Apr13Poetry - There's a Hand

I'm trying something new, taking a risk this month - participating in
#VerseLove with Sarah Donovan,
hoping to write poetry every day this April.







Today's challenge is to write a poem based on a dream or a nightmare; to begin, consider what happened in the dream, write down emotions associated with these events or moments, and then create a poem that is at least 15 lines long.


I keep thinking about my seventeen-month old granddaughter and a recent photograph, that shows nothing more than her hand...she has hidden herself inside a dark closet, delighted with this new game. This fascinates me; the dark is the stuff of my nightmares.





There’s a Hand

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet,

Fingers curled, reaching, grasping,

The breath is faint, labored, forced,

What moves in the dark, thrashing?

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet,

Which side of nightmare is worse -

Only a hint of what is emerging,

Or trapped within dark and cursed?

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet,

A brave, fearless detective

She chooses to look within the dark,

To explore new perspective.

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet,

Followed by giggles and pants

Just like Lucy in Narnia, she’s

Determined to take the chance.

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet

Breaking out, coming back to us,

Watch how isolation, dark, and scary

Meets daring and resilience.

There’s a hand sticking out of the closet,

Freely choosing the unknown,

She knows deep and dark is also free

There is much magic at home. 

SOL20 Slice #23: Somewhere new

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL20).  
All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 
 every day for the month of March 2020.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

Somewhere New

This time of isolation, 

physical distancing, 

pandemic and unknown, 

happened so abruptly,

as if 

a stripping,

a shattering,

a mad, impulsive, wild tossing,

of all that we are.

We, 

and all those we know and love,

and all the things we do and care about,

and everything that matters, 

are like the small flecks of pretend precipitation

in someone's snow globe that 

has been randomly grabbed and shaken. 

We get to wait and 

watch ourselves land,

somewhere new.

SOL20 Slice #16: Day Four

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL20).  
All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 
 every day for the month of March 2020.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

It's hitting me - I am living in a dystopia, and I have long avoided dystopias. I remember reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley for my high school English class, and I was so troubled and distressed by it. Chilling, yes, I found it chilling.

Yet, here I am, now: unsettled, unnerved, unclear.

I'm waiting for something to arrive, visit, and depart that I cannot see or feel or smell or experience in any way except foreshadowing.

There are so many strange signs of its impending: creating virtual learning for my preschoolers (what?), nothing but empty shelves at my grocery store (am I really seeing this?), cancelled flights for vacation (are you kidding me?), the world around me shutting down (c'mon, that's closed, too?!), and yes, he's 90 and he is your father, but no one is allowed into the nursing home to visit (how can this be?!!).

And this is just day FOUR of this coronavirus isolation.

All the above is my intro to a simple poem for today:

Day Four

I stepped outside

in the early morning dark

barefoot

to feel the ground.

The moon is half today.

Someone sliced it

right down the middle.

The world is half today.

No work.

No school.

No seats too close.

No church.

No parties.

No food in the stores.

No touch.

Everyone, alone.

I am not half.

I am still I.

I think.

SOL20 Slice #14: I Hear You Talking

I am participating in the
 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL20).  
All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 
 every day for the month of March 2020.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

Early morning, Saturday, day two of this national emergency, with all of us isolated in our homes. The day is cool and bright, here in Maryland. I sit outside on my side porch; I just returned the cushions here, yesterday, when I realized that winter really isn't going to appear and we now are fully into spring. The porch is a little treasure, in the midst of this nuttiness world-wide. I can sit quite happily in the sweet air and the silence. 

It is silent, all around. 

No one is up and about but me. 

Oh, the birds are up. One, a house sparrow, flies right up next to me, bonking its head on my house window, wings fluttering against the pane, and then it quickly recovers and flies away, before I have even stopped shuttering from the surprise.

I settle back into my quiet, and I hear another bird's repetitive, "hey! hey! hey!" I am smiling to notice this...I start to realize that it's not quiet at all. The birds are fully alive and noisy in the early morning. I open my journal and listen in, having fun with the birds. Here's what the birds seemed to say:

You! You! You! You! You!

Right, right? Oh dear, dear, dear.

You! You! You!

Let's see. It's me.

You! You! You! You!

Silence?

Now, now, now, now, yup, yup, yup.

So funny, funnieeeeee, hee, hee.

Me?

Me?

Me?

Oh no, no.

Silence?

We, we, we.

Just then, my neighbor steps out of the back door of his house, to dispose of some recycling and I call out to him with a big "Hey there! Good morning!" He quips, "Stay right there! Keep your distance! Three feet, at least, right?" We share a driveway, and we joke that this driveway is the perfect distance for getting together yet isolating. He suggests - "Maybe we can have a pizza party, each bring our own, and sit across the driveway from one another."

Strange times. You'd almost say, it's for the birds.