24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
When I was in fourth grade, I won a classroom essay contest. The prize was a pencil case. Since that day, writing has been a hobby, a career, and a passion. I spent most of my professional life as a journalist, newspaper columnist, and public relations specialist. In my semi-retirement years, I find joy in writing and teaching poetry.
God created a pasture of pink.
Cherry colored flowers
sprawled across a hillside.
Crimson leaves on a lone tree.
Burgundy hues against a blue sky.
“Look,” said God, “a spectrum.
From the light laughter of pink
to a deep, brooding burgundy,
I am the artist of your soul.”
“Look deeper,” he urged.
“Beyond the vibrant, urgent ‘now,’
of a pastel prairie
is the endless, eternal comfort of blue
outlasting the cherry, the burgundy, the crimson,
and the pink.”
I had promises to keep
but instead regarded Robert Frost,
who stopped his horse to watch the woods
fill up with snow.
I paused, too,
from time to time
while those around me
grew impatient
waiting for me to go again.
Harness bells jingled in my brain
reminding me that time was not my own.
I had promises to keep.
I kept as many as I could,
failed at some
but rarely stopped to watch the snow.
I stop more often now
as my journey shortens with age.
I make no promises
to anyone but me.
And I have promises to keep.
Source: Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost.
She pulled an old washtub
into the back yard.
Filled it with water.
Dressed me in a swimsuit.
Set me in the shade
Hot August day.
No swimming pool.
No A.C.
Too hot to nap.
Too hot to play.
But Mom made do.
She pulled an old washtub
into the back yard.
I am truly exhausted this year.
I want to quit; not one more poem.
Emotions are depleted.
Words are without meaning.
Still I write one last,
nonet entry.
Willpower
propels
me.
An abandoned storefront
sits sadly on the main street of a small town.
The spread of chain stores
has robbed America of individuality.
Box stores beat out neighborhood merchants
leaving the country impoverished of creativity and courage.
A skyscraper does not have the heart
of a weathered storefront
even though it stretches high as a passing cloud.
Better to shop a store with three aisles
for sourdough bread and periwinkle bedsheets
than to feed the corporate coffer.
We have become a nation of words.
Social media is godlike,
the fountain of faith and information.
We proclaim, “I am …”
adding whatever suits us at the moment.
“I am …”
“I believe …”
“I know …”
“I hate …”
Our words echo loudly
on the silence of a screen,
hurting others, challenging others, defaming others.
We create personas on a keyboard,
believing what we type.
Buried somewhere in that verbiage
is on old, forgotten axiom:
Actions speak louder than words.
And we continue our screen-for-all.
A hero named Miles
taught school in Staggerford, Minnesota.
Around him, a cast of teachers and students.
Bright students, dull students,
creative students, boring students, bored students,
and the daughter of the bone woman.
Outside of class,
Miles was a mild Midwesterner.
He roomed with a Catholic school teacher,
sort of dated his neighbor,
lamented not marrying Anna Thea.
He called her Thanatopsis to her amusement
and her husband’s annoyance.
Miles was uncertain where his life was headed
until the day he become an accidental hero
and was mourned by the students, the landlady,
the sometime date, the bone woman’s daughter,
and Thanatopsis.
My goal was, simply, to be normal.
Married with children,
then easing into retirement
and grandparenting.
Traveling now and then
to some interesting
or exotic place.
A well-kept home,
shaded and landscaped.
A well-lived life,
safe, loved, satisfied.
But I have learned
that vision of life is not normal, at all.
Life is uncertain, messy,
sometimes cruel.
Life is joy and sorrow,
triumph and failure,
anxiety and peace.
Life doesn’t settle for normal.
I stepped outside into the misty rain,
reveling in a cooler day
after a long heat wave.
Not caring if my new sandals
encountered puddles or mud.
Feeling my jacket and jeans
dampen as I circled the neighborhood,
watching gardens and flower pots revive.
Reluctant to go home,
I wandered around another block
and another
before deciding to amble
back downhill
and go home for a cup of green tea.
Digging into the past
is a literal term when one unearths
a time capsule.
Unexpected discovery
in the garden of my new home,
prodded from underneath the dirt
by a tiller.
I expected to find the remains of a pet,
in the rusty metal box.
No pet skeleton under the lid,
but a skeleton of a different kind.
The skeleton of joy extinguished.
Black and white photos of a young couple.
Newspaper clippings about a wedding.
Letters from an army private in World War II,
postmarked France.
A medal.
An obituary.
A wedding ring.
She buried her sorrow.
I pray that she found resurrection.