Tag: memories

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September Poetry Marathon – Day 5 of 5

Today’s host for the final day of our September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Glenda Funk of Idaho, who inspires us to write Barbie poems. You can read Glenda’s full prompt and her poem here. I can’t wait to see all of the poems born into the world on this topic, so please hop over to the site and take a read. I chose a reverse nonet today, crafting nine lines with each numbered line’s syllable count on each in descending order as if going back in time, seeking Fountain of Youth Barbie.

Turning Back the Years Reverse Nonet

We’d line them up like kickball players

at recess, then pick one by one,

taking turns to get the best

looking Barbies. Next, we’d

choose accessories ~

whip worlds to life

narrating

stories

dreamed.

As part of this post today, I’m sharing the remaining poems from the poetry marathon last Friday, where a poem and hour was written either by someone in my family, a friend, or me. Here they are:

12 a.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Hashtag Haiku

#meanness

Fruit of the Spirit

my tree needs fertilizer

nothing much blooming…..

1 a.m. hour – Tanka – a five line poem with a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7

Cinnamon apples

sliced, wax-sealed in Mason jars

cane sugar syrup

for Thanksgiving dessert pies

prepped-ahead ingredients!

2 a.m. hour – Naani – a poem consisting of four lines, with twenty to twenty-five syllables on any topic

Pumpkin Harvest!

Pumpkin Spice!

Pumpkin jack-o-lanterns ~

glowing face with the slice of a knife!

3 a.m. hour – Senryu – a three line unrhymed poem similar to Haiku, about nature

Midland water snake

basking in Gibbs Gardens grass

misunderstood

4 a.m. hour – Tricubes – three stanzas of three lines with 3 syllables per line 

Poetry

Wings to Fly

Words to heal

Poetry

Weatherproof

Warmth for cold

Poetry

What if prompts

Why not now?

5 a.m hour – Cinquain – a poem that has two syllables in the first line, four in the second, six in the third, eight in the fourth, and two in the fifth (it was early, and I was watching my Honey Nut Cheerios dance in my plain Greek yogurt)…..

mOrning

cOffee hOp!

cheeriO’ed yOgurt prOm

O’s d-Osi-dO  with pOetry

hOedOwn!

6 a.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Ode – a poem of praise, often written directly to a person or object 

Memories of Miriam 

Dear Mom,
you come to me
in the missing
with tingly spots that
turn warm
in the heart,
help me exhale~ my
fingers circling my temples
bringing back
all the whens

of this Bernina
your fingers guiding
mine under the
foot, stitch by stitch
learning to sew
a lime green terrycloth
bathcover, now
sewing quilts
for your great grands
on your fine
Swiss machine

of hawks,
talons clutching wires
checking that
my seatbelt
is fastened
as I drive past,
shaking your pointing finger
if I forgot,
knowing that
whatever I’m
thinking at
that moment,
you’re there
in it

of strawberry figs,
last summer wave
just picked, my own
weakening fingers twisting
tender fruits free ~
canned this very
week, Mason jars
sealed tight
with summer’s
sweetened warmth
for coming winter

of spiced Russian tea,
the Tangy orange
and lemonade mixed
with clove, sugar
cinnamon and tea ~
a medicinal brush
of your invisible fingers
through my hair
in sore throat season

of rippled milkglass
with resurrection fern
springing to life
unfurling its brown
dry fingers
into open arms

green again

7 a.m. hour – grand finale recap poem

A coffee stir stick

started a 24-hour 

poem marathon! 

we stirred up writing

gave wings to what if ideas

preserved memories

called love to action

resurrected ancestors

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September 2023 Poetry Marathon Day 1 of 5

Today, Stacey Joy of California is our host for the September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She is inspiring us to write odes today. I took inspiration from her poem and from Amy Van DerWater’s Dear Socks in writing an ode to the memories of my mother through the ways she still comes to me when I am missing her.

From Saturday through Wednesday, I will post the daily writing along with several other poems that were written during the poetry marathon I began yesterday morning at 8:00 a.m.. It ends at 8:00 this morning, and will contain one poem written each hour since then either by a friend/family member or by me. (Okay, I slept the night, but I wrote ahead and behind those hours of sleep because…..my meanness might have kicked in).

