Tag: poetry

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Broccoli

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 us to describe broccoli to someone who has never seen it before.

How To Save a Fairy

Imagine a miniature

forest with lush emerald trees

a canopy for fairies

sparkling magic beneath

but a foul odor

permeates the land

threatening the fairies

their twinkle-lights fading

in the putrid stench

then the wicked witch

steps from her lair

behind the twisted trees

holding her wrinkled green

fingers up grasping power in the air

her evil laughter beckoning

one brave fairy to come close for a deal

you love children? find them,

find those who will eat of the

foul-smelling trees that will

not harm them but will save you

and my noxious potion spell that will

kill you will only make them grow stronger

so the brave fairy

told the others

who told the birds

who told the woodland critters

who told the house pets

who prompted the parents

to cook all the miniature trees

we call broccoli

and feed them to the children

throughout the land

children in every house balked

but they ate the broccoli

to save their bedtime story heroines

from the evils of the wicked witch

and her foiled fairy fiasco

after dinner, all the mothers took

their pots of boiling broccoli water

to the edge of the woods and

slung the gut-churning water into the

forest, where the fairies watched

from afar and glowed brightly

as the screams of the witch

could be heard throughout

Fairy Land: “I’m melting! I’m melting!”

And that is why children, to this day,

will eat their broccoli – to save a fairy!

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September Favorite Teacher

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 is to tell about a favorite teacher.

Ta-Daaaa!

she was my daughter’s

violin teacher

Dorothy Mauney

she and her late husband

Miles were concert musicians

in the grandest venues

all over the world

but here she was

in a Hilton Head Plantation

living room teaching

The Suzuki Method

as her students

balanced ping pong balls

on the bridge

to learn form

as they played

I think what made her

my favorite was all those

times when they finished

a piece successfully

she played a triumphant

TA-Daaaaaaaa! in perfect chord

and her eyes dazzled with

passionate awakening

at the magic of music

as if she had surprised herself

with a masterpiece of her own

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Alone

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 inspires us to write about where we feel most alone.

I feel most alone

in a thick crowd

silly, I’m sure it seems, but

the trees and birds

hold greater friendship

than a sea of ten thousand

faces without names

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September Tricube

Last month, I started 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 form is a Tricube – 3 stanzas of 3 lines with 3 syllables each. Topic today: Not good nor bad – just writing. Card 41.

skies of blue
clouds of white
apples red

brand new shoes 
classroom light
comfy bed

Elmer's glue
craft delight
(tape instead)

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Three Friends

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 inspires us to take the line of a book by Louise Erdrich, The Round House, and use this sentence to start writing. Here’s the line: I had three friends. I still keep up with two of them.

I had three friends. I

still keep up with two of them.

The other has died.

This is a true poem. Back in the early 1990s, we moved to a new subdivision full of young families. Between the time I left a job teaching preschoolers and the time I went back to school and began subbing and teaching full time, I was a stay-at-home mom. Four of us would gather to play cards and use coupons we’d clipped from the Sunday newspaper inserts as our betting money. We all had old recipe boxes we used to file our coupons into categories. Diaper coupons were the hot ones – we all wanted those! We passed the time together while our older children were at school a couple of days each week.

Two people (that I know of) from that subdivision ultimately developed MLS, and I must wonder if it is environmental with soil brought in as they graded those homesite lots in coastal South Carolina. One was a young child who is now an adult and fully confined to a wheelchair, and one was my cardplaying friend who had two young boys. She’d married her much older sweetheart in high school and smoked most of her adult life. She went back to college and got a degree in nursing, then retired from Hospice care a few years before she began experiencing the symptoms of MLS. That’s when my friend, a Hospice nurse, called in her own team of Hospice caregivers in the Spring of 2025 and died in July-only a few weeks after my father died.

I still have the ladder back chairs she and her husband gave us one year. I painted and recushioned them to match the dining room table from my great grandmother. The kitchen spirits are alive with stories and memories. I laugh and cry when I pause and think of all the love and laughter there in six chairs at that table.

Oh, the fun we had!

I thought of her last night as my brother and I attended the inaugural fundraiser for Hospice of the Golden Isles, where my father gained his wings. Bourbon and Bites at Village Landing on St. Simon’s Island was a huge success, and I’m pretty sure there were more spirits present than just the liquid variety. Cheers to all Hospice caregivers and to our friends and family who have known their comfort and care.

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Unanticipated Blessing

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 is to write about a doctor you know or one you went to – or their waiting room – or any memory in a medical office.

