April 2 – #Verselove Coffee Poem

Weekend Coffee Share Poem with Kim Johnson, April 2, 2024

If we were having coffee, I’d have tea, a nice London Fog latte with oat milk or a sweet and spicy masala chai. (But, I understand that most people prefer coffee, so I still say, “Let’s go out for coffee,” like I call tissue Kleenex.)

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about February 26, 2020, when the government shut down schools because a bus driver in Bahrain had Covid-19 and dropped off children at three different schools the day before.

I’d tell you that I started writing in March with the Slice of Life story challenge, and then on into April with this group of poets. I’d tell you that poetry and this community filled my sails during those following months of isolation, fear of the unknown, and virtual teaching. And then I’d smile and remember that this community has been filling my sails ever since.

I’d ask you about your story of writing. What sustains and keeps you on this journey? Then we would laugh and read poems to each, our favorites that we have written and our favorites that others have written deep within us.

I’d also have to tell you that I normally drink tea in my jammies, and the photo my husband snapped is me ready to go out the door on an out-of-town adventure.

April 1 – #Verselove Haibun

Haibun with Glenda Funk, April 1, 2024

Today the prompt encouraged us to consider rest and resistance. Glenda was inspired by the book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. I had this community help me today with a found prose section. The overwhelming pace of teaching that I wanted to describe is getting away from me as a retired person. As a teacher I never seemed able to rest, even on breaks my to-do lists never stopped. Now that I’m retired, I feel that I have again begun to live, but now with so much time, I can’t help but wish I would have done better before I retired.

——————–

Rushing, dizzying tasks await. High performances exhaust heart and mind. Buzz-humming frenetic pace. Exhaustion. Stress. This tempest. I lie awake in my bed. How do you turn your mind off?
Retirement senses
renewed, peace, sleep. Maybe…
more than I wanted?

———————

Found attributions, by phrase:

Jennifer K.
Jennifer
Heather
Joanne
Jennifer
Shaun
Shaun
Maureen
Wendy
James E. Coats