I’ll begin with today’s poem, written in the 6 a.m. hour, September 16, 2023: ODE – a poem of praise, often written directly to someone or something.

Memories of Miriam ~ An Ode – a poem of praise, often directly to a person or object

Dear Mom,
you come to me
in the missing
with tingly spots that
turn warm
in the heart,
help me exhale~ my
fingers circling my temples
bringing back
all the whens

of this Bernina
your fingers guiding
mine under the
foot, stitch by stitch
learning to sew
a lime green terrycloth
bathcover, now
sewing quilts
for your great grands
on your fine
Swiss machine

of hawks,
talons clutching wires
checking that
my seatbelt
is fastened
as I drive past,
shaking your pointing finger
if I forgot,
knowing that
whatever I’m
thinking at
that moment,
you’re there
in it

of strawberry figs,
last summer wave
just picked, my own
weakening fingers twisting
tender fruits free ~
canned this very
week, Mason jars
sealed tight
with summer’s
sweetened warmth
for coming winter

of spiced Russian tea,
the Tangy orange
and lemonade mixed
with clove, sugar
cinnamon and tea ~
a medicinal brush
of your invisible fingers
through my hair
in sore throat season

of rippled milkglass
with resurrection fern
springing to life
unfurling its brown
dry fingers
into open arms
green again

September 15, 2023 – The Kickoff – 8 a.m. hour – Kim Johnson

Haiku – a poem with three lines and seventeen syllables in 5/7/5 syllabicated lines

My Stir Stick

deep in the forest

a tiny tree takes root

reaches to sunlight

growing tall, falling

with a thud, destined to be

my coffee stir stick

September 15, 2023 – 9 a.m. hour – my son Marshall Meyer – Gogyoshi (a 5-line poem on any topic, and Marshall wrote two back to back gogyoshis, connected, about a recent fishing experience….and he wrote this within a half hour of when I requested a poem, which is what a poetry marathon experience is about – – birthing poetry meaningfully in a few intentional moments throughout the day). I’m so proud of him!

The experience is like no

other. The stalk and hunt is

on, wind and direction

matter. I’m in shin deep

water and the reds can feel

all vibrations.

Concentration is at an all

time high. Cast. The feel of

the exploding strike is like 

no other. 

September 15, 2023 – 10 a.m. hour – Found Poem by Kim Johnson – a Found Poem is a poem that is written by finding words on an existing page of print, lifting them out to stand alone as a poem.  This one is taken from The Outsiders.

A Silent Moment

dawn mist

golden

gray to pink

a silent moment:

paint,

fresh in my mind,

like

nature’s flower; 

down to day…

nothing can stay

September 15, 2023 – 11 a.m. hour – Jenga Poem – Kim Johnson

I let my son’s 9:00 poem inspire a title I found on a Jenga block and wrote this poem from the word blocks in my collection.  To write a Jenga poem, select blocks and arrange them into a poem of words that stand alone or words that inspire lines mixed with your own words. 

Casting a Line

choose your own

hopes for the future ~

murals unveiled:

ending or new beginning?

inspiring

another chance at life

every precious “breath” 

how we have chosen

race against time

September 15, 2023 – Noon hour  – Kim Johnson

Skinny – a poem with 11 lines, where first and last line repeat similarly in small number of words, and the rest of the lines have one word.  Lines 2, 6, and 10 use the same word.

Owl

owl swoops down

gracefully

without

a

sound

gracefully 

to 

forest

ground

gracefully

owl swoops down

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A Strawberry Fig Visit

I picked the last of the figs yesterday, half at lunchtime when I was letting the dogs out and half after getting home from a day of work and a haircut. I was determined to make strawberry figs just like my mother always made at the end of each summer, when we’d put on aprons and each take a job of washing, chopping, and stirring in her kitchen.

Temperatures are finally out of the 90s, and the mornings are beginning their wee hour thermostat adjustment one little tap a week, it seems. When that happens, the figs that aren’t finished off by birds, butterflies, and squirrels – or picked before anything else gets them first – dry up like upside-down miniature deflated balloons hanging on the stems. I was able to reach enough remaining good figs for one last wave of canning for this season.

I found strawberries price-slashed on the clearance cart in our local grocery store and added a couple of two-pound boxes of cane sugar to my buggy.

