[Another day, another prompt, another poem.]

Sky flames
As the day ends
Leaves flare
As the year ends
Pumpkins and apricots
Last fruits of summer
Then Halloween
Ghosts and ghouls
And all things dead
Salmon swim upriver
Spawn and die
Shimmer skins
Decaying in the rivers

What is the color of loss?
Black or gray seems a good choice
Who would say orange?
Bright, lively orange

You might never know it
Looking at most old humans
But nature at the end
Seems to love showy orange

One last burst
One big production
One I-dare-you-to-ignore-me flash
Before the end.

[I had no idea what I was going to write in response to today’s prompt. God, fate, the universe, serendipidiy, whatever provided.]

I unbind the small notebook, slide the pen from its holder, not sure what I will write, but wanting to write. The card slides out from the back of this long unused notebook, only recently refound. “Happiness,” the front of the flowery card proclaims, “must be grown in one’s own garden.” Inside, the handwritten greeting begins, “Happy holidays & new office warming.” A few sentences later the note ends, “Finally, I hope the caramel creams remind you of happy ‘treat stops’ at our old location. Happy 2013.”
The signature – one of my graduate students

The caramel creams didn’t last long.
The then-new location is itself closed now.
I am four years retired.
No new students challenge my knowledge and my patience.

I think of the few I keep in touch with:
The successful author and speaker – about near death experiences and paranormal healings!…
The mother of two preschoolers: waiting more or less patiently to resume her career…
The busy successful physician…
The somewhat dissatisfied academic…
The always energetic multitasking mom with a demanding career.

Like a sampler box of chocolates
Just small dessert bites from a repast,
Once filled and filling,
Now grown slightly stale.

This unexpected candy,
Though hardening at the edges,
Satisfies still when tasted gratefully.

A sweet treat stop
This almost holiday morning.

[I think my response to today’s poetry prompt is simply my mind escaping from the too serious busy-ness of the holidays.]

To breakfast on a roller coaster
Is quite absurd
Even more absurd
With candy cigarettes and pop

But, really, my dear,
What were you thinking?
A roller coaster party in winter
Early in the morning
Is not merely in bad taste
It is in no taste at all
Even with karaoke
Or perhaps I should say
Especially with karaoke

No, really, it simply won’t do
With not even a slim chance
Of being acceptable
Or memorable

I don’t care if you did buttonhole Casper
To run the coaster
A ghost to host the coaster
Just misses the mark for charming

Although I must admit
I did enjoy meeting the Kirbys
And Captain Gregg was such a treat
Though Mrs. Muir took quite a fright
As we gathered speed
On the downward plunge

As dreams go
It has this single virtue:
‘Twas no nightmare
But I would fain hope
For something somewhat classier
With a touch more savior faire, n’est pas,
Tomorrow night

[My bit of a poem in response to today’s prompt from Two Sylvias Press.]

Some days
I can almost taste
the memory of you.

Some nights
I can almost hear
the nearness of death.

Some wheres
I can almost see
the wonder of hope.

Some whens
I can almost smell
the absence of grief.

Some haves
I can almost feel
the glory of life.

Some nots
I can almost know
the realness of love.

Some nows
I can just believe
the manger of God.

[Today, I wrote to the prompt from Two Sylvias Press, more or less, but my mind was on its own somewhat undisciplined path, today.]

to see the sky
the hawk needs
only her own
mineral lens

to pound the keys
the woman needs
only her own
weed fingers

to work the land
the man needs
only his own
tree strength

NO

this vision is not
truth
never only but
knotted together
blind sight
written silence
strong weakness
black and white
one not evil
not through the universe
the other not good
not through the future

to live is need
to die is want
to see is dark
to write is silence
to work is rest
coming going
in out
up down

Can we encompass all?

more fits
than knots
thanks be for color hopes
flowers bloom through war
christ crosses rise on green grass

Christians claim Saturnalia
for their own
sing of stars, God’s grand design
though the dark planet
continues circled in crystal rings
pagan on parade ages old

Christians cry foul
when others celebrate
though light finds every crack
though dark cares not
for doctrine

prayers are the bits and pieces
that win wars
while money repairs plantations
of greed
in internet fantasy worlds
of good grades
and saddled dragons
slaying evil

At my desk I type my prayers
in my husband’s repair shop
watching TV
in front of our fireplace
I pray
for beating old swords
into new plowshares
for lions and lambs together
for Amish simplicity
for a son in Austin
a grandson in Summit
for children everywhere

for peace
for life
for truth
waiting to become
waiting to come
again
into the wholeness
of me

[My poem in response to the 11th prompt from Two Sylvias Press. Here’s a link to Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong doing the song of this poem’s title]

What reaction do you get, I wonder, when you name your birthplace?
Not likely to be the reaction I get.

