Note: My husband requested a poem to go with his favorite photo of our dogs, The Scampers. The photo was taken in the spring of 2016, when they were four months old.
After a dry, breezy week and weekend with yard work and new leaves on the bushes, Monday finds us damp and misty, with light rain and snow from late this afternoon through Tuesday night. Welcome moisture after the dry grass and carrying water in a cup to pour around the emerging wildflower plants.
new leaves garbed in green unfold into warm sunlight despite rising winds
tomorrow night’s soon enough to doze under falling snow
what were those hours and minutes when measured against decades of a long life well and fully lived?
a smile, briefly known and always loved, the joy of songs and sighs and laughter faded now in the vacuum left behind, short-lived breeze that warmed, then cooled again
the absence of your touch… your lips remembered always as soft whispers on my neck
The end of a long week. Last weekend and Monday, the first of March, I enjoyed my busy schedule. As I mentioned early last weekend, February is National Haiku Writing Month (nahaiwrimo), and I attended both the Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon haiku poetry readings via Zoom. Between the two sessions, I read seven haiku that I wrote during February 2021. I saw again several poets I know from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA, lifetime member). I think that I would like to meet online with them and others more often than I have in the past. While I do not feel equal to extensive involvement in organizations, anymore, the social interaction is something I believe I’m still up to.
On Monday evening, I enjoyed a celebration of Saint David’s Day held by Jo Walton and friends online that featured two sessions of musical performances and poetry readings by various participants. St. David is the Patron Saint of Wales. (My Owen ancestors left Wales to settle in upper New York, I think, in the mid-1600s.)
Since then, I have been relaxing. Catching up on sleep and solitude. Reading a lot and napping with the Scampers. The dogs enjoy curling up on the footrest of my recliner, but if I turn over too often, they get down from the chair and move under the footrest, and so I have to be careful, getting up.
The weather, here, has taken a turn toward the warm. The snow is rapidly melting, and the air quality has disimproved, again. Supposedly, it will clear up over the weekend. I should have grabbed one of my cotton face masks on my way back to my chair, Right now, Thaddeus has settled on my legs, again, and so I may just take another nap.
I look forward to the coming weekend for more than improved air quality. Tomorrow afternoon, there is a social hour on Zoom, again, with Liz Danforth and patrons from across the globe. And I look forward to meeting for worship, which I did not attend, last weekend, in favor of the NaHaiWriMo poetry readings. I do hope there such gatherings at the end of next February, also. Enjoyed it.
This past week, I have reread books by Steven Gould that I have not looked at for a long time. That is, I had no electronic editions: Exo and Impulse. Also, I am rereading the last two books in L.E. Modesitt Jr.’s Imager Portfolio series. Al bought a set of headphones for me for my computer, and so I went online to listen again to more recent works of Tokio Myers on his YouTube channel. Lovely stuff, but I find I must turn off the pulsing lights added to some of the pieces. Aside from classics, my husband’s musical tastes and mine don’t match up. With the headset, I can turn up the volume.
I have made more space on this website and hope to do more of my blogging here, again, rather than on the WordPress blog.
I’m happy that you’ve stopped in. I look forward to looking in on many of the other Weekend Coffee Share posts, this weekend.
It’s been a while since I’ve deliberately set aside “vacation” time over the end-of-year holiday season. With the quiet of the pandemic and the increasing activity online, I think I need to cut back my hours interacting with people. While I was working freelance, especially during the busiest of those thirty years, I set aside the Christmas and New Year’s Day weeks as a quiet space in the midst of all the activity. We cut down holiday visits from two households to one, when my parents no longer wished to entertain, and since, the expanding families in my husband’s line have resulted in his siblings refocusing, also.
Until the pandemic came along and the virtual face-to-face interactions popped up via Meet and Zoom, Discord, and other venues, I felt…safe from disruptions. Now, I need to mark off blocks of solitude, again. Gathering/settling time for us—our family unit of adults and dogs. And space for quiet reengagement with and within my self.
Celebrating the anniversary of Father’s birthday on Saturday. He would have turned 104. He thought that 100 years was overly long. I wonder, you two, if you still do something special together on the Special Days. Dinner and dancing with friends? Just curious…
The poem that I wrote, this morning between 2:30 and close to 4:00 o’clock, is still in its first draft.
The dogs woke me up just after two o’clock, Climbing out of bed to sleep on the floor I can hear the wind gusts rattle windows And on the other side of town The Empire Builder’s whistle blow
I remember when I lived down near the tracks, Fifty years or more ago, sitting on a bench With Charles D–, waiting for his train…
A bit of the flavor, anyhow. Remembering the late 1960s and solitary men waiting for the night train in the upper Midwest, headed for Seattle. Lot of work yet to do on it. The first draft goes on for two or maybe three or four more stanzas. Putting it aside to revise/rewrite during the winter. Maybe get a night photo of the actual train depot, if it’s still there. I haven’t gotten to that area on foot for a couple decades.
When I first woke up, this morning, to let the dogs into the back yard, I heard the gathering of crows in tall trees around the neighborhood. I love their song at the beginning of the day, and again at evening.
Prompt: Write a kimo, an Israeli poetic form that tends to capture a moment (like a photograph in words), using three unrhymed lines with syllable count 10, 7, 6.
The poem that I wrote, this morning between 2:30 and close to 4:00 o’clock, is still in its first draft. UNDER REVISION.
Putting this one aside to revise/rewrite during the winter. Maybe get a night photo of the actual train depot, if it’s still there. I haven’t gotten to that area on foot for a couple decades.
