Patchwork Prose and Verse
Today’s post is a tricube poem. A tricube has three stanzas of three lines, with three syllables on each. The rhyme scheme is abc abc abc.
holly red
mittens green
sugarplums
Santa's sled
Shelf Elf's been
snowfall comes
quilt-piled bed
silver sheen
Jack Frost numbs
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??
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 the question, “What are you Waiting For?”
Today I offer you a tricube. It’s three stanzas of three lines with 3 syllables.
Let’s Just Be Real
I’m waiting
to retire
next chapters
exciting
relaxing
traveling
reading books
in sweatpants
until noon
I’ve spent some time back “home” in coastal Georgia this summer, far more than any ordinary summer, and I’m sharing stories this month about time with Dad in his final days and the stories he shared. Dad was a Baptist minister who served twice as pastor of First Baptist Church on St. Simons Island, Georgia – so my brother and I grew up there – learning to swim and ride bikes, learning to read and multiply and add, learning to crab off the pier and fish and learning to live. We lived a few other places over the years, but St. Simons came full circle as the beginning and the end of Dad’s career as a family of four.
I think what I loved most about growing up on an island wasn’t really ever about the where, but about the what and the whom~ more specifically, the what of childhood and its carefree nature. The friends, the family time, and the things we did together. It surprises me when I go back there that I ever lived and played in all that extreme heat. As a post-menopausal female now, I much prefer cooler places with drier air. While I love the beach, I’m not a fan of swimming in any ocean because Jaws came out when I was ten years old and wrecked my ability to see anything but a place where hungry sharks lurk when I look to the sea. It scared me so bad I didn’t even want to put my hands in the kitchen sink to wash dishes after that – – let alone go down to the shoreline.
My good friend Lisa Warren and I used to ride our bikes to church back in the 1970s when the world was a safer place, and I remember Dad’s sermon jokes he told from the pulpit. He told so many of them that always helped break the ice and get the sermon going. In his final days, I recorded a retelling of a favorite joke that you can hear him tell in his own voice below.
Earthworms and Moonshine
The Sunday School teacher had a mason jar of moonshine and an earthworm. He drops that earthworm in that moonshine, and it disintegrates.
Now, boys and girls, what does that teach you?
A little boy said, “If you drink moonshine, you won’t have worms.”
Today, I salute childhood summertime memories in a tricube: three stanzas of three lines each, each line having three syllables.
Summer Tricube Salute
days are hot
sun is strong
dragonflies
nap a lot
nights are long
record highs
fish fry pot
crickets throng
sunset skies
We didn’t come straight home from Halloween festivities and put up our Christmas tree (it still isn’t up), but we have officially begun preparing our hearts for the Christmas season ahead. It began two weekends ago when we took our grandson Aidan to see The Nativity Tour at The Biblical History Center in Lagrange, Georgia. When it comes to Christmas, I do love the charged energy of cold weather, the laughter of shoppers, the gatherings with food and fellowship, and the lights. But Christmas, for me, lives in the quiet moments of deep thought and reflection – about ordinary things and how they connect to a greater concept.
The first reminders of the season came as we stood outside a sheepfold with our firstborn grandson, now a few months away from a driver’s license, learning about the likelihood that the manger may have been made of stone and the surrounding animals predominantly sheep. We discovered the reasons that a family in Biblical times may have turned away a woman expecting a baby for fear it would displace them if birth occurred and rendered their house unclean for 30 days. Having no room in the inn has been a frequent thought recently as I watch families unravel over candidates – brother against brother. Sadness, angst, grief over loss of relationships, and anger have all been the emotions of recent days. It’s hard to escape.
The second reminders of the season came as I watched my favorite Christmas book, A Christmas Carol, come to life on the stage. Is there any wonder that this particular adaptation of the play at this theater opens each year with a quartet of carolers singing Still, Still, Still? It prepares the minds and hearts of the audience to pay attention – to be still and watch for what is most important by looking in our own mirrors – to listen to the characters and the messages they bring. And yes, to sit right next to Charles Dickens himself, whose own story lurks in the shadows, and to wonder: what, dear friend, do I need to see in each of these characters and change in my own life as I seek joy this season?
Is there any greater time to hear this message than right now, today? It is the message of Christmas that beckons us to think not of our own rights and wishes, but the acts of service and giving to those around us to avoid those two hideous children, Ignorance and Want, who huddle under our cloaks. Children we try to hide, who are as clear and present as decaying front teeth behind a selfish smile. Is there any greater time to seek healing in our own hearts than Christmas?
Adults are often asked if we believe in Santa. Whether we do or don’t, the greater question, I think, is whether we believe in Scrooge. Somewhere in the quiet moments, I am reassured that even old Ebenezer himself, and even the Grinch, has hope – as do I, as does this nation. And this year, perhaps more than ever before, I welcome the ghosts to remind me to count my blessings.
Reminders: A Tricube
still, still, still
we listen
our hearts thaw
still, still still
quartet sings
voices lift
still, still, still
their words ring
all year long
yesterday
a strange car
pulled up, left
just out of
range of the
cameras
this morning
way back in
our woods it
smells like pot
I can’t help
wondering
if we have
homeless folks
living in
our forest
getting rides
in strange cars
Common Threads 