I am soon 72:
Attended four or five
(I lose count) universities
Earned three degrees
Lived in three countries
Worked in four
Taught in several universities
Married more than once
Divorced more than once
Widowed
Raised children and stepchildren
Watched grandchildren grow up
Taught Sunday School
Led Bible studies and women’s retreats.

And never once,
When I answer the question
“Where did you grow up?”
Never once, has anyone ever said,
“New Orleans? Where is that?”

What they say is:
JAZZ!
GUMBO!
MARDI GRAS!
BEIGNETS!
BOURBON STREET!
RED BEANS AND RICE!
THE FRENCH QUARTER!
JAMBALAYA!
STREETCARS!
ANTOINE’S!
CAJUNS!
HURRICANE KATRINA – SO SAD!
I LOVE NEW ORLEANS!
MY FAVORITE PLACE!

I grew up on Havana St.
in a quiet all-white neighborhood
in Gentilly
just a block from the London Ave. Canal
(that flooded the neighborhood
during Katrina and its terrible aftermath
But I was long gone by then
and the neighborhood was no longer all-white).

I went to St. Rose de Lima kindergarten
St. Leo the Great grade school
St. Joseph Academy high school
(Girls only)

Just about every Sunday
we visited the Big House
filled with great aunts
and my tiny New Orleans great-grandmother
who spoke only French
(though the family was generations in New Orleans)
And always sat in her rocker, crocheting.

We visited my Jeanerette great-grandmother —
not so tiny and always moving —
almost as often.

We took the ferry
across the Mississippi
because there was no bridge
to visit my father’s father
and his second family.

We went to the carnival grounds
at Pontchatrain Park
ate cotton candy
and rode the ferris wheel.

We had fried chicken
and fresh donuts
from MacKenzie’s Bakery
every Sunday after church.

We watched white banana boats
on the river.

We had one floor-furnace for heat
and no air conditioning:
Every summer
we tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk —
Every summer we failed.

And yes
We got beignets and café au lait
from Café du Monde and Morning Call;
We ate my mamman’s gumbo
and mom’s red beans and rice;
Dad took us to the parades
every Mardi Gras season
and we shouted,
“Throw me something, mistah”
as the amazing floats rolled by;
we stayed up late on Mardi Gras night
to watch the meeting of Rex and Comus
at midnight,
and then got up early to go to church
to get ashes on our foreheads.

We rode our bikes and played hopscotch;
We jumped rope and skipped rocks;
We did homework and said our prayers.

But no one ever asks.

[This is the first daily challenge that I felt was more trivial than challenging – but I am not sure I correctly understood the intent. As I thought more about today’s prompt, I had an AH HA moment and decided I had indeed misunderstood it, and so I rewrote the original poem. I leave the original here, although it somewhat irritates me, for comparison purposes.]

TAKE ONE

Love’s sweet silent chords
Binds my heart with soft cords.
Love’s weight in precious metal
Tests my strength and my mettle.

Love’s promise needs no prophet
To reveal all that I might profit.
Love’s garment is a seamless piece
That encircles my heart with peace.

Love’s rising sun brings bright morning
To end forever morbid mourning.
Love’s magic makes two become one
With lonely battles fought and won.

Let not my soul to hatred fall prey
For love, to all the gods I pray.

________________________

TAKE TWO

Love’s sweet silent music binds my heart with soft chords.
Love’s gold and silver beauty shines like precious mettle.
Love’s rich revelations unfold my present and future prophet.
Love’s garment encircles my heart in a seamless peace.
Love’s sun rises to noon at the end of mourning.
Love’s magic brings victory with bright battle one.
Love’s loss will not on my soul pray.

[A word of explanation about today’s poem: My response to the prompt from Two Sylvias Press grew from my anger at the first reading for today’s feast day, in the Catholic Church, of the Immaculate Conception. This is one of two high holy days honoring Mary, and yet the prescribed Old Testament reading was the Genesis story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit.]

My temper rises as I read:
Genesis casts Eve as sin’s originator.
My metaphorical foot stamps hard on a metaphorical brake.
My faith is in flux;
the sheer scale of misogyny overwhelms me.
I cannot quench my anger
at this persistent drawing of the first woman as evil temptress
whose appled bite blasted Adam’s cozy world to ruin,
hardened God’s heart,
wilted paradise’s bloom,
doomed us to slush forever through guilt’s muck and mire.
I can no longer cope with this monstrous mythology.
I file this imagery under poisonous patriarchy;
I refuse to dip even a metaphorical toe into their all too real slime.
I live my life in recovery from such toxic teachings;
I discard it all: Adam, Eve, snake, apple, core and consequence.
I feel the sweet wild wind of the goddess blowing through my purified soul.