The Memory Lingers Prompt 6

Hi K,

Hope you are well.  I’ve been thinking about you. I know, I know…. So why didn’t I do something about it rather than just think? I couldn’t un-remember how we left things, or more specifically how we didn’t leave things the last time we saw each other. How our worlds faded, we didn’t collide, we just went off on our own orbits.

It’s been warm here but the last couple of days have been cool. I can’t help but remember how cold June was when we were growing up. May was warm, too hot for school, but June was always cold. At least in my memory which is mixed up with memories of us playing together.

Our energy provider increased the rates and changed the way they bill. They now bill at different rates for the time of day. We got fancy new meters for that. I remember how we’d run through our houses turning lights on and off, opening and closing the refrigerator. Now that behavior would drive up costs. Imagine having to remind the kids not to open the doors. 

That did bring out the solar salesfolk to walk up and down the block and knock on doors. We finally decided to spend time and listen to a sales pitch. Calculating costs at an increasing 5% per year for the next few years it would take us until 2043 to break even and begin to see the benefit of having those panels. I think we’ve finally put the question of solar panels away. Imagine, who’d have thought about our living until 2043. I think of your mom and how Congestive Heart Failure sapped her a little more every day.

We are leaving tomorrow to drive to Maine to visit with our son and family. Everyone would like us to fly rather than drive, but with all the chaos at the airports, we just don’t want to deal with all that confusion. Our compromise was to drive fewer miles each day. Stop more often. Stop for the day sooner. So, it’s going to take us five days to drive from here to there, but it seems to have mollified everyone. 

We are reasonably well, all things considered, enjoying the quirks and annoyances of adding years. I miss you. I wish things hadn’t gone the way they did.

 

Bingo

 

Fourteen Rocks – Hour Seven

 

Fourteen rocks, purple orbs
Easily crushed by hand
Scooped and shaped, delicately formed
From a child’s box of sand
Hours of fun and memories made
With all the questions born
Were these rocks native to the moon
That came to earth airborne

Or were they formed beneath the waves
Upon the ocean floor
Did fish toss them while playing catch
Until they reached the shore
Maybe they snagged a boat or three
One cannot really say
But this much is well known to me
They made a child’s day

Fourteen pretty purple orbs
Easily crushed by hand
Fun memories left to absorb
Just as Mama had planned
Children stay small but awhile
Those moments all but rare
But, if sand rocks can make her smile
It’s time I’m glad to share

Autumn

I’m never going to remind you how tired you’ve made me
I’ve learned from two decades of seasons before
Words stick with some longer than action
So with you I’ll never keep score

Such a tiny stature with the strength of the wind
Elephant trunk like voice and memory emotional and intelligent

I won’t ever remind you where you’ve come from
I don’t quite know where you’ve been

Such a lovely extension to the days I’ve been given
I’m so grateful that you’re here

Hour Seven

A night in

Netflix and chill

But like actually

Not the euphemism

And actually it’s Hulu

But anyway

Cuddle a cat

Smoke some weed

And just

Relax

i am new here

this is my first half marathon. i’m excited to participate in it.  good luck, everyone! 🙂 -spronks

Poem 4: Nineteen Twenty-two

It was the year nineteen twenty-two
And Ireland was free, after much ado
The English got the boot,
Long they may mourn their loot,
While the Emerald Isle reigns true.

 

Prompt 4 – Write a poem set a hundred years ago, or a hundred years from now.

A silent accordion

  1. Grandma didn’t talk much about going

Home.

Her green card expired ten years ago and she’s still with us.

she said she was getting old and

Time forgot her

more than she forgot everything else.

That morning when her other children sent her a plane ticket to return to the Philippines

i saw her fold it up into tight pieces

a silent accordion

I was just a teenager and never left home

but I understood—

that feeling of being homesick for a place you have yet to see

a map you’ve folded and unfolded

she wanted me to drive her cross country across mainland

USA

i was too young to get a permit and her teary eyes couldn’t wait

8 Old Toes

8      Old Toes

 

I saw her toes going east and west

Mine have swallowed large blueberries

Old toes are not forgiving or inviting

 

Sanding rock hard heels now essential

The darning egg years older than myself

Is back in service often to save socks

 

Late at night you can hear these feet as

My heels begin to tap tap on old oak floors

Heading to the bathroom at three a.m.

 

Not pedicure worthy I nurture hard places

Hoping they last for the duration of me

Vanity has little status as I need these feet

 

 

7… Tumbler, (a duotrain)

Red and orange
Blue fern leaves
Golden petals
Dancing breeze

Tumbler tumbling
See the joy
Remembering water
Love employ

Tiny wonder
Chilling core
I’m not thirsty
You are more

Perfect balance
Joyous heart
Floral Tumbler
Stands apart