Slice of Life – Poetry and Family Times

18 June 2024 TwoWritingTeachers.org

This weekend was busy. First, we had the delight of seeing a niece and her family on Saturday and Sunday, but it was a quick trip for their family through our town. Saturday also happened to be the Poetry Marathon. Two wonderful events in one weekend!

I got behind and didn’t give the Marathon my all, but I did manage to write 24 poems in 24 hours. The best part, though, was seeing my niece. We had a chance to talk about family history and then some family dynamics that are painful to live with and hard to understand this side of heaven. It was a blessed time to connect.

This weekend also began this month’s OpenWrite. It’s still going Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe you’d like to join us.

Wednesday, 19 June 2024, with Jessica Wiley

Quiet
Collected Poems
Illuminate
Louder than Hunger
Chaotic Thinking
Be a Maker
The Hurting Kind
The Carrying
The Fire Next Time
Big Magic

Tuesday, 18 June 2024, with Anna Small Roseboro

Let’s Be Better
 
Recalling the
Umbrage with which you
Make known your faith:
Is God so angry and
No longer willing to confer?
A just, loving God
Transferred all
Infallibility to
Only you? No, I think you do
Not really believe that either.

Recent ruminations have
Explored my
Capacity for holding the
Knowledge of the raggedness
Of our fear to take up trauma.
Nevertheless,
can do hard things.”
Now I choose to take the risk to
Grapple with those fears.

Monday, 17 June 2024, with Susan Ahlbrand

She
was not
the one I
would have thought would
go to dental school.
Sure, she worked hard as a
junior higher, stayed after
class, tried to retain toilsome
details. This month she graduated.
She’s Dr. S. (Of course, I should have known.)

Sunday, 16 June 2024, with Margaret Simon

Duplex for the Coyote Howling Nearby

What has hurt you so this evening
That you shout so raucously?

You shout so raucously
Is your baby safe?

Your coyote pup–is it okay?
You had been quiet lately

You had been so quiet lately,
But tonight your mournful bark

Tonight, your mournful bark
Makes me sad and lonely too.

Sad and lonely is passed on to me
As you scream your yip yapping elegy.

Is it an elegy you yipyap scream?
This evening that hurts with you.

Saturday, 15 June 2024, with Sarah Donovan

These poets
are the impetus of identity
the providers of peace
in knowing myself
loving myself
more honestly
the seekers of truth
in finding my way
in the world as it
really is and not just
as I always knew it

These poems
are the tingling fingers
of an adventurous
and risky
ascent
into
knowing

These interactions
are the honeyed
story
of
life

April 30 #Verselove – Thirty Thanks

Thirty Thanks with Sarah Donovan, April 30, 2024

Today was a day to say goodbye until June and write a poetic response to this month of writing poems. I stumbled around for a while, and then I wrote a silly limerick.

There is a sweet group of #Verselove poets
Whose give-and-take melts me, though it
sounds today 
like a cliché
But I still wanted you to know it.

Earlier attempts:

Bandage burns with words
Breathe fresh life into the broken–
Balm of a poem
Drive the poem
a journey of new life
with words you’ll make it
Life is full as the sea
Waiting for your nascent words
A poem to float on
Words rather than guns
Your life, a scope of grace
Shooting only poems

November #OpenWrite

Today’s prompt, “Heal” included the invitation to go back to another prompt I didn’t write before. I went back to April 1, 2019, both prompts from Sarah Donovan.

What is Good?”

Good Work

Good work–
Work, purposeful work,
Work that builds,
Not diminishes
I work with all I am–
Never just punching a clock
But I pour myself into the work

Good work–
Work, created especially for me
Good work assigned
Work and care for Eden, Adam
That was God’s directive
That is God’s directive to me

Good work–
Work, more than you did
Yesterday
Take care of the earth
Work to heal
To bring Her
Back from defilement
Take care of people
Work for justice
Repent
Plant peace–
Seeds of peace, that have
Not been planted–
Yet

Good work–
Work good
Get ready
Do good work
And get into
Good trouble

breath with Sarah Donovan

Brokenness and heartbreak, loss of job
Bickering teachers overwhelmed
Safety protocol mistakes
Covid deaths and counting
White House renegade
Friend triangles
Knotted neck
Breathe out
Breathe
Breathe in
Peace and hope
Healthy dinner
Thanksgiving (really)
Strolling along the shore
Cooperating with Truth
Foaming bubble bath to my neck
Leaning on the everlasting arms

receiving with Sarah Donovan

I couldn’t seem to do this prompt today, so I will use my Death poem I wrote this morning for The Isolation Journals.

giving with Sarah Donovan

Giving Learning

What I say to students:

Yes, yes you can!
I love your work.
I’m such a fan.

Do you know?
I don’t.
Let’s give it a go.

Please do.
I am not sure.
Yes to you
and you
and you.

thanks with Sarah Donovan

thanks

seeing my phone
slip from my hands into
the hearty
tomato saucy
goodness of
Amy’s Organic
Vegetarian
Baked Beans
in the microwavable
bowl

Was like watching
a phone
tumble over the railing
on the upper floor
at the mall but
Instead of smashing
on the tile
below, it
slipped
sidled
slunk
slithered
stole
shrinkingly
into the sauce
so smoothly
so stealthily

My first reaction
was to pull it up from
its shallow bath
It only took a half-inch dip
My phone barely waded in
Hardly got its feet wet
I don’t know beans about
how to save a phone
in a cooking calamity

So
It will be fine
I told myself
I took a quick lick
across the bottom
where the speaker
and charge port sit
because the slits were
looking crimson
and congested

I gave the whole phone
a once-over with the dish cloth
I sucked on the end to
extract more tomato sauce
Just to be sure
Then I promptly forgot about it

The phone worked fine all day
But on seeing the
15% battery warning.
I went to plug it in

Nothing
No power
No lightning bolt
I checked the plug for
electricity
I wiggled the cords
Beans!
Oh yeah, the beans

As my husband and I sat
through the rest of the Zoom
meeting, I thought about telling
him. (Our mic was muted.)
No, I better wait.

When we finished, I nonchalantly said,
I dropped my phone into the beans at lunch.
He said, You need a new phone anyway.
What? I said. No I don’t. THIS is my phone.
I just need it to charge.
He plugged it in and
I switched the cord
to a different outlet.
It worked.
It’s up to 83% now,
so I think the beans are history.