A glitch on my website that was bouncing back emails has been fixed. Now, if you respond to this email, I should receive it. Thank you always for reading, writing poems, and responding. Onto the 277th poem:
Evan, age 10, and Rachel, his mother, moved from Illinois in August. They came to the library and when I asked for a word, looked at each other. “You pick,” they said simultaneously. They agreed on the word home. I learned that in moving to Boise, they had significantly downsized houses. Because this is a topic close to my heart (in 2017 my family moved into a dwelling 1/14th the size of our old house!) we had a neat conversation about the things that make a home.
The Stranger: Evan + Rachel
The Word: Home
The poem I wrote:
Home floats
on water.
Inside
our blood
warms
its walls.
Home turns
like the tide.
The Challenge: Do you have a poem in you on this word? Write one here.
November 21, 2018 at 3:17 pm
Two chances.
That’s all most of us get, she thought.
Two chances to decide, define, build our version of home.
The first, fatherless, uncertain, quiet by loss.
That was not the one she built.
The scaffolding on that one did not withstand.
Not steadfast.
Building her own began then.
Continuing throughout her life.
A brick here, sturdy boards there, a structure to last
to survive.
Insiders and outsiders — all types of storms.
Not a problem.
November 22, 2018 at 9:28 am
Home
many chances to build
one-bedroom apartment in Oakland
classic high ceilings, dining room so bright
a conservatory
pothos winding its way across ceiling
fiddle leaf fig tall and proud
spider plant with bookoo babies
In Seattle, basement studio
looked out on Lake Washington
sailboats dotting the horizon
short walk across bridge to University
Then mini-mansion on shore of Lake Washington
shared by four women
my greenhouse in backyard
filled with ferns and babies
nurtured carefully
600 SF house shared with one
other woman
she a screamer, isolationist
can’t tolerate my presence
“you’re alway here!”
“I live here!”
Garden under the high power lines
rhubarb, tomatoes
lettuce, zucchini, peas
a harvest hard to leave
for San Antonio
classic 3 bedroom, 1960’s ranch
immaculately clean, before the children came
then my own mini-mansion
swimming pool and hot tub
pool parties and friends
125 oak trees
mother-in-law suite
live-in maid and nanny
The keep-ahead of the Jones’s years.
A down-size in Boise
still standard suburban house
painted, faux decoupage
sewed window treatments
seat cushions, chair covers
neighborhood park where my children play
Then round house
view of foothills, comfy, cozy
an art project
a walk by the river
Blue Herons, Bald Eagles, Kingfischers
Red-Tail Hawks, Osprey
floating the river
Home.
November 22, 2018 at 8:26 pm
There’s No Place Like It…
If you’re leaving home,
Don’t forget your ruby shoes.
You will find that as you roam
You may get the blues.
We long for something new.
It helps to keep us growing
But, we need to put down roots
Into the soil of our knowing.
Go across the ocean.
Reach into the sky.
Entertain a notion.
Be searching for a why.
Go on an adventure
Or, perhaps, a quest.
Don’t be a backbencher.
Be a survivor of all tests.
Find the magic sword.
Wield the power of a jewel.
Go on marching forward.
Courage is your fuel.
Defeat the evil daemons
And the ones that dwell inside.
Vanquish for good reasons.
Do as prophesied.
When all is said and done.
You’ve answered to your call.
You say you’ve had your fun
And done what’s best for all.
It’s time for your reward.
It seems so in your reckoning
That the Hearth of Home,
Its memory is beckoning.
That’s where your easy chair
Is cozy by the fire,
Your purring cat is there,
The books that you require.
In the ice box is some ale
Perhaps, a slab of beef…
You can hear your stomach growl,
Wanting some relief.
Yes, you know it’s time
To don those ruby shoes.
Say the magic words.
No time left to lose.
So, you do a Dorothy
And as you click your heels
All becomes as it should be
And is as “ought,” it feels.
Hello, Cat! Did you miss me?
Have you kept out all the mice?
There is no place like home.
It feels really nice!
November 24, 2018 at 8:36 am
Roselle Road 1962
You won’t believe
you’ve grown up
until you show up
unauthorized,
out-of-bounds,
hitchhiking
from 7th to 8th grade
Tar lines bubble,
thumbs up and out,
Buick eyes
pass by, leave behind
blue smoke and rumble.
We walk as if
somewhere to go
so many places,
this day alone.
Under July sun
searing thirst
we heard the hiss of
long black snakes
spitting
into a half breeze.
We were road tar,
slow, black bubbling,
ready to seize the spitting
head of that snake,
drink it’s rubber water,
and wonder
how we would ever
get home again from
Roselle road.
November 26, 2018 at 6:45 pm
My home is across from a park
Where sat an abandoned cart
Piled high with coats, a blanket and trash
Alarming someone to call the brass
Who determined the contents harmless
With gloved hand plop into the garbage can
And there sat the cart abandoned again
Three kids spying it, one getting in, one pushing and one running beside
Now gone from my eyes, where could it be? Oh well.
Home is where the cart is.
Hello E. Happy Holidays from Jan
November 26, 2018 at 10:08 pm
Which Door Now?
(For AMW, 1912-84)
He would twist his hand as if he turned a key,
Urgently, to let us know he wanted . . .wanted what?
Was it to light ignition on a car
And drive away from this intensive care?
Or open a door? And, of the many doors
That had swung wide for him over the years,
Which door now? And when he found the breath
For just one word, and it was “home,”
What home of many did he have in mind?
Where his tools lay in order in their drawers
And he took so much joy in making things?
Or where his partly written books piled
On the floor? Or where he’d been a child?
His secret—the key we could not see—
Turns one lock only, there, the door swings.
November 27, 2018 at 10:18 am
Eighteen years old I met my mate
I felt I had come home.
45 years have come and gone,
many homes lived in, adventures, yes,
5 children, 20 grandchildren, all called home
Not a home to call my own now, but in my heart
We are home as long as we are together.
November 27, 2018 at 9:52 pm
A “winter wife”?
I laugh at Warm Body Syndrome in Montana,
A just-for-now human bed warmer,
So antiquated, so quaint.
This, this is 2018 with electric cars and Alexa to turn the lights on.
I am an Empowered Woman.
But one winter night I drive home alone, in the rain,
And reach soundlessly into cold air.
“Alexa, find me a winter wife.”
I’m sorry,” she says, “I do not understand that request.”
We sit silently, in the dark.
December 14, 2018 at 9:41 am
Bo
Recently released from incarceration,
men, some still boys, gather
at the Safe House
to keep warm,
sip hot coffee,
talk and listen freely, or just
rest peacefully.
Neil provides opportunities to
improve.
12-Steps
Most cannot break the cycle
of their lives.
Reading
Writing
Arithmetic
Many are too far removed from
the classroom.
Bo comes once a week
bringing canvases, acrylics, and brushes.
None are too far removed
in this house, now a home,
where the art is.