Composed 10/14/16
Description: For today’s Daily Prompt: Candle.
Perhaps someday
When I move far away
I can keep you by my fireplace
And some by my bedside
But certainly in the kitchen
I’ll keep one of you alight
So it smells like Mom’s baking
Cookies, cakes, and
Pumpkin pie
Composed 4/25/16
Description: Don’t worry. I’m going to keep chugging out these until I have one for every day of April! Here’s one for Day 22.
Most picture life like a movie
Bright vibrant scenes and distinct flashbacks
Every stitch visible and later accessible
To in-depth inspection and speculation
You might say
She’s an open book
Like you could open her up and read
A history scene by scene
But life is rarely so pristine
Life is more like a poem
A blur obscured by emotion
Colored by the hue of one moment
Each other a metaphor viewed through hammered glass
We glance though make interpretations
Memories fade but
It’s the interpretations that last
Composed 3/10/16
Description: For today’s prompt: Legacy.
My words
May fall into the air
And fly off, up to bare mountain tops
They may slip right past flitting eyes
Or land there, but soon fade swiftly from the mind
I, likely, will fail to gain fame
Or even a following of any mass
But alas
I shall tuck these words away
Safe
In some one-day dusty tome
They will find a home in my bookshelf
And someday in a young one’s hands
And that young one may know me only by
My words
Composed 4/2/15
Description: Day 3 of NaPoWriMo. (I may have cheated a little and wrote this one late yesterday, technically.)
It’s so easy to be deceived
By a moment, frozen in your own mind
To love an idea, a fantasy
Stored in imperfect memory
Tied to your sweet imaginings
And cling
Swerving every red flag
In an attempt to finish the race
You thought you’d abandoned hope
Perhaps that is safer
Than throwing yourself into a lie
Best, wasting time
Worst, wasting life
Oh God,
Just keep my feet fixed on the floor
Composed 3/24/15
Description: A common frustration.
Some pluck time like frozen roses
To set that night at the dinner table
Some prized, some poisoned
Admired, analyzed, later addressed
Preserved or left to die
I wish I could remember to
Stop and take the time
To pluck or rose or lily
Instead of rushing by
Because the table seems so empty
When I come home at night
Like I’ve not lived the whole day
It’s numb, it’s
Gray
Composed 2/19/15
Description: For Writing 201: Day 5, which tells us to write an elegy using fog and metaphor.
Thinking about the past and fog together reminded me of dementia, about which I have ever-increasing experience.
Did you know her in the glory days?
When she smiled that Hepburn smile?
When she danced to Frank Sinatra
And flirted with the navy boys?
Did you see her marry on a whim?
Rub the growing life inside?
Fretting over baby books
And shopping for baby carriages?
Did you see her raising four young boys?
Commanding their whos and whats and whens?
Sending each off with a bride?
Then Tuesday nights with girlfriends and bridge?
I never saw her this clearly
No, I only see her in the fog
Sometimes she reaches out
Sometimes I catch a glimpse
But the fog pulls her back in
Only you remember the glory days
So cherish every memory
Because once she stepped into the fog
They weren’t so certain
They’re mostly gone
Composed 8/5/13
Description: Inspired by this week’s Weekly Writing Challenge: I Remember. The prompt was this: “Set a countdown timer for 10 minutes, choose one of the writing prompts below, and just start writing. Whatever you do, don’t stop for ten minutes. Keep your fingers typing. Write what you remember.” The prompts following were Earliest, Happiest, Worst, or Freestyle memory. Because I have already written about my first memory, I chose the other one that came most naturally: the worst.
What was I doing? I don’t know. I was in the family room; I know that. It was my safe haven. I was surrounded by colorful paper, markers, paint, glue sticks, scissors – just in case I got inspired. My laptop was there as well, right in front of me on the little table in front of the TV. I was probably exploring the Internet or doing homework at the time.
Whatever I was doing, I was doing it without a care in the world.
The phone rang. I didn’t pay much mind to it. Mom would get it. I was so oblivious. I did not even pay attention the conversation taking place a few rooms away. I had no idea of its significance.
Mom called me a few minutes later. I stood, and we met at the end of the family room by the garage door. She looked at me. Something was off. The words she said next would shake up my whole life; they were the words of nightmares, the ones everyone hopes to never hear. She said those words to me.
“The doctor called. They found something on the MRI.”
I froze. The MRI. The seizure I had in the church bathroom a few weeks ago. But… that was all just a dream now. The MRI had been an afterthought. “Just covering my butt,” our doctor said. I thought the seizure was a fluke – just exhaustion after a late band competition. My brain was fine, I thought. I was so convinced of that I didn’t even entertain the possibility of…
Two seconds later tears were running down my face. Sniffs were starting. I was holding in sobs.
Mom, in a similar state, hugged me. I’m not sure now of her exact words, but the sentiment was this: I’m scared too, but we’ll get through this.
Composed: 4/20/13
Description: Inspired by a prompt in Christina’s post 5 Ideas to Get You Writing. The prompt was “write about your earliest memory.” This is the result.
I remember it dearly
That sweet lullaby
I curled into her shoulder
Warm, pacified
Late in the evening
A scene draped blue
Black trees in the window
Swaying in view
Was the setting that evening
As she rocked me to slumber
Humming a song
I don’t even remember
I must have dozed off then
Safe in her arms
Implicit I love yous
Deterring all harms
Scraps of Paper 