Truth be told

More from the April Writer’s Digest challenge, the brain child of Robert Lee Brewer, a WD editor and blogger at Poetic Asides. The first of these is personal, based on the prompt to write an ekphrastic poem, a poem inspired by a work of art – photograph, sculpture, or some other creation. Words of Art is based on a wooden wall hanging given to me by Kathy Allen for my birthday last year.


Kathy Gift 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORDS OF ART

“a good friend
knows all of
your stories,
a best friend
helped you write them.”
So reads the wooden wall hanging
given to me by a dear friend
for my seventy-fifth birthday.
On the backside she wrote,
“We’ve made many stories
during our 55 years
(and counting)
of friendship.
Let’s write more!”

Eight months later
she and her husband were gone.
A terrible accident,
one that took two amazing
people and the stories we
– and they –
would write.
They went from this life
to the most profound
adventure of them all.
Yet, I grieve still.
They were and are a part of my heart.
This crafty wooden work of art
carries wisdom and memories in equal measure.
Take no moment for granted.
Treasure those you love.


BEING OTHER

Change is a coin,
a thought,
a mind,
an idea,
a life.

Change suggests
being other
than we are now,
influenced by
opinions,
facts,
experiences,
truths and lies.

Being other
than who you are
right now,
can be better,
or worse,
an improvement,
or cataclysmic devastation.

Who decides if
you will be other
than who you are today?
Society?
Friends?
Enemies?

Surround yourself
with people who
challenge you
yet give you encouragement.
it is the melding of the two
that makes being other,
be you.


COMMUNICATION

If the missive is massive
the meat of the message
may get lost in translation.
Massive experience forms
intellectual confidence…
or does it form massive
pride and disregard for
opposite opinions?
When you communicate,
keep it simple
(not dumbed down)
but understandable,
relatable, perhaps
a touch compassionate.
A few words well said
may make a massive,
life-changing difference
to someone in need
of a voice whispering
in the light.



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Poetry in Notion

Apple Blossoms

SPACED OUT

Give me space!
I have no place
in life’s maddening race,
where I exist, by God’s grace,
yet hunger to see a familiar face
as distancing makes its case,
to be masked with haste!
To ward away the virus’ pace,
advancing, advancing! Lives laid waste…


FOLLOW THE LIGHT

One candle, one light
sputtering and stuttering.
Winds of change cannot,
will not smother its glow.
The light of truth
grows brighter
moment-by-moment,
overshadowing the darkness of lies.


 

A NEW WORLD

How will what I do in this moment
give hope and help to someone else,
so they know the hellish world of today
will not always be this way?

For something more, my heart yearns.

Make this New World, when it begins,
one full of kindness and comfort,
love, one for another, rippling, flowing
as toward the future we are going.

We ask for ‘normal’ to return.

For something more my heart yearns,
a New World where words of care
are backed up by action taken,
the status quo shaken, shaken.


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April PAD Challenge

RoseI’m belatedly taking part in the Writer’s Digest April Poem a Day Challenge. Below are three new works. Enjoy.

QUIRKS WORK

Life at its best is quirky for you,
and at its worst, it’s quirky too;
you start with one thing in your head,
and life throws you a spanner instead!
A monkey wrench, if you will,
a quirk to give you a chill
taking over your plan for the day
in an annoyingly unexpected way.
Or… it brings a new quest
that shows you at your amazing best.
The outcome of quirks are up to us,
Disasters or adventures, no need to fuss.
Make the best of life’s quirks;
find in yourself what really works.


 

SOCIAL DIALOGUE

You asked me to dance.
I said, NO! Not a chance.
There are many things I’d like to do,
one of them is to NOT dance with you.
Why, you may ask,
am I not up to the task?
You are an elephant; I’m a giraffe
everyone would look at us and laugh!
This social dialogue ends with a grin,
animals talking, it’s my poetic whim.


 

WANDER ON A CROOKED ROAD

In the way of life on the dusty road,
it turns and twists, wanders here and there,
gives rise to questions without answers.
The chatter of dissenting voices mirrors the road,
turning and twisting, giving rise to answers for questions unasked.
The road bends and dips, throwing life onto a battered field,
knocking it cold but for the hot tears that stream from life.
What is that shooting up from the ground
where salty tears touched the soil?
It is a flowering vine, that quickly grows,
turning the field into a meadow,
lush and abounding with life.
Life shakes off despair and sets off once again
to wander on the crooked road.


