Believe it or not, Ripley, but my tea is still hot. I get the delicious hot cinnamon spice, and when it's no longer hot, Adryn fills it with more hot water.
You never know who will show up at the group.
These fingers typed up three poems this morning. Was driving thru Hatboro on the way home from visiting a
Mental Health Facility in Warminster. The co-owner, Yanniv, asked me if I wanted something to eat or drink.
I politely declined but when I was leaving he insisted I take something.
"You know how Jews are," he said. "We've gotta feed you."
"How about some fruit?" I asked.
Driving thru Hatboro, colorful flags alerted me to a new nail salon.
How many nail salons can Hatboro support?
HATBORO: Nail Capital of the Western World. Diana's, Polished, and now Strawberry, which is HUGE! None of the Chinese women there speak English.
Man, this tea is delicious! Free advertising for the English tea company.
Les quatres!
Rollcall:
Martha wrote a fascinating short story DORA about a family living during the First World War years. The many details lent authenticity to the story. The mother in the story dies suddenly leaving several young children behind, including little Dora.
Because the factory-working father can no longer take c/o his little darlings, they go to live with an assortment of other families.
In those days, the children were made to kiss their loved ones goodbye in the coffin, the stiff cold cosmetically-altered individuals who looked like wax mummies.
It was something Dora would never forget as long as she lived.
Who was Dora? Martha's mother - real name Eunice - who told her the whole story.
This is Dora the Explorer, heroine of books, games, cartoons and of Grace Catherine Deming.
Well-done, Marf! I write "Marf" as it's easier to type up than .... oh, my aching fingers... Martha.
Deeply religious, Marf also wrote a poem Morning Star, which is meant to be sung - Marf writes religious song lyrics - and was quite beautiful. I hadn't known "Morning Star" is a synonym for God.
Next victim:
Linda Barrett wrote a new story GUN about a toddler who takes his dad's gun in the backyard and begins shooting.
That girl can write! And describe things beautifully.
Carly, with her new
Gmail address, brought in an essay "Is This the Place?" about organizing her house so she can find things. Her dad was a hoarder so said she follows in his footsteps.
Everyone's goal, hoarder or not, is to remember when we put things and to find them.
Can you relate?
She also wrote a poem "A Vastly Different Day" about when plans change.
Carlana belongs to a Writers' Group on Poem Hunter. They send daily poems and Carly shared one by Emily Dickinson. We didn't quite understand it, but it referenced the saying "You did not choose me, I chose you," from the Gospel of John.
Hmm, maybe I can watch the movie!
I was familiar with the saying b/c when I worked as a therapist at Bristol-Bensalem, I visited on my lunch hour the Mother Katherine Drexel shrine and the above saying was written on the wall, near some philadendron.
The plant sat in a small windowsill. The philadendron, like Martha and Linda, was chosen.
We were joined at the Giant by a young woman named Naseem, who we hope will attend again. She asked a great question, as she looked over our poems, "How dyou know how long to make a line?"
I said, "I look at the lines to see if they look right."
Funny how I steal various lines.
"Insatiable curiosity" in my first poem came from looking up Charlie Rose's history. As a kid, he got into trouble for his insatiable curiosity.
Our Donna couldn't be with us bc she's at home recuperating from foot surgery. When she returns next week, she'll bring a book one of her family members wrote. That's one of the ways she spends her time convalescing.
Her surgeon actually called her this morning to see how she's doing. Fancy that!
OMG! What a great song is on XPN right now. Gotta add it to my Playlist.
Alabama Shakes - Hang Loose - Boys & Girl
Lemme tell you something if you promise to keep it to yourself.
I can't stand reading my poems again.
MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Suddenly
I’m
awake,
everything,
including
myself,
unknown.
I
swing my legs
to
the hardwood floor
see
a flash of light:
Car
coming down the street.
Insatiable
curiosity:
Why?
During the
wee-wee
hours,
which
is where I’m headed.
Barefooting
it back
to
bed I realize
I
am not alone
My
tribe lies
outside
outside
these
yellow
walls of
the
shelter
we
call “house.”
Please!
I need to
be
alone, as I tuck
my
once-deerskinned
legs
beneath what
once
were bearskin covers
feeling
the
presence
of
the
Lenapes
who
dwelled here
on
this rain-soaked
grass
my
home, where
acorn
stew or char-broiled squirrel
has
never been served
their
only trace
the
deer that
come
sauntering
home
in twilight.
MOM ON THE PHONE: DEEDS
I
sit on the stair
clipping
my toenails
the
cream has smoothed
out
the jagged bottoms
of
my dry winter feet
as
she tells me about
the
changes her taxman’s
suggested
at her
august
age.
Get
your name off
all
deeds, he tells her.
She’s
in good health
heart
steady as a
metronome
mouth
spewing
commandments
I
always obey
Ninety-one
at last count
she
told me Eighty hit
her
hard
“I
still have the deed
from
the Travis’s” she said
in
her young nonmalignant voice.
The
house is in both
our
names
When
I remove her name
will
she die?
She doesn’t much like music
or
my sister Donna
loud
TV – a Doctor Oz
in
ridiculously-looking scrubs
greets
me when I come over
to
the house which she no longer
owns
One
of the humiliating losses
we
face as we near the finish line
a
marathon runner
collapsing,
owning nothing,
not
even themselves.
BACKYARD TREES
How
the maples
have
told my life
the
way calendars
do
yours
Lines,
sticks, delicate curves
every
geometric shape possible
beheld
from my tiny bathroom window
changing,
growing, dying with
every
passing day
commingled
with a black plastic wire
that
bounces in the wind
allowing
electricity to flow
soundlessly
into the house.
I
cannot say the words
“my
house”
it
is too magnificent
to
be mine, filled with rooms
furniture,
desks, computers
a
television, antiques and black
Bic
pens in every room and
on
the marble night-stand.
A
quarter of a century of
watching
backyard trees
now,
tiny red blossoms
portend
the coming of
yet
another spring
I
am not so young anymore
but
always the collection of
bare
naked branches,
lines
you can interpret
as
pick-up sticks
housing
for birds
and
squirrels
crinkly
lines around
my
eyes and mouth
somehow,
I know not why,
people
ask, “Are you retired?”
The
trees know better.
We
salute one another
and
I cherish them
children
rooted deep in the grassy ground.
