Category: poetry

November Moods

ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment
One of the few colors to penetrate November’s grey cast – the greenery I gathered today.

November Moods

November is colored a hundred shades of grey

As if summer had used up all the colors in the world

Grey is an easy, undemanding color, more like a feeling

November tells me I have reasons to be thankful

Now there is time – I don’t mind looking for thankful thoughts

With every leaf I pick up, and every walk I take.

Thankful that I made it through the summer challenges

The unfamiliar roles I had to play, the confusion, helplessness

Thankful for wise ones who shared the load, who came alongside

I can hear the travelers in the sky, honking

I can see their dark V against the grey background of clouds

The comfort of knowing that nature knows it’s November

Geese take turns leading, how wise of them.

A Vow to Soften

Shirleyjdietz6 Comments

I did not write this. It came to me from a friend and was written by Rachel Macy Stafford.  I found words in it to make my own.  I think there is something here for everyone to take to heart.  Read and see if I’m right.

 

My Vow to Soften

I’ve had enough of my hard edges.

I’m tired of straining my voice.

I’d like to loosen up and laugh a little more,

Be a positive rather than a negative.

 

I’d like to feel the upward curve of my lips.

I’d like to surrender control of things in which I have no control.

I’d like to let things unfold in their own time, in their own way.

I’d like to participate joyfully in this fleeting life.

 

I’d like to be softer

Towards him,

Towards her,

Towards me.

 

And this is my vow:

I vow to listen to opinions – I don’t always have to be right.

I don’t always have to agree or have the last word.

 

I vow to hand over the hairbrush, the pile of laundry, the school project,

The task before us. “How would you do it?” I will ask.

I vow to step aside and respect a new approach.

Success might be difficult to see at first; I vow to keep looking.

I vow to be more accepting of quirks and mannerisms.

I vow to be more accepting of tastes and styles unlike my own.

 

I vow to remember he is in the process of becoming; she is in the process of finding her way.

And they are more apt to do it if I stop telling them how.

 

I vow to regard “weaknesses” as hidden strengths.

Inner gifts can be nurtured when I stop plotting ways to alter, change, and “improve”.

 

I vow to greet my family and myself with a loving smile, no matter what happened yesterday.

Grudge holding only hurts us all.

I vow to pause before correcting.

I shall take a moment to consider if the mistake even needs to be mentioned at all.

I vow to stop nitpicking until it bleeds.

I vow to demand less and inquire more.

 

I vow to listen

Consider

And expand my thinking.

 

I vow to be a voice of encouragement in a demeaning world.

I vow to be a silver lining spotter in my family’s little world.

I vow to be softer today than I was yesterday – a softer voice, a softer posture, a softer touch, a softer thought, a softer timetable.

 

 

I vow to be softer towards the imperfect human being inside me and beside me.

 

By being softer, I can hear more, learn more, feel more, and love more.

At last I will fully see.

I will see his colors.

I will see her colors.

I will see my colors.

Perhaps for the very first time.

 

The colors might take my breath away,

Bring me to tears

And offer long-awaited peace.

 

I shall soften in order to illuminate the colors of the soul.

I shall soften so the human being within me and beside me can shine.

 

©Rachel Macy Stafford 2016

 

 

 

 

A to Z: Selling Our House (Letter K)

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

Kilz Is Not A Scary Word  ( a poem of a different kind )

 

Kilz is a homeowner’s friend.

It is an amazing paint product, not an evil act.

Actually I think it is a play on words, being similar to Kills,

Which is an evil act most of the time. Kilz was probably fashioned after Kills

Because it does “do away with” some undesirables, like stains, like mold.

It covers and traps resins and penetrating colors and hides them, so

You could say, Kilz kills them.

 

Kilz can make your walls lovable again.

The handprints, the crayon pictures, the pet stains,

When you want them gone, are all hard to cover.

Ordinary paint may allow these stains to bleed through, and then

There they are again, resurrected. Kilz will fix it,

Although I don’t know how.

