When our cat died, we wept. We looked at each other differently, with more patience and not taking the other for granted, for about a week feeling her presence in her absence.
Eventually laughter returned. Whatever we learned, and will have to learn again with the next dying we face, laughter was no disrespect for her passing. The return of laughter was her gift of gratitude to us.
Linked to dVerse Poetics where Lillian is hosting. I look at this as a prose poem or aphorism.
When I can’t get off my butt, there’s nothing like a kick to do the trick.
I’m beginning to value pain. To reinforce that value I think of it as the whispering of angels calling me to pay attention. Of course, I could just as well think of it as a kick in the butt, but this is supposed to be a poem, and there is more to reality than meets the eye.
This is also supposed to be about spring, but all I hear about is winter. So. More snow? Or is it time for winter to get off its butt and go?
PAST WINTRY PAIN
COMES SPRING-BOLD RAIN
WE START AGAIN
Linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge and to dVerse Haibun Monday. Merril is hosting with the theme of March Madness.
Tame the Dragon tossed by Moon and Sun.
Flames of falsehood torch dried truth to ash.
Defend us from ourselves until you've won.
Stop the raging waves before we crash.
Flames of falsehood torch dried truth to ash.
Keep your soul prepared like a sharp sword.
Stop the raging waves before we crash.
Beware what glitters in the Dragon’s hoard.
Keep your soul prepared like a sharp sword.
Others braver than you fought but lost.
Beware what glitters in the Dragon’s hoard.
Gather only pain as worth the cost.
Others braver than you fought but lost.
Defend us from ourselves until you've won.
Gather only pain as worth the cost.
Tame the Dragon tossed by Moon and Sun.
Linked to dVerse Poetic Forms. Gina is hosting this month with the pantoum. The idea for this poem comes from M. Scott Peck’s Further Along the Road Less Traveled where he discusses “The Myth of the Hero”. Here is a quote from page 111-2:
The integration of our masculinity and our femininity is achieved very painfully. It is the struggle that the child goes through in the myth in the course of his or her growing up. But if we can go through this struggle of integration and learn how to approach the same problem with both our right brain and our left brain simultaneously, with both our masculinity and our femininity, then we too can be heroes. We too will be able to solve problems that the world has not yet been able to solve – a world that is desperately in need of heroes and solutions.
Although it’s faster to forget
And bury passing pain,
There’s much in blame that I regret.
The storm outside’s not over yet.
May clouds transform with rain.
I am hosting today at dVerse with the theme of blame and forgiveness, either or both, any form or no form, confessional or not. Come join us!
This is also linked to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
They're in the shadow of my day,
Although if I but look around
And see them in the light they’ve found -
We share that one light in some way.
It’s just a shift, a step or two,
That lets me turn to look at you.
Linked to dVerse Poetics. Gina is hosting with the theme of the magic of ordinary things. Also linked to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
The tone of words one now cannot erase,
The texture of an isolated place,
The thoughts of cheer one thought one had before
Turn into thoughts of prison evermore.
Rejoice. That promise heard about midnight
Was not a dream but dawning of new light.
Linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with theme of “unusual tones and textures”. Also linked to dVerse Quadrille where De Jackson (WimzyGizmo) is hosting with the word “cheer”.
I’ve been to Gillson Park many times. It is on Lake Michigan and there is plenty of parking. It is a little far for me to bicycle, but it would not be impossible. What’s impossible is not what’s important. What’s important is that there is a park here at all and there is a beautiful lake that waits on it like a servant.
There's a haiku here
somewhere waiting for me
to try to find it.
Linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “from an unusual angle”. Also linked to dVerse Haibun Monday where Imelda is hosting.
With empathy let’s build a way
For walls to act like doors.
The Sun receives this new-born day.
Though darkness felt it had to stay,
It left. It left us more.
Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar where Grace is hosting on the theme of the Quintain or the Quintet. I am also linking to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
Forgiveness brings the softest touch
Yet smashes walls to let in light.
We throw away the leper’s crutch.
The snow that bothered us so much
Now sparkles like bright stars of night.
Linked to dVerse Poetics where Sarah is hosting with the theme of “touch”. I am also linking to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
Photos: “Morning Snow”, above, and “Trail of Leaves Through the Snow”, below.
Memory is a circle of love that’s not always pleasant. It allows us to experience the present so we can take action moving toward the open future. It offers a passionate place to stand. The present unties the circle giving us the opportunity to spiral that remembered past into a new direction while memory weaves it all back into another circle.
That probably makes no sense.
The painful changes I have experienced through my life have been to watch parents, and others, get sick, emotionally and physically, understanding and misunderstanding these things as caused by environmental, agricultural, medical or dietary mistakes I once thought of as progress. It’s not that it was all wrong. It just needed some kind of correction that didn’t make sense to me earlier. As we let the circle untie and spiral forward there is no reason not to trust that we will do our best to add what we can to make it, in spite of everything, more beautiful.
That probably also makes no sense, but it does to me, until it doesn’t, but that’s when I can look forward to the heartbeat opening the future once again.
HAPPY PUMPKIN ORANGE
AUTUMN CHANGES MAPLE RED
SPIRALS ROUND AND ROUND
Linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme circles. I am also linking to dVerse Haibun Monday where Merril D. Smith is hosting with the theme changes or transitions.
Photos: “Pumpkin Circles”, above, and “Pumpkin Spheres”, below.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 