My husband was off at a meeting, so it was only me and the strong presence of my mother in the kitchen washing, chopping, and stirring up strawberry fig memories together, steam rising and aromas swelling. And tears welling, as I think of all the things since December 29, 2015 that I want to tell her.

You have six great grandchildren now, Mom. Four boys and two girls. Aidan is an avid reader just like you, Sawyer loves science and nature, Saylor has ultra sass and is tougher than any of the boys, River loves to be barefooted in his backyard kayaking through the marsh and running with his three dogs, Beckham never likes wearing any clothes, and Magnolia Mae is only a month old and already a sweet little blossom rooted deep in southern culture, on her way to becoming another strong woman on your branch of the tree. Your three grandchildren are all on their feet, moving onward!

And my brother Ken is in love with his soul mate and she’s good for him, Dad needs you to tell him the answers (and how to let things go), and so do the rest of us. You’d love all three of our dogs that you never met. Your last words to dad – “You take care of these dogs” – assure me that you’d be proud to know that our Boo Radley, Fitz (short for F. Scott Fitzgerald), and Ollie (named for Mary Oliver) basically run the house so much that we call them our four-legged sons.

Thank you for teaching me the ways of your kitchen and giving me a love of strawberry figs that not everyone knows how to appreciate. As the autumn nears and passes and winter arrives, the warmth of toast laden with butter and slathered with strawberry figs will keep you here with me.

And I still need you, Mom.

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July Open Write Day 4 with Shelby

Our host today for the fourth day of the July Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Shelby from Michigan, who inspires us to write poems about special places in our lives. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others. I have written a nonet, which has nine lines in ascending or descending order, and has the line order number of syllables on its lines. I attended elementary school on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where recess was almost always before lunch – – when it was cool enough to be outdoors.

Recess Nonet

my elementary school playground
its blacktop hot as a griddle
sizzling in the island sun
where we rolled each other
in castoff car tires
spinning childhoods
dappled in
live oak
shade

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I Can’t Be The Only One

Today is the second day of the February Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. Our host today is Britt Decker of Houston, Texas. You can read today’s prompt and other poems here. And you can also share your own! Britt inspires us to write a “Me, Too!” poem. I’m writing mine in memory of and gratitude for my mother, Miriam Haynes, who would have been 80 today. She died in December 2015 after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. 

Miriam

I can’t be the only one whose mother sewed her own formal dresses,
    who made matching clothes like in the Sound of Music, only not from drapes
    who was known as the crab lady on the
    pier of St. Simons Island, Georgia for her fisherwoman skills
    who could fly fish and deep sea fish and throw a cast net, too
       all while driving the boat.
I can’t be the only one whose mother could wiggle her ears, making us laugh
    who could bring a dead plant back to life
    who rescued dogs and made them family
    who knew all the answers when no one else did.
I can’t be the only one whose mother didn’t have enough superlatives
    for all the things she did so well.
I can’t be the only one wishing her mother a happy heavenly birthday today
    missing the phone calls that made the world right again.

And I’m not.  

My brother loved her, too
    and our dad, who still sends us random pictures of precious moments,
         reminding us how blessed we all were

are

forever will be
   
    because of her.
Text and photo from Dad this morning: “She made the dress.”
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Botanical Candlelight Nonet

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” -William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

botanical candlelights dancing
flickering in moonlit darkness
memories of summer walks
with my daughters, picking
flowers, pressing them 
between pages 
of stories: 
untold
warmth

Nonet Poetry

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Travel Photographs on Canvas

“Creative living is stranger than other, more worldly pursuits. The usual rules do not apply.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Eagle in Ketchikan, Alaska

Something about photographs takes me back to the memories I hold dear. That’s why one of my goals this year is having several of my favorite pictures made into 16×20 canvas wood-framed wallhangings. So far, I have had 6 of them created, and I’m loving the feelings that they bring at the start of each day.

The first is an eagle that we watched from a hovercraft in Ketchikan, Alaska swooping down for fish in June 2022. The spectacular show inspired hundreds of photos, and I chose my favorite fraction of a second to place on my bathroom wall so that every morning, I start the day with sheer splendor and the gratefulness to have witnessed the majestic wingspan and precision of these birds.

Another is of our White Christmas on a farm in Kentucky at sunset. The angle and shades of light were mesmerizing, and they blend into the orange pop of energy contained in my walls – chosen specifically to be like a burst of citrus at daybreak ~ awakening me and rejuvenating my senses.

