Today’s Prompt was a picture of a sculpture in the snowy woods. I focused on the slow process of death.
Transitions
She begins transitioning
From life to death
The process creeps
Like a slow morphine drip
Sentences shorten
To phrases
Phrases to mumbles
Mumbles to silence
Movement loses fluidity
Like a toddler’s first steps
No muscles pulling and pushing
Only bruised flaccid flesh
Until lying in a bed is all
Her dying body can do
In silence and waiting
For her soul to rise, free.
Today’s Prompt: What thoughts do you have about hands?
Hands I Miss
Zoom’s hand-raise feature
No substitute for dirty pink palms
For the bobbing up and down
In the middle of my lesson
Zoom’s hand-raise feature
Some use it sparingly, like salt
Others keep it up constantly
Like my pressure after lunch
Zoom’s hand-raise feature
No substitute for sweaty smudgy skin
Or the open hand in the camera
Or a sweet voice saying, “Ooo, ooo!!”
Prompt: Write a poem about bodies dancing. I watched a clip of Gregory Hines from White Knights to inspire my poem. I used the form “abacadaba” also known as the Magic 9 poem.
To the Beat of Unity
Grooving to the same song inside
Arms and legs sync tight and smooth
One clap, one tap, glide
One sound, two bodies in love
Come, world let music be your guide
Reflecting each other in unison
Stomp out hate, the pulse of your pride
Let spirit rhythms heal and soothe
America, rise up, let’s dance outside
Memories of Mondays
On Monday’s Chili Night
We’d drive down the hill
From our house to Nana’s
For a delectable family dinner
And bellies brimming with love
Five long miles later
Her old wooden door ajar for air and us
Enough to let the spices pique
We knew
It was a two-bowl night
A two-tortillas-and-cheese-on-top night
Some added Tabasco and black pepper
Nana’s Chili, always just right to me
Scooting up close to the table
My chin parked on the doily mat
All that good stuff
Nana’s family spread
Her “good bowls and plates”
Rolled up napkins because she’s fancy
Punch bowl ladle we couldn’t touch
Because our hands were wreckless
Mommie and Nana side by side
My sister and I eye to eye
Stepdad and cousin head the table
We’d eat
And laugh and talk
Joke about what Nana forgot to make this time
The cornbread or the salad
We would serve up round two
We’d eat again
And laugh and talk
I’d watch and remember
And make Chili Beans on a Monday night
Thirty years later
What I want is
A backyard with a lap pool
For daily swims and summer luxuries
What I want is
Two chocolate Australian Labradoodles
Who wait for me each morning
Through my garden path, we walk
Up to the clearing on the hill
Where the ocean view welcomes us
Before I sit on my meditation mat
Basking in gratitude and blessings
Giving God all praise and thanks
For sunshine, salty breezes, and lavender
For intentional breathing, and stillness, and joy
What I want is
Peace that surpasses all understanding
That shields and guides my path
Back to my home where love abides
Where journals and books await my hands
Where inspiration flows beside the fountain at my back door
Where I write, read, and live the way I want
Have what I want and when I want it.
This poem is dedicated to every young woman who thinks she’s fabulous and has no fear of aging.
Why didn’t anyone warn me?
No one talked about aging the way they talked about puberty
Didn’t they know we wouldn’t fear lean muscles and high sex drives?
Why didn’t I know the bra I prayed for would become a daily chokehold?
Why didn’t I know my natural libido would require replacing?
What happened to energy and enthusiasm to M o V e?
Why is staying asleep each night harder than falling asleep at a matinee?
Where did my muscles go?
Are they hiding inside my bones?
When did my arms start flapping?
And why are my thighs CLAPPING?
Why didn’t anyone warn me?
Hair down there would grow wilder?
And getting waxed would become more rattling than a root canal?
Who’s face is this?
Did my grandmother sneak inside my soul?
Is my mother reincarnated in me?
Who’s ass is this all bagged up like cotton balls?
Does my back ache because it’s finished with standing up for me?
Do my feet hurt because they’re tired of walking in my shoes?
Why didn’t anyone warn me the way I am warning you?
Wait, what were we talking about?
My Nana’s kitchen
Jam-packed
10 x 10
Painted in holiday memories
Turkey
“Help me pull the innards out.”
Stuffing
“We have to burn the toast first.”
Rice Dressing
“Use the grinder for the onions and peppers.”
Candied Yams
“Have you seen my marshmallows?”
Ham
“Stick the cloves in.”
Green beans
“You need to eat your vegetables.”
Mustard Greens
“Everyone loves my greens except you.”
Mincemeat pie
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Icebox cookies
“Stir the batter the right way!”
Fudge
“It has to melt all the way down.”
And her fizzy foamy fruit punch
Mixed with rainbow sherbet
Pineapple juice
And 7-up
In her antique punch bowl
“You better not break my cups.”
My Nana’s kitchen
Steeped in
Love
Family
Recipes
Life
Where I wondered
if her cigarette ashes
ever fell into the greens
and the pie
Or if the food stuck to her dress
was from last year
or from when my Mommie was little
Where I couldn’t question her
because it was not appropriate
I had to trust her
because she was my Nana
Imagining You
At 6:28
You stretched your old wobbly arms
Across autumn’s fiery sky
To find a quiet place
Where your crinkled crackly hands
Could touch both of your daughters’ hearts
You reached past a zillion grains of sand
Above dirty blankets swaddling homeless bones
Over salty hair flying in the evening breeze
On winding paths where bicycles whizzed by
And mothers towed tired children towards home
The sun’s gradual disappearance
Echoed how you silently slipped away
But its warmth and peace
Reminded us that what goes away eventually returns
We faced each other
And there you were
In our eyes
Looking right at us
My poem was inspired by Carlos Almaraz’s pastels on paper called, “I Dreamed I Could Fly.” © 1986, Carlos Almaraz Estate
Ancestral Dreams
Standing tall and old
in front of my childhood home
was the tree that held the faces
of relatives long gone
of ancestors in chains
who called out to me
soundless
hands reaching
with love
eyes like guiding lights
Divine powers cloaked me
into sacred sap
down to invisible roots
“Fear not the flames
Nor the storms.”
Fires burned rooftops
Smoke billowed from windows
But heaven’s hallowed haze
Shifted to show me myself
Flying and free.
Everyone graduated from college
My village of educated relatives
Framed diplomas adorning our walls from
The UC’s, the Cal States, and the HBCUs
But no one talked about
The pain or the insanity
Of trying to fit into petite square boxes
With our plump chocolate hips
No one sat us in the family circle
To discuss how divisions
Destroyed mama and daddy
And how he never wanted her to work
And we walked on cat’s feet past the door
Where mama’s light began to dim
Where her song shallowed
And daddy always left at night.