The Poetry Marathon

I can not believe I made it to the end.
It was an interesting journey that took much prayer and meditation.
The words may flow and the ideas may gather in one place.
Even so, it’s a miracle I made it to the finish line by nothing but grace.

Many started out with me and I hope we all passed the test.
Perseverance and creativity has to be in the mix or it’s just a mess.
The biggest reward in life is knowing you can stand through the storm and the rain.
When you stick your chest out, you don’t have to feel ashamed.

The cold stabbed my skin
The light shone brightly
The Christmas tree,
Norway Spurce, was standing tall in Rockefeller
There were massive discounts

The happiest time of the year
Hot chocolate was my companion
While passing by Manhattan
People were smiling

The parties were held
Festive food was served
The church was full
The theatre was crowded

People celebrated the joy
Joy of the world
The saviour

New York and Winter, my December was so great
I felt the vibes
I skate during winter
The snow was so tick, I slipped a lot
I love it, I love it
Everything I’ve been dreamt of, came true

I love December,
December 2019 was one of my best Decembers
December is always about love and joy, yet 2019 was the most unforgettable one

Petals lovely in a delicate blue
Fragile and few
Leaning in,
See the lines
And the damage
The imperfections unique
Held too tightly
She collapses
Extinguished by force
Her fragility
Was transparent

A pressed blue flower
Forever preserved summer
Generational glory

Worship those idols you see on the screen

It’s not easy to write a poem now

I have struggled throughout the morn

It is almost completed, yay

The ending is nearing friends

It has gone well enough

Will I be back?

I sure hope

next year

lock

Autumn descends … slowly
Directed by nature’s magic
Leaves surrender to the hues of red and flaming gold
The world, buttons-up all to await the changes

Colour me yellow in shades of decay
Leaves stencilled as images of the living
Green, green the rushes grow
Sweet hours spent within the fields
In meadows and woods
Foraging under hedgerows
Lost in a bygone era

Protected from the anguish
Children allowed to just be children
A simpler lifestyle
Where time seemed to stand still

In Montana, (“like mountains!”)
Home of bears and wolves
And pale blue, green, purple Montana sapphires
And the periwinkle flower, 3 inches in the ground with fibrous roots
vinca major, and vinca minor
A woman spends the summer in service
of Glacier National Park
Above Bowman lake
Her eyes trained for fires
At 7 in the morning
The mountains’ reflection are perfect on the lake
I barely slept fearful we would be too late to make the cut
A limited number of people are allowed in –
we arrived first, not last
And made coffee and eggs on the beach
Andrew fished and taught me to cast
Full of fear that I would hook one of us in the legs
We overheard an off duty ranger
Tell some early hikers
Of the woman who lives above the trees
And about the bears
“Berries are in season
Don’t get between them and the huckleberry bushes and you will be fine
Three people died in the backwoods of the park this week
People don’t understand that this is the wilderness”
Our fire watcher goes up in the early summer
A mule packed with her most basic supplies
Up into the mountain and her cabin on stilts
And for four months she watches for fire
Her supplies meant to spread, stretch the summer
She watches the clouds and
reads what is white and what is grey
What is fire and what is storm
Smoke versus cumulus
I am child stomping through puddles
Thinking of taking her place, her summer job

The truth is sometimes jarring.

We can sometimes be a mess.

But messes are not monsters.

So please stop ripping out your chest.

Backstabbed

Bleeding

History

Repeating

Secrets

Spoken

Confidence

Broken

Undeserved

Condemnation

Unforgiven

Devastation

Sisterhood

Severed

Enemies

Forever

(A foursquare poem is a format I created during the 2020 Poetry Marathon which consists of four stanzas of four lines, each line being composed of a single word.)