More later this week. Please let me know what you think. Like, comment, share.


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Easter Prayer

Stock Photography - Easter Lily Close Up

There can be no safer place to be
than in the certainty of God’s love.
Every bumpy, curvy road
can be made straight
by this assurance:
God’s love and protection
are always present.
Problems don’t disappear;
our ability to manage them
is strengthened in the light of his promise
to be with us always.

Christ lived that we might live.
Christ died that we would be saved.
Christ arose that we might have hope.

God knows our need;
God gives us tools
to be wise and courageous
in the most difficult of times.
He does not forget us
when we are less than faithful.
He waits for us to return to the rock of his refuge.

Thank you, God, for your presence.
In times of uncertainty,
relieve our anxiety,
give us strength and courage day-by-day.

– Amen

Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go. Psalm 71:3


 

Shadow Dance

Shadow Trees

Spindly and bare,
trees striped and spare,
look at them dance
and boldly prance
in shadows that flow
across fields of snow.

Spindly and bare
trees striped and spare,
Beautifully arrayed
this woody brigade,
rooted yet wild
like a sturdy child.


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THE BROKEN LIFE

Broken Life

 

 

 

 

Pain is plain,
a heart’s wretched stain
that weeps in the night
when hope takes flight.
Grieve as you must
for love withered to dust,
let go of your grief,
find release.
You’ve done your best,
lay your pain to rest,
you cannot repair
someone else’s despair.
Pray, pray for a better day,
for your loved one to find his way
from cracked and broken
to hope and peace re-awoken.


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HONESTLY – A POEM FOR 2020

pexels-photo-3036525.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought hard about the poem I’d write
as 2020 barrels toward me
and decided it didn’t matter
because life in the next 365 days
is something over which I have zero control.

I pray to be healthy and for my husband
and other loved ones to be healthy, too.
But that goes without saying,
does it not?
What do I want 2020 to look like,
in a perfect world, one where everything
– and I do mean EVERYTHING –
goes my way?

Family relationships will be reformed and strengthened.
The work I labor at
will go viral (in a good way) and I will become
the it author of the next decade.
So my personal aspirations are smallish.

On the world stage I would hope for
peace and well being for all,
a world where respect and civility
overcomes hate and violence,
a world in which war is a thing of the past,
and kindness determines the course of human affairs.

In my perfect 2020, I would
– listen more and talk less,
write more and talk less,
do more and talk less,
volunteer more and talk less,
be kind more and talk less,
laugh more and talk less.

I’m not about making resolutions;
I never keep them.
I can’t give sage advice;
my life is its own kind of mess,
so I’m in no position to tell you how to live yours.
Sanctimonious pontificating is a drug I don’t want to get hooked on.

What do I want 2020 to hold?
With anticipation I pray it will be one happy surprise after another,
and when there is sadness thrown into the mix,
I pray for the faith and strength to get through it;
– whatever it may be.
And as co-members of this thing we call the human family –
I pray the same for you.

Happy New Year – 2020


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ADVENT WREATH

Advent

Advent reminds us
that around the Christ candle there is –
Hope.
Peace.
Joy.
Love.
Words to live by
in an often tumultuous world.
Amazing Grace says eloquently
what we most need to know about these words,
especially Love.
We are redeemed, not because of who we are,
but because of who Jesus is,
born in lowly circumstances, Savior and Redeemer.
We cannot earn God’s saving Grace;
it is freely given,
Love personified –
Christ in a manger;
Christ teaching and healing;
Christ on a cruel cross;
Christ dead and buried;
Christ arisen, Triumphant!
The best gift we can give
is to be there for people when they need us.
God’s gift is the gift of Love,
a gift we can share all through the year.


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December Moon

December Moon

Night shades the cloud-shrouded moon,
cold white against the inky sky
framed by a lacework of leaf-striped limbs
intertwined by nature’s refining hand.

What stories does the moon observe
as it passes through the starless expanse
on its way to the other side to see
an end to one day, and the beginning of another?


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Christmas

Light of the World

Not a holiday, a holy day.
If there be excess
let it be an excess of kindness and mercy.
There is no place in Christmas
for anything but joy.
Change the Christmas sprint
into the Christmas Spirit.
Jesus lived as humanly as any of us
and left an example for us to follow.
Love God
and love your neighbor.
Simple rules, easy to follow.
That is Christmas.


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Photo: pexels-photo-1652109.jpeg