Christmas Cat

I think there must have been a cat in Bethlehem, so long ago
The night that choirs of angels sang and cattle did so gently low
A cat that kept the baby warm
while Mary slept ‘neath starry skies
A cat that cuddled with a King and purred a feline lullaby

Merry Christmas 🥰

Snow Day

Snow Day

 

 

this poem is taking a snow day

a let the wind blow day

a curl up with a book and cup of tea day

an adagio kind of day

and if it finds peace in this day

this poem might take a snow week

 

 

 

Art Me

Art Me

 

Sketch me a small pine tree,

scribble me a forest.

Draw a sky full of inky stars, and then

smudge a thumbprint moon.

Erase the cloudy haze of fog

that hides the owl and rabbit.

Pencil us into the peacefulness

of this charcoal world.

 

 

Quadrille #190

To Whoooom it May Concern

To Whoooom it May Concern

 

I see you move silently through the trees

never touching branches or getting tangled

In swaying vines, as I move silently through

dark rooms never stepping on the bits and

pieces of a family’s life once strewn across

the floor. You are probably hunting – for a meal

or some furry morsel in the open fields,

to satisfy your hunger

I am also hunting – standing in front of

the open fridge, looking for some leftover

or piece of pie that will assuage my sadness.

I hear your call and another answers, so

I know you are not alone in the darkness,

and when I call softly there is no reply –

for now, my nest is empty.

 

With love from a fellow night owl

Poetics:For the love of letters

Freedom to See

Freedom to See

 

She holds her camera high

and defies the rules of photography –

Rules of thirds

Rules of composition

Rules of aperture, and focus, and light

She holds her camera high

and declares that she will follow

her own rules

Rules that find beauty in the mundane

and wonder in the ordinary

Rules that show heroes on street corners

and angels in sneakers

Rules that shine light in the shadows

Day 1 of the November Chapbook Challenge – write a declaration poen

Tell Us

Tell Us

 

Tell us your stories

so that, in the telling, we

may begin to understand

the beauty of your lives

 

Sing us your songs

so that, in the singing, we

may begin to hear the

beating of your hearts

 

Read us your poems

so that, in the reading, we

may begin to glimpse the

tenderness of your souls

 

Show us your art

so that, in the seeing, we

may begin to know the

wonders of your minds

 

 

Meet the Bar by writing from a collective point of view

Secret Messages

Secret Messages

 

 

She emptied her heart.

Wrote all her secrets on little

slips of paper and put them in

old glass bottles she found

buried in her garden.

She carried them, in a cardboard box,

to the sea where she set them free –

a flotilla of her deepest thoughts, her

fears, her longings. All the things she

could no longer hold. She waved goodbye

as they bobbed away with the tide and

made a wish that whoever finds them

will know what to do with them.

 

 

—

Writer’s Digest Wednesday Poetry Prompt 674 – write a secret poem

The Collector

Vincent van Gogh, Window in the Studio (1889), chalk, brush and oil paint and watercolor on paper, © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

The Collector

 

She collects old bottles that she

finds buried in her garden,

and places them on a windowsill.

When the sun shines in, her kitchen

is filled with a kaleidoscope of colors –

blues and greens and browns. Bottles

from old remedies for headaches and

stomach aches, laundry bleach, and ketchup.

Smooth bottles, square bottles, tiny bottles,

one that still has a piece of rotting cork

in its neck. Bottles that tell a story of hard work

and pain. She feels like an archeologist discovering

a lost way of life through the colored glass

detritus of another generation, and she wonders what

future generations will think of her when they

uncover the bits of her life left behind.

 

Haunted