I always wanted children, and the dream at one point was to have a full quiver. I would have lived and breathed forever full time motherhood and had thought that would be my lot in life. When we found out the first one was on the way just a few months into marriage, arriving only one year and two months after our wedding day, much of the joy became worry about how we would make ends meet. But we welcomed our first child and found that we could make the necessary sacrifices for me to stay home after a trial run at working when she was 6 weeks old. When I tried to go back to work and leave her at a daycare, I cried all day there and all the way home. It was the only time in my life I’d ever been blinded by tears to the point I had to pull over and wait out the cry in order to drive. That evening, I gave notice and became a full time mother the next day.

the timing wasn’t

the best in the world to hear

the news: you’s pregnant!

I’ve never once regretted not working when my children were little, even though now I would be well into retirement if I had stayed the planned course. I knew that there would come a day they’d fledge the nest and take up with families of their own, but I didn’t want to miss those golden years of their childhood – so I took time on the front end of life and stayed home until all 3 were in school. And I cried in the primary school parking lot each time one started kindergarten.

Above all, in thinking of the prompt today, I can still remember the nurse in the now late Dr. Gregory Whitaker’s office in Savannah. She had short blond hair and was thin and friendly, and her Southern charm was reassuring and comforting as she read the result: yep, you’s pregnant!

I rejoice today for the individuality of my children – their uniquenesses, their strengths and interests, and what they have brought to the world. And I would say to any young mothers out there who aren’t sure how it will all work out: it will.

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A Pair of Loved Shoes

Last month, I started 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 asks to share about a pair of shoes we loved. Or a dress. Or anything worn or how we dressed all wrong. You get the idea.

Which Pair?

there’s been this pair and that pair, even

Great Granny’s bronzed pair, but nothing

compares to my birthday gift

Ugg pair from my sister-

in-law and brother

(a much loved pair)

for-sore-feet-

repair-

pair

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Secret Life

Last month, I started 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, the post asks about the secret life or hidden dialogue of our pets or plants – or whatever lives in our homes.

Cat and Mouse Games

I think our garage ghost’s name is Felix

born in Waycross, Georgia in 1944

died in Brunswick, Georgia in 2025

a real cat all his life, a preacher

who knew the pleasures of wine

and wanted to taste the whole world

with every taste bud on heightened

sensory awareness because when

my brother and I left Five Star Bank

we ran into Al Brown

the church drummer who told

us in the Tramici’s parking lot that

our dad had come to him in a dream

and told him Heaven was great, that

…you can go anywhere you want, Al!

I was just in Minnesota yesterday….

and I stopped in my tracks

drew in my breath ~ because

that told me Dad and Gus

my sister-in-law’s father

are paying visits to their children

that they’d been to see Greg in

Minnesota (we know no other

soul in Minnesota)

Greg, my sister-in-law’s brother

who knew me well enough already

at the reception during the

sibling speeches to fear I might

push him in the pool

and now the cat and mouse are

on the loose

prowling around in my

garage posing as orbs

for the cameras

keeping me up all night

putting me on heightened

sensory awareness

Felix and Gus

a cat and a mouse

playing games

….as always….

*references to Felix the Cat and Gus, a mouse from Disney’s Cinderella

**Dr. Felix Haynes and Dr, Gus Hernandez died three months apart earlier this year

***One was a Southern Baptist, one a devout Catholic…..and now we have a Baptist and a Catholic ghost teamed up visiting friends and family in the afterlife. One shows up as an orb on Ring cameras, and one sets off fire alarm. Shenanigans.

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Teeth

Last month, I started 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 us to tell about teeth – – any story about teeth.

The Tooth Fairy’s Silver Box

somewhere in all the rubble lies a

tiny metal time capsule with

a tooth fairy’s pearled keepsakes

a sterling silver box

with bones of her bone

she could not bear

to toss out

way back

when

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Paying Attention

Last month, I started 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 in our Stafford Challenge small group. I’m continuing so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. One thing I appreciate as a writer is that during times when I’ve barely got my head above water with all the energy and demands from life and work, there are prompts to get me started – – which, of course, is the most important spark. Today, the prompt hits home in tender spots, asking us to write about what we feel when we see a homeless person holding a sign on the corner or to tell about a specific person that perhaps we didn’t pay attention to.

Here’s Your Sign

some topics hit deep

too deep to think into ~ I’ve

known a sign holder

and what got her there

I’ve witnessed her miracle

of overcoming

I know the power

of a mother’s fervent prayers

for a daughter lost

when I see homeless

sign holders I feel this pain:

that’s a mother’s child