That Kiss

melting into your kiss –

a recurring memory I hang onto

to keep me sane

to say goodbye

to move on

Pat

2/21/23

For poetics over at dVerse where Kim is hosting and we’re talking ‘kisses’. To participate or just read go here.

Portly Grit!

This pink flower is the heather. It beams from the clutter of a garden still under the spell of winter. Each year it gets stouter, more portly. It starts flowering in November or December. I am surprised every time. I wonder how such dainty looking blooms survive such cold. Grit, I suppose.

Next to the heather is the coneflower. That too tends to want to spread out. Only, it wakes up much later. It is always interesting to watch these two jossle.

That side of the garden is ‘survival of the fittest territory’. I am taking lessons and aligning myself with their determination and grit. As such, I am squeezing you out of my thought process. This gift you came to appreciate way too late will no longer swim in thoughts of you! This year’s a different thing, –
I’ll not think of you.

Pat

2/14/23

For prosery Monday over at dVerse where Merril is hosting and the prompt is to incorporate the following lines into the prose

“This year’s a different thing, –
I’ll not think of you.”

from Charlotte Mew, “I so liked Spring”

Go here to participate or just read

Words

now, a toast

to words unspoken!

may forgiveness

be a part

of their new DNA

as they rest in peace.

Pat

9/14/22

Change

under blue gray skies

as twilight takes its leave

and day tumbles into night

a crow flies across a sliver of a moon –

I am lost in thoughts of you…

and our moon gazing nights

Pat

2/09/22

Morning Walk

thriving still

amidst autumns chill

a rose thrills

Pat

Grit

Ida is an old soul and the fiercest person I know. She was blessed with an abundance of that ‘no nonsense and why the hell not’, attitude.

Conversations this time had awakened deep feelings.

What must it be like going somewhere, and not know that feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb. Or, not having to endure the stares and the under- their- breaths mutterings.

Such feelings were never really shared out loud, they didn’t have to. They knew, being in the skin they were in. Ida too, had experienced this. On one occasion she was heard to say,

‘I didn’t know I was black till I came to America’. She would not elaborate.

But this too she tackled this with her attitude of “no, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife*.” This attitude had served her well; and serves her still.

Pat
7/20/21

*Zora Neale Hurston

Over Time

I never could see my life without him
But there stood this broken trust

Shoving past all that I had come to know would only lead to regrets piled atop regrets –
never again feeling safe

As great as this love was
I knew me
It would not end well
So, I let it go in the most awful way
Never to see, or speak to him for ever
Time is not always the healer
she purports to be
Years later when we could again speak
He asked.
I explained.
That was not about you, I said.
That was about keeping that thread I was hanging by intact.

Pat R
6/22/21

Isn’t it pretty to think so.
–The Sun Also Rises (1926). Ernest Hemingway

Over at dVerse we are to write a poem based on a chosen quote from Hemingways work. I chose the above.

Linking to dVerse Poets Pub where Lisa is hosting Poetics -“One true sentence” . To read other entries go here

Fathers Day

“We were talking a while ago” , her eyes searched my face.

“About papa”, I said. She had asked me where he was. I said he wasn’t here just now.

“Yes”, she nodded. and smiled, her chain of thought had reconnected.

“I loved him so much” , she said. “He was always in my corner. He would fight for me”.

Those words had never crossed her lips before. At least, never in my presence.

“I’ve never heard you say that before”, I said. “You’ve only always talked about what a pain in the ass he was” I said, as those words left me, it felt like a reflex action.

“You both were a pain in the ass to each other”, I quickly interjected. as a correction. I am shocked to hear there was love there.

“He did tell me that he loved you” , she seemed as surprised to hear it, just as I was way back when he said it.

In all the years I’ve been on this earth, all I’ve ever seen between these two was fighting. At times, it felt like they were fighting to the death. In my young mind I wondered what would happen to me and my sisters and brother if one of them killed the other.

Now here she sits, in a confused state laced with moments of clarity, professing her love for my father who no longer among the living. I didn’t have the heart to tell her this earlier, today of all days. It was Fathers Day. And she was treading the waters of unfinished business.

Pat
6/20/21

You

I keep you

deep in my heart

you waltzed in

curled up

and never left

ever so often

I find myself hiding you

in my poetry

yes – I do keep you

deep in my heart

Pat

4/08/21

For dVerse Poets Pub where Grace is hosting and the prompt is body parts as metaphors To read or join in go here

Salty Soul

This human being is a salty soul

Anything adversarial was always

just a blip to be dealt with

There was no time for foolishness

because she had four children to

feed, educate and school in

manners

Her moves were well thought out

and always deeply rooted in hope

Yes, this ‘every woman’,

this human being is a salty soul.

(For my Mom)

Pat

3/17/21