6-7 Decorating
seven Christmas trees
six, seven tangled lights….wait…
six more Saturdays????
November 12
November Tricube
Sometimes when I tap my pencil or my fingers, I feel the rhythm of a poem I hadn’t planned on writing. It’s like hearing music and wanting to dance, only there’s no music and I don’t want to dance. I think this might be like the call of the spirit wolf to the cub who spent hours on end reading poetry with a flashlight as a child and has now grown up – – and something rhythmic this way comes on a howling wind outside. Or something Iike that.
One of the poets in one of my writing groups – I believe it was Denise Krebs – introduced us to the tricube form a few years ago. It’s three stanzas, each with three lines,
each with three syllables. The rhyme pattern is a,b,c,a,b,c,a,b,c, and the meter is trochee with stressed/unstressed/stressed. These are just fun to write, especially using seasonal words. Try one today!
November Tricube
turkey stew
pumpkin spice
gravy boat
fireplace flue
windshield ice
hooded coat
vibrant view
saffron rice
.....did you vote??....
A Challenge for the week:
Fellow blogger Anita Ferrari inspires a new poem today. One I have not yet written. She writes of the six seven syndrome going around. You can read her post here. This week, I’m going to try several variations of six seven poems – – poems with six syllables on one line, seven on the next. Poems with six words, then seven, and even six stanzas and then seven. I’ll post them this week and then one again next Tuesday. Anyone up for the challenge?
Let’s write six seven poems this week! Who’ll join me??
November Gift Basket
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 November, the choice is clear: it’ll be filled with brown things.Â
If I were giving
you a gift basket
I’d go basketweave brown!
you’d receive
a caramel cake, fresh-baked and glazed
to gratify all visiting gobblers
a leather-bound gratitude journal
to gather your blessings this holiday season
and a warm wooden photo frame
to season your photos like a perfectly browned turkey ~
a cornucopia of nourishment sureÂ
to fill your appetite!
November 7 – Country Evening
Country Evening
rural countryside
full moon rising, stars falling
Great Horned Owls conspire
November 6 – Country Morning
Country Morning
rural countryside
sun rises east, moon sets west
in misty morning
November 5
On the first Monday evening of each month at 7 p.m., I meet with a small group of Stafford Challenge poets via Zoom. We’re also members of EthicalEla, and we’ve presented together at NCTE. Periodically, we’ll text each other a poem or prompt. Our evening meetings include time for writing and sharing.
Our group consists of Glenda of Idaho, Denise of California, Barb of Iowa, and me. We weren’t sure whether or not Denise was going to make it this week, but she texted us a prompt in case we wanted to try the writing prior to the meeting and have something to share.
This was her prompt:
Steering clear of adverbs was challenging (I think of Stephen King’s words: the road to hell is paved in adverbs). Writing without them is not easy. I noticed the need for doubling down on adjectives to meet the sensory part of the prompt and also accepting that this would be a major run-on sentence. Here is the poem I shared with my small group on Monday night:
we’re listening to Christmas music, joy
filling our hearts and souls ~ chicken pot pie
piping hot and broiler-top crisped and browned
our three schnozzles snoozing by the fireplace
Sam’s Club Members Mark Old Vine Zinfandel
spilling from a ruby red wine chalice
catching each sparkle of shimmering light
Vermont Flannel blankets warming our toes
in forest green and rich brown earth-tone plaid
on this crisp night here in rural Georgia
I’m so thankful for my writing friends who always inspire me to try new forms and challenges. And Denise showed up – – after a long day of travel, in a Chipotle, still not yet having arrived at her destination for the evening. The four of us each shared a poem and caught up on life, and for that time of fellowship, I am grateful.
November Noel No-Nonsense Nonet
I used to laugh at those memes where families come home from trick-or-treating and put up the Christmas tree. I used to remind myself to give the turkey its day in the spotlight. I’ll admit it: I used to judge those folks, those ridiculous early decorators.
No, no, no, no, no! Not anymore.
The older I get, the more I realize I need to pace myself in decorating. It takes moving a chair to make a space for a tree, unboxing the Nativity set, and spinning a fresh bow for the year-round wreath on the east-facing front door (I love the way it frames the early morning sunrise through the door glass from my living room chair). If my husband and I are going to do all this decorating in our sixties, we need time to recover and to enjoy it before it’s time to take it all down again.
I’m firmly in the camp that if I’m putting it up, I want six to eight weeks to enjoy it. Anything less is too taxing on this body.
There have been years we didn’t decorate at all – – those years we went places and knew no one would be here to celebrate since we’d be in others’ homes in other states. But as grandchildren visit and we gather with friends and other family who often come on different weekends between now and the first of the year, we’ve come to understand those silly home-from-Halloween-now-let’s-put-up-the-tree memes.
Even though we decorate simply and minimally in the quiet shades of nature when we do, we realize it’s all about creating a Christmas ambiance that welcomes visitors who drop in anytime during the holidays. A simple burlap and twig tree, a box shrub wreath, a Nativity set and we’ll be ready to welcome the season. Come see us!
November Noel No-Nonsense Nonet
the older we get, the more we see
we need to decorate early
to recover from the work
(pacing is not enough)
dare I admit that
our Christmas tree
is going
up this
week????
November 3
After a long weekend working in the yard taking advantage of the gorgeous middle Georgia weather, the best remedy for the sore muscles was a Sunday evening glass of wine in my favorite glass. It’s a ruby chalice that belonged to my parents, and I found it as we were cleaning out the house on the heels of Dad’s death back in June. Red was my mother’s favorite color, and so I brought this cup home with me for those wine nights when I need to unwind and relax. I like that there’s not another one quite like it that I’ve seen anywhere – – and that I can remember Mom as I kick back and take it easy at the end of a productive weekend.
Peaceful, Easy Feeling
I have half-filled my ruby chalice
with Sam’s Club Old Vine Zinfandel
the best affordable wine
here in front of the fire
Eagles music plays
my sore muscles
feeling peace
with each
sip
November 2
I want to go back
to the mountains with this crew
the photos show why
November Shadorma
November Shadorma
go ahead
eat the pumpkin pie
before the
turkey comes
out of the oven all browned
is there a main course?
……and just like that, after Halloween candy and football player costumes and all the fun of fall festivals including a hayride around the campus at work, we are thrust unmercifully into the Christmas season. The candy at Dollar General is half price, and the one seasonal row they’d already dedicated to Christmas has expanded to three. It’s the season of eating, and no one is waiting on anything.
Today’s poem is a shadorma, a form similar to Haiku in syllable pattern. This form has six lines, and the syllable count on each line, in order, is 3,5,3,3,7,5. I’m a fan of eating dessert first, so I’m urging all pie lovers to take full advantage of throwing out the rules and questioning whether there is really a main course.
For me, it’s the pie.
Common Threads 