Last week, I gave my eighth-grade class an assignment to write a poem in which an object represents their family. Here is my version. It used to belong to someone else — this table that holds our memories Set with silver and china, it waits like empty pages waiting to be filled like filled scrapbooks waiting to be viewed like a snapshot in time A … Continue reading The Family Table
Alone now, she lives in her dreams stuck in the world she used to know softened by those broken sunbeams she whispers goodbye and hello Stuck in the world she used to know memories of love and loss and war She whispers goodbye and hello missing her love, her troubadour Memories of love and loss and war her constant companion, it seems Missing her love, … Continue reading Avenoir
I bore witness as time swallowed them whole still shimmering, still breathing, still filled with life these folds of time capturing moments Gifts of the present preserving what will become the past I stole silent snapshots as the unsuspecting carried on ordinary lives My eyes more acute than the cameras snapping photos My ears more sensitive than microphones recording laughter I heard the breath … Continue reading Snapshots
tender memories peonies in the driveway childhood dreams linger I am combining two prompts today. The first asks, “Do you have a memory attached to a flower?” The second asks us to consider this haiku by Issa and respond to it. Here it is: blades of grass– lost among the raindrops autumn dew My grandparents had a row … Continue reading Time’s Blossoms
They used to take us to the beach on Sundays. My grandfather’s rust-colored Oldsmobile packed to overflowing, a cooler filled with cooked chicken, polpette, and roasted peppers in the trunk. Glass jars filled with water jostled next to mini-bottles of cola and brown paper sacks bursting with peaches, plums, and blood-red cherries. Beach chairs – the kind with woven plastic ribbons of aqua and white … Continue reading Summer Memories
We drove down the Avenue, the one that captured memories of yesterday, and ogled transformations of the familiar New faces and new places now called this place home Making our way down the crowded street, a staple of my childhood appeared on the horizon, that old Italian bakery and small café still on the corner near the house where my father was raised As we, … Continue reading Stomping Grounds
An old iron bench empty beneath the shade of that grand tree Layers of peeling paint tell its story Once shiny and new and delivered with a festive bow Bestowed upon a smiling mother by three young children It was the keeper of happy memories Carefully placed on an open porch by the front door of the family home it bore witness to endless summers … Continue reading The Old Bench
I visited my yesterdays one warm afternoon as I stepped into my father’s garage and came face to face with the past My eyes registered familiar sights but something about the way it smelled swiftly brought me back to days long forgotten Gasoline mixed with the unmistakable aroma of freshly cut grass and an assortment of garden supplies washed over me as I became a … Continue reading Grandpa’s Garage
Saw an old movie today as I sat snuggled by the fire all alone on this cold autumn night It was that movie the one we saw together so long ago by the fire on a cold autumn night Made me think of you Serendipity Wherever you are on this cold autumn night Continue reading Serendipity
