Sweet potato fries.
Eating sweet potato fries,
made with farmers market potatoes I bought last Saturday.
A delicious gift.
I only had two dollars and the price was supposed to be three.
I said I didn’t have enough money as I dropped some coins into my hand.
She took the dollars bills and said,
“That’s okay.”
As she handed me the bag.
Four potatoes, she didn’t take any out.
Sweet
potatoes
Make the best fries.
Life as an introvert
Watching, listening.
Living vicariously.
Outside, never in.
Another one.
Afternoon musings
Fill me up then melt away
Lead me to sunset.
My 2020 Thanksgiving poem
It looks like just another day.
Thanksgiving begins just like every day.
The sun rises in the east.
The wind blows, birds chirp,
Cars on the road, people in stores,
Life going on,
Just the pace is different.
Fewer cars, fewer people,
Stores close early.
Most restaurants are dark.
Families gather.
Friends gather.
Some people stay home,
Alone,
Reach out to family and friends
by phone or however they can.
Outside it looks just like another day.
Inside, it feels different.
We each celebrate in our own way.
Blending tradition with a new order,
Seeking balance,
Seeking solace,
Seeking joy.
Seeking.
It's a rainy Sunday in Memphis.
It’s raining.
The wind is blowing easterly,
Streaks on my west-facing windows blur the view.
I hear cars splash down the street,
See their headlights and taillights, bigger, smaller.
The ancient heating system in my apartment thrums.
Removing the chill.
Downtown buildings are hidden,
By the gray-white sky,
The clouds are merged into a sky of rain.
Sunday.
A day for thought and contemplation
Not a day for cycling or running,
A dreary day for being outside,.
Unless you’re a worm.
Instead I’ll enjoy the day from my shelter,
Watching, listening thinking,
Writing.
It’s raining, it’s pouring,
Somewhere an old man might be snoring.
He went to bed,
I hope he didn’t bump his head.
I hope he got up this morning.
I’m not sure about the order, but I think I have the words.
Music.
Major and minor,
Dominant and diminished.
Patterns and space.
Loud and soft,
Time and rhythm.
Staccato and legato,
Crescendos and decrecendos,.
Life.
Fall sky
Late November,
The days are getting shorter.
Yellow sun in a pale blue sky,
gives way to the Fall night,
Crisp cool air blown in by the wind.
Black sky,
brightened by the triangle of the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.
The kind of night that makes you happy to be alive.
The kind of night that gives you hope that everything will be all right.
The kind of night that makes you want to find a dark place to look at the stars.
Sundown by five is early.
Thank goodness for the beauty of this night.
My NaNoWriMo, aka, my what I do in November while other Wrimos are writing 50,000 word novels. I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be an official NaNo winner. I set my goal high, but try to be realistic about it. 30,000 words. Maybe I’ll make it, maybe I won’t. Either way, I won’t earn the official NaNoWriMo winner certificate. Maybe I should design my own. Or maybe they should hav a fill in the blank one for those of us who set a goal and achieve it. Personally, I care more about my goal than one that someone else sets for me. But, obviously, I don’t make the official rules. I just make my own rules.
Instead of a novel with a cast of characters,
And a setting,
And a plot with a beginning and end,
I’m writing unconnected poems and snatches of thoughts.
Verse.
Hopefully, out of the 30,000 words and month of entries,
I will find a dozen poems worth publishing.
A dozen or so poems to share with the universe,
And maybe someone will read one of them,
And think, huh,
That’s cool,
Or I like that,
Or, that is so me.
Maybe.
Feeling hopeful tonight.
I hope it lasts.
We all could use some hope these days.
Most days.
Every day.
Without mentioning politics or parties or candidates, this came out of my head today.
We all have good days and bad days and days when we wonder when this will end,
When can we go back to where we were before
The pandemic
The killings
The riots
Fear used to stoke hate
Religion and government failing us.
Before
Things changed so much that we barely recognize our country
and don’t like most of what we see and hear.
We all have good moments and bad moments
And we all know that we aren’t ever going to be the same
Our country won’t be the same
Our lives won’t be the same
We won’t be the same.
We aren’t going back to the world we lived in a year ago.
That world will never exist again.
That is scary.
That feels really bad.
It feels like everything we knew is now obsolete.
News flash.
It is scary.
It does feel like the end.
It does seem like everything we knew no longer matters.
We are living in unprecedented times.
We are living in a world we never envisioned,
That we didn’t think was possible in our lifetime
It was something we read about, saw in movies and on tv,
Dystopian
Science fiction, thrillers.
And non fiction.
Fascism, civil unrest, religion, kingdoms,
Rises and falls of civilizations.
And here we are,
Looking back to a year ago,
When life we thought life was so normal.
We all had worries,
But not like we have now.
We had good days and bad days,
Good moments and bad moments,
We had equilibrium.
Anxiety came and went.
Now it is a constant.
We had ups and downs.
Our ups aren’t as high
And our downs are lower.
America has gone from rich in life and hope
To rich in despair and fear.
We wonder when this will stop,
If it will stop.
How to make it stop.
And what will our new normal be.
We’re creating our future world,
Whether we want to or not.
Whether we think we know how to or not.
And this isn’t like any future we ever thought we’d create.
We teach our children to think towards the future,
That things can get better,
That they can control their destiny.
That their actions now will shape their lives.
We’re seeing the fruits of our teachings in real time.
Children we’ve taught to dream are dreaming.
Children we’ve taught to hate are hating.
Children we didn’t take the time to teach are neglected, or as the professionals say, underserved.
Let’s face it, underserved is a catchword for what none of us want to be.
Underserved means written off by society,
Undermined every step of the way if you try to rise above it,
Under means belowr, beneath the rest of us.
Except that now under is becoming more and more of us.
There are more under people than people at the top.
And that scares the people in the middle, who think they aren’t below
But are now realizing that maybe in the eyes of the powerful they are.
Black people, brown people, white people
Human beings, not animals.
No one is superior
No one should be afraid
And here we are,
Living in what used to be the richest country in the world
Living in what is now a country wealthy in hate and poor in understanding
A country born from a revolution, now quelling dissent
A country that welcomed everyone, now unwelcoming those who have come
Freedom has become a word, not a reality
Afraid to speak out, afraid to go outside at night
Afraid to put a sign in your yard
Afraid to seek more for yourself because the higher you reach the further you can fall
Afraid of people who don’t think the way you do
Afraid of people who love differently than you
Afraid of so many things
We have become a country drowning in fear
And the life preserver for many is hate.
This is our present
How can we keep it from becoming our future?
