Life is a Treat

 

The best time of the day
is when he comes home.

He’s big and sees me
as soon as he comes in the door.
We play the game where he
chases me down and rubs
my belly. Then he says, “whose the
best dog in the whole wide world?”
as he lifts me high in the air.
I don't have to do anything 
he answers his own question.
“YOU are” he says, and pets me
some more. Then the best part. 

He puts me down,
goes into the room where my treat is kept.
I have to sit when he says,  I can’t
go  until he says the magic word
“COME” and I do.  I run so fast and get
so excited that I get choked up sometimes.
Then I run away to my rug
so I can eat every crumb.  I only get one a day
so sometimes I go back to my rug
to see if I left a crumb. I'll wait until
tomorrow for another treat but now
I get all the belly rubs I want.

Christmas

This season of love

Light shines bright in heart and soul
Let all that look, see.

Deluge

Sit with me in one of the front porch rockers.

Black wood slats fit our backs and the soft
red cushions contrast (and make you smile).
Have a glass of wine with me or a cup of coffee
while we watch the rain slant down off the roof,
and splashes onto the bark, displaces the moss,
runs through the gutters, and settles round us  like a
a symphony. Smokey gray clouds bring on the automatic lights
and the perfume of newly mowed grass surrounds us.
I’m glad you stopped by for the show.

Forest Home

Forests in the Western North Carolina
mountain range gives me shelter
from the rain, and tempest winds.
The serenity quinches my thirst, 
fills me with sustenance--
with spirit that is nature, and a vastness of  life.
I can live in dense growth of  underbrush
and in  mists of  clouds. How small I am standing
there, how huge my heart grows as I see what is real.

The forests of the Smokies ground me as fast and hard

as the old time revivals of my childhood.  The creeks
cleanse me like baptismal waters until I am new.
The forests there give me strength I long for,
make me stand tall next to the elder oak
until I can stand alone without it’s shadow.
I’m a wanderer until I reach the foothills,

a seeker until I am home.

Note*: Forest Home was written for Peggy's prompt "Forest" over at Poetry Jam.

I See

her subterfuge is canny
but i see through it now
know she isn't going
to do what she says

i won't be blind to her
can't let her have another day
hold me captive with her lies
and promises to do better

my feelings i will honor
if she shows up i'll be glad
but now  i know her
will not dream she will change

Decade Question

Whenever I

get shaky or dizzy

from exhaustion,

or take a nap,  

I feel the fear

seeping through

tired bones. Am I

to loose the energy

I have had, this

another harbinger

of my sixth decade,

do I need a wonder med,

or do I only need to adjust?

Hour Before Dawn

 
The hour before dawn

I lie awake, half dream world,

half reality. I long to stay

one more

hour, one minute. Why must

I be pummeled and crushed

by reality each morning.

In the hour before dawn

I want the dream.

Scruff

He was a scruff of a boy

traipsing along the dirt road on Rocky Point.

His overalls were worn thin at the knees,

he wore no shirt, no shoes.

A straw hat fit cockeyed across his

head and sheltered half his face.  I heard him

whistling a familiar tune as he sauntered

on whittling down the dusty Queen

Ann’s lace that overgrew the soil

and lay on road like maidens in wait

for the guillotine. He whomped their

heads off with his walking stick and never

missed a step. He never looked my way

even when I stopped the car

but I couldn’t take my eyes

off this scene as he turned off onto the path

that led to the cool spring with grapevines

swings that my brothers and I would

go to on summer days like these. Time

reverses for me for a while until I start

the car up and travel forward, leaving

the innocence of that time in the clouds

of road dirt behind me.

Textiles

Hues and shades
Stripes and prints
Plaids and solids
Acrid scent of dye
Mutes or brights
Kalideoscope
Under natural light

Touch the cottons
Flannel and Batiste
Handle the goods
Textures and grains

Rows of buttons,
Ribbon, sizing,
Needles, threads,
Bobbins, binding,
Patterns & rick rack

Background music
Bolts unfolded
Measuring tables
Chatter of clerk
Advises yardage
Customers discuss
Future projects
All signs and sights
At the fabric store