhere between Heaven and Earth, Mom stepped from behind the veil to join Dad and deliver a message to Ken and Jennifer through Dad’s words.
Did Jennifer get the Haynes family’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?
She got The Grand Slam Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!
Today is Slice of Life Tuesday, and we’re writing to a prompt shared by Jenna Komarin: “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
That quote aptly describes the past six weeks, from the time my father took a steep nosedive the last week of May after finishing chemotherapy treatments and died of complications from Pulmonary Fibrosis on Friday, June 13. Even though there was a known certainty in the dense fog of uncertainty, the glimmer of hope in the uncertainty is what kept us all going.
Throughout the month of July, I’ll be using Dad’s stories I captured in the final weeks of his life to share poems about things that were on his mind – and I’m using the actual words from recorded audio, preserving the wording the way he spun it. I’m grateful to my friend Janette Bradley for sharing the idea to record these conversations to play again whenever I need to hear his voice.
When my brother Ken and I were there with Dad as he was rapidly deteriorating, we asked him to tell stories of family and his younger days to pass the time and keep his (and our) mind off the endless waiting and dreadful reality as things kept taking turn after turn like some sputtering single-plane engine spinning wildly out of control before the crash. It took some effort through broken breaths and the din of the oxygen machine that reminded me so much of a noisy generator, but he managed to share priceless treasures full of nuggets of wisdom from a life well lived with rich descriptions of family and friends from long ago.
In one story, he spoke an unintended haiku about his mother out of thin air. He told us, “Your grandmother said, ‘we dig our graves with our teeth,’ and she was not wrong.” I counted the syllables and captured the wisdom that he was sharing with his children ~ wisdom that his grandchildren and great grandchildren will appreciate in the coming years as they continue to remember Dad. Even when – – no, especially when – – life feels so uncertain.
Media Clip: Dad Telling About His Mother’s Sayings
Dad’s Thin Air Haiku
your grandmother said
we dig our graves with our teeth
and she was not wrong
Note: My grandmother’s quote is attributed to Thomas Moffett, a physician from the 1600s, and later to Thomas Edison, who often gets credited as the originator.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
Common Threads 