 

It’s a primer, and that word means it comes first.

Sealing the porous surfaces, creating a base for color.

Hiding the surface underneath, Kilz makes paint colors

Truer, brighter, and helps them stick to

Most any surface, which is very handy.

 

Have you heard of mildewcide?

It’s in Kilz, and mildew can’t abide

The surface primed with this special stuff.

Good to know. Use it where mold might grow.

 

It looks like paint, it comes in a can.

Put it on with a brush.

I’m a big fan.

 

Another handy feature,

It cleans up with soap and water.

 

Kilz is a homeowner’s friend.

 

This is an awful poem, if a poem at all, but it does have decreasing number of lines in each stanza. There may be a name for this form, or I may have made it up. It does give it some distinction, I think.  

 

20180305_1020391650920033625191473.jpg
A sign featuring the letter K in a prominent spot, but having nothing to do with the poem above.

Lake a Day Challenge: Spider Lake

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

A spider is probably not anyone’s favorite image to attach to a memory or a place, but when you grow up calling a place Spider Lake, you eventually quit thinking about real spiders and just think about the lake.  This lake is really a chain of lakes, four to be exact, connected by short rivers.  For many years one of my cousins has owned the Spider Lake Golf Club and Resort and it was only recently I learned that it is actually located on Clear Lake in the Spider Lake chain.  Big Spider (ugh!), Little Spider and North Lake make up the other three.

wp-1471314884040.jpg
Me and Spider Lake in rustic setting

My visit this summer was prompted in part by a reunion of my cousin’s family, as well as my own. This was the day we met at Spider Lake Golf Club for a wonderful dinner cooked on the grill and lots of family fellowship.  Cousins from as far away as Alaska and Florida (me) got reacquainted with each other, and fed mosquitoes. It seems the mosquitoes are a force to be reckoned with everywhere near the water or woods in Wisconsin. The young people hunted frogs, played catch and got underfoot. The rest of us visited and ate.  It’s kind of a standard theme among us. Always have food.

One of the most interesting activities at our gathering was making an African Praise Poem about mom.  Mom is one of three surviving siblings in her family of seven and a favorite among all the cousins.  After dinner we “poets” and mom talked together about the important events of mom’s life and the memories we had surrounding those times. There were tears. All these recollections were recorded and will be arranged, poetically and mysteriously, in the form of the African Praise Poem. We’ll all get to see it when daughter Esther puts the finishing touches on it. We asked mom how it felt to be the subject of an interactive poem like this and she admitted that it felt a little like being at her own memorial service, but not a bad thing overall.

I think Spider Lake is known for being a good fishing lake, and there are resorts and cabins available there still. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful lake.

wp-1471315362093.jpg
Poet and photographerfor this shoot, my daughter Esther
wp-1471315789270.jpg
Possibly the oldest, my Uncle Wendell (with two l’s) and the youngest, Hazel Erikson.
wp-1471315609513.jpg
Frog hunting
wp-1471316229225.jpg
Family, food, fun.

Cleaning Your Room

Shirleyjdietz14 Comments

 

I helped you clean your room

Not because it was a toxic death trap

But because I knew we might find something,

Something you’d been looking for.

And we would laugh at the candy wrappers, the moldy apple,

The discarded clothing, the random bits of paper with

Life scribbled on them, anguished life, raw life, devotion, angst

And dreams, scribbled on bits of paper.

 

I helped you clean your room

Because the hours spent with you were precious.

We talked and small traces of order would appear,

small traces of calm and pleasure, even though we knew

they were temporary. Your room, your life was meant

to be lived in, sometimes messy,  sometimes organized but

always uniquely your room,  your life.  And I was

always happy when you let me sit there with you. Always.

 

I helped you clean your room

And it was with the same strategy used in cleaning

My own room with its messes and secrets and disorganization.

My room never stayed clean either, but I always enjoyed making

It different.  I could always make a difference,  move the furniture,  clear the floor,

And feel fresh and renewed.   A messy room was just an opportunity, not an indictment.

