Welcome to another Poetry Friday Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of JUNE.

Here’s the scoop: we’re greeting the opening act of summer with a triptych. Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske introduced West Coast poet and essayist Louise Ireland’s three-act August Triptych to me a long while back, and commented that she would use it as a mentor text someday. While I don’t know if Tab ever got there (probably yes), our someday is our today! Louise Ireland wrote from the trailing edge of summer’s wane, while we’ll compose our own triptych on the theme of diving into to the waxing of the season – in whatever way moves us. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it June 26th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. See you then.

Welcome to the potluck! For me, potlucks are ever and always church-y, bringing to mind the people and things which helped shape my primary foundations for ethics and behavior, for good or for ill. One of those church people was a four-foot-nothing Scottish woman of indeterminate age with a bubble of brown curls, spiky faux lashes, pearled pink nail polish, a tiny lisp, and a huge heart. Sandy McMahon helped out in the 4-5 year old children’s ministry department, keeping us mannerly and handing us our papers after class was over. She also kept her hard-sided purse full of treats. And, every week at potluck, she brought a molded salad – always red Jello, sometimes with fruit cocktail, sometimes with pineapple rings and sophisticated piped mayonnaise. It was her go-to offering.

Alas, I am unfond of the squidge of Jello. I loathe the cloy of mayonnaise. Then there was the ginger ale and the fruit cocktail with the (peeled!!!!) grapes in… And let’s not even go into the Cool Whip. 🤢 On good days there were mandarins. On okay days, my serving did not include one grape. On the very worst days, there were strawberries, cooked to slimy limpness by hot Jello. That texture sets my teeth on edge even in memory. But I ate everything my mother put on my plate – including that jello salad – Every. Single. Week. For one, food was to be eaten, not looked at, played with, poked at, pouted over: eaten; thus sayeth the Mother. For another thing, after potluck, Miss Sandy gave out teensy boxes of raisins to all the five-and-under crowd in the clean plate club (a dried fruit digestif, I guess). So we feral little heathens ate up, then swarmed her, hands out, all demand and barely leashed impatience. We slammed those raisins down, then walked around blowing into the boxes, making high-pitched whistling squeaks and annoying everyone. Good times.

But, come to the table! Your fellow Peeps are gathering, and the Poetry Sisters are opening bags and coolers – Laura dropped by to bless the table with a blossoms before whisking away. Cousin Mary Lee – today’s Poetry Friday hostess (Thank you, Mary Lee!) – brought a gorgeous bowl of beans. As always, Sara’s chips go with everything. Tricia’s brought her Mom’s dish to share, and Liz brought hers on a vintage plate. Cathy Stenquist brought fruit salad…plus, and Michelle K. brought a golden shovel-full of goodies, and Denise brought a basket. For the whole Poetry Friday roundup, don’t forget to circle back to Mary Lee’s post, where there’s even sides and postprandial activities! More Peeps bearing delish dishes and good gossip may show up throughout the weekend, so don’t forget to check back to see more potluck poetry links here.

Obviously, Miss Sandy deserves a poem. Which I will write. Someday. Until then, there is potluck food poetry. One rhymed randomly, the other ridiculous-but-ruly, because Padraig asked for pantoums this week, and that form was on my mind. In the random poem I took great pleasure in seeing in my mind’s eye the picture of me, age two, at church – patent leather shoes and red cabled tights, sitting primly, legs crossed… and then imagining the sticky, shouting, feral wee beastie I know lived insides – within every child (and every human, if we’re being fair). I amused myself with both poems – sometimes it’s just plain fun to write about something tiny pet peeves that are less than very minor blips in terms of the universe. Jello. Potluck. Behaving. All things which can easily be endured.

Jello Song

~ A Very Silly Poem Draft ~
The bane of all my Sabbath days:
Red jello, ginger ale,
Decorative mayonnaise…
Gelatin with fruit cocktail.

Red jello, ginger ale –
(I’m wincing as your eyebrows raise…)
Gelatin with fruit cocktail.
That jiggle held my soul’s malaise.

I’m wincing – Yes, your eyebrows raise –
I’ll spit it out! (Shush, tattletale.)
That jiggle – ugh. My soul’s malaise.
So hated – let me count the ways.

(I’ve spit it out now. Tattletale!!!)
With narrowed eyes my plate appraise.
That mayo – ugh. Beyond the pale –
No more for me. Thanks anyways.

And of course, the raisins have to have their moment:

A Smol Saint Speaks

That mini box of raisins there
I’ve waited for so patiently.
I learned my verse, I tried to share,
My hands stayed folded on my knee.

I did not pinch, or kick, or shout
(like Conrad did). I got along.
My face stayed sweet, I didn’t pout.
Miss Sandy sings the goodbye song…

And I CRAM raisins in my gob!
It’s rude and gross without a doubt.
Goodness is hard – a full-time job,
I’ve earned my treat! And church is OUT.

As I grew, Miss Sandy stayed around, though busy with a new crop of Very Smols to look after, so in the natural manner of things, I forgot her a bit. Though somehow, in a church with 600 to 800 members on the books and two services, she was still paying attention to her former charges. When I turned twelve, she presented me with a beautifully tissue-wrapped satiny peignoir from the 60’s – probably one of hers. It was the swankiest, fanciest sugary pink nylon and lace confection of a babydoll nightgown to ever be beloved by a young girl’s heart, and I simply SWOOPED around the house in that thing like I was on Dynasty. I LOVED that thing, and I cannot imagine what prompted her to gift me with that – except somehow she saw beyond the awkward sullenness and general geekery to someone whose secret longing was for pretty things. Looking back as an adult, this is even more amazing – what a brave thing to do, for a snotty tween who might have been awful to her. What a way to celebrate a growing-up moment with someone who wasn’t sure she/it was anything to celebrate (jury’s still out). May we all have a Miss Sandy in our lives when we need one – a person for whom we will eat dubiously textured things because she sees us and loves us. And, if we don’t HAVE a Miss Sandy, the Universe extends an invitation: Be One. Be the Miss Sandy you want to see in the world.

Until next time friends, remember you are so, so loved.

Happy Weekend🌷