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Letter to Lucille

4/28/2018

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is "to draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard."

Dear little Lucille,
By the time you are old enough to read this, it is my heart's longing that you and I are tea and sugar, pouring the aura of wonder and warm belonging into one another's lives. I long to see you giggle uncontrollably with my Ana, to see you dance for joy with my Eric. I long to see you all three rolling through the garden until you dog-pile with exhausted fullness. I long to read to you all on my knees and in my lap, and even more to let my cup overflow with your own stories.
But we're an ocean away - I know how that ocean can become a wall, no less separating being water and not stone, a subtle conqueror ... the moment you catch a glimpse through the mist and spray, it swirls again in front of you. You'll have so many others in your life, you'll have no need of us...we with our words and day-to-days foreign to yours. You'll barely see our faces ...once every two years... who knows. All this rains down on me.
You've barely stepped out of your cocoon and already it seems you've flown beyond our sight. Is the best I can hope you'll have heard of my name?
No.
I'll write again soon...

in memory of you

4/24/2018

I am so thankful for today's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem typically written in honor or memory of someone dead. But we’d like to challenge you to write an elegy that has a hopefulness to it." It gives me the treasured opportunity to share the baby I always remember and the hope anchored in my heart through my baby's life. Following are the poem I wrote as I grieved being separated from my baby and the poem I write today...

Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Our Baby
We loved you from the first,
hardly believing our blessing.
From two, we now were three!
What was to come we did no know.

You were with me always,
a miracle wrapped up close…
But one of those moments you slipped away
and we did not know.

Your daddy spoke to you,
gently, with excited joy.
You were already gone,
but we did not know.

I played my harp for you,
wondering when your ears could hear.
You were already gone,
but we did not know.

We hoped and prayed for you,
waiting to hear your heartbeat.
My womb was already a tomb,
but we did not know.

Will we one day be with you?
hear your heart and see your smile?
My heart, not knowing, weeps.
But I know God knows.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Our Baby

...and only God knew

how I would hear you
in your sister's song
and hold you
in your rose blossom
placed in her golden curls

how I would feel you
in your brother's kiss
and smell you
in his milk-sweet skin

you are forever cradled

Playing My Heartstrings

4/23/2018

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: “when you hear it, you write it down.” Today, we challenge you to honor this idea with a poem based in sound.

"I will rock you, my Ana, in dawn's early light
I will rock you, my Ana, deep into the night
I will rock you, my baby, in my heart all my life..."

I wrote this for you
when you were still inside me

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote this for you, Mama,
when you were a tiny baby

"This is your song
This is your song..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are the song my soul marvels at,
the one I could never have thought of
on my own.

Playing catch

4/16/2018

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is "to write a poem that prominently features the idea of play. It could be a poem about a sport or game, a poem about people who play (or are playing a game), or even a poem in the form of the rules for a sport or game that you’ve just made up (sort of like Calvinball)." (http://www.napowrimo.net/)

Playing Catch

He catches my kiss on the palm of his hand
one on his gumdrop nose
one on his neck, thrown back laughing
one on his elf-point ear
one in the curve of his toes

He catches my eye all the time
once in his awe at the snow
once with a goodnight fish-kiss
once laughing, in full-body wave
once squinting at his own sunshine
once marveling at his finger's point

He's ten for ten in this game we both win
the game I could play all my days.

humanized Villain

4/15/2018

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt, from which I've picked-and-chosen to suit my purpose, is to write "a poem in which a villain ... is revealed to be human."

Windex

If I'd only had a little

maybe I would have seen You

and not been so absorbed
in my own skin's tone and hue

If I'd only had a drop

maybe I'd have seen You shine

and not have lost myself
to what should have been mine

If I'd only had a little

maybe I'd have realized

all the beauty that I needed
was in Your gleaming eyes

Haibun

4/12/2018

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to "write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live." I have never written a haibun before and want to work on this one more in the future, but here's what I have so far.

The rosy child picks the grass’s first sun-spoken exclamations: soft yellow affirmations, deep purple praises, thin-petaled white joy-cries. They are for her Grandmaman and for her mother. But another’s desire is set on these riches. And he comes armed, tiny but mighty weapon ever-ready, faithful to the will of his queen. Will the trusting joy of the child be a sacrifice to the loyal servant’s quest? And who’d be in the wrong? The child taking food from the mouths of a kingdom, or the warrior blind to an innocent’s pain?

Within a wing’s breadth
they pass, from danger to dance
each finding plenty.

Big - small; simultaneous

4/10/2018

As I missed yesterday, I will combine yesterday's and today's prompts for my NaPoWriMo poem into one. Thus, in this poem the big meets the small...simultaneously.

No bigger than the width of a hair
A soul
A life
scientifically human

Beyond scientifically
measureless possibility
to be you
or I
or the love of my life

A person's a person no matter how small*

Eternity dwells in the soul of us all.**

* credit to Dr. Seuss
** credit to God

Magic poem

4/8/2018

Today's NaPoWritMo prompt is to write a poem in which mysterious and magical things occur. Here's mine:

Your curls
blossom
bubble
roll
down your neck,
swaying to your own spin
your own song

They're untamed
untied
unkempt, I suppose

but never would I cut them.

*Note: You may ask what this has to do with magic. But to me it is magic that this beautiful child is so different from anyone else in our family. That from the way she looks to her already poetic thoughts, she is all her own. (Yesterday she not said but sang to me, "Mama is a rainbow in the sky..." This sung to a Mama who has hoped and prayed her depression wouldn't be a rain cloud over her children. What more of a blessing could one ask.) This poem shows just a part of the magic that is my daughter.

Napowrimo!

4/7/2018

I have been so excited about participating in National Poetry Writing Month with friends from the Pernessy Poets group... and though I'm late, I'm jumping in at last! I guess as I try to navigate the whirlwind adventure of motherhood, I'll just have to treasure the experiences I can and be patient with myself on the goals I can't grasp... right now. (The gift of each of my children is well worth it.)

Today's http://www.napowrimo.net/ prompt was (as I took it) to list some identities that describe oneself (mother, wife, teacher, Swiss resident, etc.), think of them in terms of which showed power and which vulnerability, and then have one of the former talk to one of the latter.

Here's mine:

napowritmo07.03.18.gdoc
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the most important gift

4/5/2015

Here at Poempixie we have a lot of fun with imagination and fantasy. But there are facts that mean so much more, including this: Jesus gives new and eternal life to everyone who follows Him! He loves each of you so much that He gave His life so you could be with Him forever, and He lives now, hoping you will choose to accept His gift!
~ Martina

photo taken by James Emery and posted on www.flickr.com (CCL)

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