I perhaps never told you these things, but I want you to know why

I helped you clean your room.

(A reflection on possible messages of shame, unwittingly communicated, deeply regretted)

 

#atozchallenge: Orange

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

Another departure from nutrition on this day dedicated to the letter O.  April is National Poetry Month. 

Great Grandfather’s Name

The warmth of orange, the rich shades of color

Taken from the sun, from reds and browns and yellows

And transferred to a child to be his name

What could his parents have wished that name would inspire

 

Could it have been a name from the land

That of an earl or duke from France

And why would that land be named orange

And why would the child inherit the name

 

Did the land in France, or some other faraway land

Grow the fruit, the tree named orange that takes

Color from the sun and the earth and makes that

Perfect, round fruit which shares name with the child

 

The child became a husband, a father, a grandfather

Who had children sit on his lap and wonder at

His beard, and the lingering smell not of orange

But of onion, the poultice for his maladies

 

Orange and onion, memories meld together

The family stories and the continuing wonder

Of why, and would he want to be remembered

For more, and doubtless he was but always

Also for the name, Orange Scott Warner.

©2016

 

 

Portland Water

Shirleyjdietz7 Comments

20160410_094858[1]
from a Portland street while waiting to be hit by a bus
Morning shower

Washing over me warm

Portland’s wettest from rivers

From mountains and sky

 

Portland’s germs from

A Thousand hands sharing

And traveling Portland’s water

Making its coffee

Which I take in

 

Breathing Portland’s air

Touching its soil and

Eating its food

Watered by its rains

Food touched

By Portland hands

Washed in Portland’s water

 

City of Bridges over water

Over streets

City built by its water

Stand under its warmth

Drink in Portland

The Poem Hunter

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

20160321_111741.jpg

The Poem Hunter

(when faced with a party at which poems will be read)

 

How do you find a poem when

Your head hurts and your eyes

Don’t want to read

When the grass needs cutting and

Your husband is due at the airport

When it must be true and worthwhile

And makes delight in people

Who understand that sort

Of thing.

 

How do you find a poem that

Matches the mood or lack of one

That teaches you what you

Already know about life,

To be true, or maybe you doubt

To be true. And most of

What you read is defying your sense

Of understanding.

 

Others find them, but you do

Not have the patience because

You have a headache and

The lawn needs mowing. How

Do you find that one special poem when

It’s obvious you feel guilty

About not writing

That poem.

 

The occasion will come and

Your turn, your poem, will be something

You couldn’t find, although it is

Probably out there somewhere

It’s enough

To make you wonder if

You even like poetry. Because

Sometimes, you don’t.

One Last Place

ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

20160219_104942.jpg

 

Rather than gliding smoothly

It won’t budge even though it’s pulled

Forward, backward until fingers ache from the effortl

It doesn’t look that bad

From the outside where the teeth

Are shiny and black and only a small bit of paint –

It flakes off with the wiggling, a sign of the greater problem.

 

It was in a bad place

Where the humidity and who knows what else

Sat on it for too long a time and it began to change inside

Looking closely, there

There it is along the edges…

Dusty, irregular, misshapen line of gray

The metal of one

Grows into the metal of the other

In a weld of fusion and confusion that renders it immobile, stuck.

 

Scraping it away

Looking for true strength beneath

There are so many places where the corrosion sits

But, there has to be

One last place, that when it is freed

It moves and becomes, once again, what it was meant to be.

 

 

S. Dietz 2016

 

Rainy Day

ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

it was gray, which I like, and wet

which I don’t.  the umbrella was

a sail.  it pulled me along

and I thought of Mary Poppins and Grabbit Rabbit,

although I hadn’t thought of them in years.

all because it was a rainy day,

and very good for thinking.

 

img_20160102_084834.jpg

 

(Most everyone knows Mary Poppins, but who remembers Grabbit Rabbit? Let me know if  you’ve heard of him…)