As I move through the challenge of writing a poem a day for a year, I’m trying different forms and experimenting. Today, my poem for The Stafford Challenge is a luc-bat, a Vietnamese poetry form that alternates six and eight syllables with internal and end rhyme scheme. I refinished my late grandmother’s table recently, and I often think about all the family members who have ever sat at this table – and all the stories told here. I wonder, sometimes, whether family members in Heaven get passes to visit and check on the living. And whether there is a kitchen full of spirits listening in, checking on us to see what we’re doing.
I hope so!
Family Gatherings
table transformation
for our congregation of folks
family pride evokes
stories build laughs and jokes from past
so those long gone will last through time
ancestors living ~prime of life
conjured husband and wife ~spirits
pasts with presents - - its future
gatherings to endure ages
Common Threads 