I have spent half of my life
with you
though it feels
alternately like a moment or
an eternity.
One more reason why I know time
cannot be linear or lineal,
cannot be real or relevant.
In retrospect it seems less
amazing that I’ve spent
half of my life with you
than that I spent half of my life anywhere else.
The Man Who has Everything
What do I give to the man who has everything?
A heart, honest and trusting?
Love, unconditional and unshakeable?
Arms, warm and open?
Do I give him a son to grow tall beside him?
A special smile; one only he sees?
Private jokes and little ‘I love you’ notes hidden in his luggage?
What do I give to the man who is everything?
Just everything.
Every day.
Forever.
For my dearest partner, Bill, on his birthday. Always and forever, my love.
Haiku for the Geese as They Go….
Geese are ganging up
honking taunting ‘nyah, nyah, nyahs.’
Flipping me the bird.
The Fine Line
You start in the corners,
scooping out detritus.
Poke, poke, poke the straws in the corners
to loosen the greebles and bits.
Then the long swing to sweep it all into
the middle of the floor;
the very middle of the floor.
but the litter of dust bunnies won’t lie still.
First this way, then that, they overshoot the molehill,
jumbling, tumbling in the broom breeze.
Now lay down the dustpan flat,
press it hard against the floor,
scoot the bunnies and greebles with a swift swat.
But after sliding them all into the trash bin you turn
and see it.
The line of dirt.
The fine line of dirt the dustpan left behind,
pointing at you accusingly.
Again you sweep.
The line becomes finer.
Now sweep in the opposite direction.
The line becomes finer yet and points towards the broom closet.
Resignation settles with the dust.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
So does a fine line of dirt.
This was a challenge from my friend Margo. There you go Margo!
Next Step in the Publishing Process…
I received a copy of my book in the mail – last chance to proof! And yes, there are STILL some goofs in it! I am going to be so sick of reading my own poems soon!!
I’ve set my deadline to have the final proofing done by the end of the week, then we’ll hit ‘print’ and be one step closer.
I’ve begun to plan a book launch and I find I’m not comfortable with a conventional launch. I keep coming back to the reason I committed myself to do the “poem a day for a year” series – the exploration of ‘spur of the moment’ creativity – the short circuiting of the internal critic – and I feel that I need to place more emphasis on that aspect. I need to encourage others to find their creative spark and nurture it.
So I’m currently working on some ideas to turn a launch into an audience participation event – maybe we’ll create a poem and post it here. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Anyway – I just wanted everyone to know that things ARE progressing and we should have the book ready to go very soon!
Thank you all for visiting, reading, commenting and sharing – it really helped get me through the ‘year’ and beyond.
🙂
Linda
Nowhere
At the scene of the accident the driver swears
that the person he ran over ‘came out of nowhere’.
So you can see why I’m concerned
when I ask where you’re going and you say
“Nowhere.”
If you must go nowhere
at least look both ways before you come back.
The Plural of
Add an s and you should be done
but that wouldn’t be any fun.
If singular window is windows when plural
it follows that house is houses, surely,
but put a mouse inside that house
and soon you’ll have a lot of mouses.
They’ll spread and soon there will be mice
living in all your neighbours’ hice.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
then it only seems right to me,
that though I smooth the path for others
and they may smooth the path for me,
if we smoothed paths together
we’d have to say “we smeethed”.
Like a child in the wild
or children in the wildren
tedium for one medium
is tedia for two media.
And if someone decides to lay down and die
would two people then lie down and dice?
I think perhaps I’ve lost my focus
and wandered into hocus pocus.
If you did too, then we lost our foci
and wandered into hoci poci.
Red Handed
We caught the day red handed in
sun warm berries
winkled from shady green.
Tiny, achingly sweet first fruit,
a wild promise mounded
in summer starved hands.
Not enough for strawberry jam, we stand
and count to three and laugh as we
cram our mouths full.
Eyes closed, we grin and
groan with ecstasy,
red juice and memories
trickling down our faces.
We caught the day,
red handed.
Now That I am Home… a haiku
Now that I am home
laughter lines are deepening,
frown line fade away.
Proofing on Paper
Good Grief! I thought I’d proofed my book “Falling Awake” very thoroughly before I printed out a copy!
To make a long story short – I’m on the third go ’round and still finding dumb typos! Anyone who thinks they can do all their proofing on screen is sorely mistaken. It’s as though I had never heard of punctuation! I, the ‘grammar hall monitor’ of Facebook, making bonehead mistakes all through the book!
This will, hopefully, be the last go through – then I’ll send it to the ultimate proof reader (my hubby, Bill) who will, indubitably, find the last of my sins against the English language, and finally we will publish. Sigh…
For all those out there who wanted a copy of the book, hang on, it’s comin’!
Linda Studley 