cozy candlelight
nestling down with fleece and tea
winds down our weeknights
{thanksfully: 18}
Month: November 2018
{thanksfully: 17}
#subtext a
even your silence
roars of your truth and deafens
are all my words null?
#subtext b
not all who wander
take mountain paths sans compass:
note: your guides are blind
#subtext c
from that pulpit preached
truth told slant, muddying facts
and i sit silent?
blueprint
rock-based construction
makes foundations earthquake proof
a steel roof weathers –
thick walls withstand storm surges
shelter welcomes refugees
{thanksfully: 16}
Not hosting Thanksgiving means I am free to conduct food experiments. There is a soursop fruit ripening in a paper bag on my dining room table. I have zero idea what I’m going to do with it, but I’m delighted to have the opportunity to play.
defensive
named “custard apple”
your spiky outsides protect
gooey sweets within
reminded of my people
i cradle you carefully
{thanksfully: 15}
Have you checked out The Anxiety Chronicles? Anxiety is such a weird thing, and everyone experiences it so differently. I’m grateful that someone thought to record the stories of different women, saying in essence:
The Lily Anxiety Chronicles
you are not alone:
your twitchy, breathless, dizzy
clammy-handed self
has, at her back, empathy
a sisterhood called Legion
{thanksfully: 14}
When things go sideways with my computer, Tech Boy glares a lot, jabs keys in rapid succession, and mutters about a new keyboard. I’m like the cobbler’s son without shoes – when something goes wrong with my tech, I delay intervention as long as possible, come up with workarounds and don’t often tell Tech Boy at all – for one thing, the man really, is very, very, very busy, and for another thing, I don’t want another laptop – I held onto my old one for ten years, and he’s already dragged me, fighting tooth and nail, into new tech. While we both use things until they fall apart, his stance on technology tends to be, “If something doesn’t work, let’s take it back to the shop and trade it in,” and I already have enough problems trying to remember how this laptop works.
But the third reason I don’t tell him? Because I’m STUBBORN. And oh, the frisson of joy when, without assistance, I figure out how to make something work by myself!
Is it weird to be grateful that I am stubborn? Because I am…
tiny victories
give me bragging rights!
it’s hardly rocket science
but intuition
raises my fists in triumph
the human will reigns supreme
{thanksfully: 13}
Autumn has finally, genuinely arrived with nighttime temps in the forties, and in other states, cities reporting rain and preparing for snow. We anticipate “sweater weather” but for me, it’s hats, tights and headwraps – it’s finally cool enough that I don’t sweat to death wearing them.
ode to orange & fuchsia tights
a slimming shade, black
approved by fashion police
(who needs approval?)
{thanksfully: 12}
This past Veteran’s Day, remembering looked different to everyone. To some, it seemed a day to beat the drum for how we have made a “great” America. For others, it was the reminder of the horrors of war. For me, it was remembering our oldest family members, and realizing anew that there were some stories they never told.
veteran’s day
patriotism seems
straightforward: a waving flag,
a love of homeland,
a readiness for service,
gratitude for sacrifice.patriots vary –
ancestors slaves or slaughtered,
immigrants, fleeing,
clinging to broken pieces
gathering shards to make Home.despite its defects
this is my Home, my country
flawed, like that uncle
at Thanksgiving who argues;
loved, like the kid’s table’s smiles.
Chōka – the long version of the tanka – consist of 5-7 on phrases repeated at least twice, and conclude with a 5-7-7 ending. I didn’t quite do that, and my envoi is completely a mess, but…meh, the exercise is to write gratitude poems, and I’m not going to worry about it.
{thanksfully: 11}
Sundays used to mean getting up really early to go grocery shopping. At six a.m., the only active thing is the produce department, a whole rafts of people replace the ravaged displays of fruit and veg. Grocery stores that early are usually peaceful — though I have run into people before who haven’t yet gone to bed — and who really need to go home, sober up, and do just that. But, still – I am grateful for early hours, and the determinedly chipper people who work them.
introvert shopping
early morning aisles:
piled deep in cardboard boxes
chilled, damp vegetables
wait beside empty displays
blesséd* is the emptiness
I know. Blessed is a single syllable, unless your syllables use formal Elizabethan phrasing.
{thanksfully: 10}
a plague of fire
devours the world with smoke
and brilliant sunsets
{thanksfully: 9}
Happy birthday to a boy I had a suuuuuper sekrit crush on at age 16. Ironic that I cannot consistently remember the birthdays of my three closest friends – or my nephews – but I can for now and forever tell you the month and year of the birth of one JB Moors. And I didn’t even like him by the time our paths parted!
Today, I am thankful for the persistence of memory… and that the human brain is a completely bizarre thing.
in·del·i·ble
who knew, years later
that his name, unwritten still
would be imprinted?
mind like a steel-trap, risking
my permanent record, marked