Dowdell’s Knob, Pine Mountain, Georgia

One I haven’t hung yet was taken at Dowdell’s Knob in Pine Mountain, Georgia when my son and his family were visiting with us in one of F. D. Roosevelt’s favorite picnic spots near his home at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. We had our own picnic, made s’mores, and enjoyed the scenery from atop the mountain. And the hidden secret here is that the newest grandbaby is in the picture – – (arriving in July).

Each adventure brings its own special moments, and Canvas on the Cheap helped me turn these into beautifully preserved photographs that bring me joy and gratefulness!

Kentucky White Christmas
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Remembering, Sharing, Meditating on the Past: My 2023 Reflection Goals

Dad shares 1950s football stories with Aidan as they play ball together, December 2023

In 2013, I abandoned the notion of New Year’s Resolutions when I realized that not one resolution I had ever made survived more than a few weeks. Instead, I began listing goals for the year in different areas and taking time to reflect each week or so to update what I had done in those areas. It began in the NOTES section on my phone. Today, I reflect back to 2013 and the goals I established. I copied and pasted the first two of my ten goals from that year:

2013 Goals

Physical Goal #1: lose 50 pounds in 5 months. 

Action Plan: join Weight Watchers for diet and add exercise plan of walking. Seek exercise bike in March when everyone else gives up and sells them. Drink only water in restaurants. 

I need to make myself a countdown reward system to Marshall and Selena's wedding in May.

1/3/13. * I began counting points on January 2 for Weight Watchers. I weighed on day 1 to mark my starting point. 

1/15/13 I am down 13 pounds from January 1. I can lose 37 pounds by the wedding day. 

1/21/13 now sixteen pounds down and I can lose 34 pounds by May 25! 

2/7/13 now down 22 pounds and I can lose 28 pounds by May 25!

3/5/13 down 23 pounds and I can lose 28 pounds by May 25!

7/25/13 back at it. Up ten from last weigh, but down 14 from start of year! Brushing off and getting back in the groove....starting my point counting system again today. 

Educational goal #2: enter a doctoral program in fall 2013. 

Action plan: research programs in the first quarter of the year and measure against Georgia PSC requirements. Take GRE in February or March. Apply to schools in March.  Make decisions in May or June. Enter a program in the summer or fall. 

* Beth gave me some research on Univ of Florida to be considered

I am rethinking Walden, since I already have the first course completed there but had to stop for divorce.

1/18/2013 I completed the application to Walden, faxed my certificate, emailed my résumé and requested my transcript from University of West Georgia. One school down. I need to work on financial aid. 

1/24/13 I submitted FAFSA and requested pin. 

1/29/13 I am accepted back and they will honor my existing credit. Awaiting financial aid decision.

2/7/13 they will let me resume my program and have me ready to start March 4! Waiting on financial aid information to be processed by Walden. 

3/5/2013 I began my second course in the program officially yesterday. I am on track.

7/25/13 I am a module ahead in my third course in the program. Also registered for my residency in December in Washington, DC. Things are going well and I am enjoying the challenges.

Back to 2023: I look back on these 2013 goals and smile because setting goals, establishing action steps, and adding a measure of accountability actually works – it’s the recipe for success when there is follow-through and intention. Today’s banner picture was taken at my son’s May 2013 wedding, and while I didn’t reach my goal in time for the wedding, I could at least fit in the dress. In all but one of my ten goal areas of that year, I am doing much better today than I was then. I’m within six pounds of the top of my goal range today, and I earned my Ed.D in Leadership in October 2016.

Being able to reflect not only on one year but across a decade of goals is powerful – I see how dynamics of situations have changed and how there are bumps in the road that at the time seem earth-shattering, but in the grand scheme were simply little speed bumps that slowed me down.

My 2023 Reflection goals include end-of-month consideration and tracking of progress in writing and for the first time ever: sharing my goals and progress with readers on this blog, reflecting on memories, and writing family stories (and getting other family members to do the same so that our stories are preserved for future generations to enjoy). By the end of 2023, I hope to have at least 25 family stories shared on my blog.

Happy weekend! Spend some time reflecting today!

Reflecting on that time in the corn maze with Andrew when we had to use the map to try to get out…………