Fences

Some see fences as barriers. Stop. 

No trespassing. Keep out. I see them 

a little differently. In life, we all need 

some sort of fencing within us, if only 

to keep out those who will trespass in 

our minds. Take up residence without 

permission. Some of my strongest fences 

are about the relationship I have with epilepsy. These fences are limits to how I can proceed in life. They can be ignored and allowed to fall into disrepair, but that will not keep epilepsy contained. It will be  allowed to crash right through and lay waste to all the life around me. Right now the voice of epilepsy is silent, but reminds me that my limits ~ my fences ~ need to be reinforced.

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

~ Robert Frost

Play Date!!

Play dates are usually for children. Just because this 

child is approaching 77 does not mean that hide and seek is 

not in the cards. Or building a fort with a blanket and oddly 

shaped pillows. Or colouring dinosaurs and pterodactyls. 

Once in a while the great grandparent does 

surface when spelling words and teaching 

letter shapes are needed, when the eldest 

great grand daughter, just over 5 years old, 

is in need of coaching. Of course, the younger sister, 

flitted about like a little fairy, happy, scribbling colours 

and just wanting to be part of all the fun. 

“It’s the things we play with and the people who help us 

play that make a great difference in our lives.”

~ Fred Rogers, 1928 - 2003

Being Yourself

Sinking into myself 

I feel the reality and 

wonder of being.

 

This human, biological life 

filled with spirit, soul

and a solitary purpose to be.

“Who are you to refuse yourself?”

~ Kamand Kojouri, author

Genre: Poetry, Historical Fiction, Philosophy

A Scavenger Hunt

I’ve never understood ‘voice’ in writing. 'Find your voice’ the advice is. 

Never has made sense. 

Voice plus ear equals sound. 

All the squiggles of cursive penmanship or black and white letters marching 

across a page are silent. Only the scratch of a pen

or a tapping of keys, but nothing resembling voice. 

So I keep poking around in other 

author’s novels and stories trying to hear a 

voice from the pages and, in my own writing, for

a voice underneath all the scratching and tapping.

I suspect I’d be terrified if even one voice was

spoken from a book lying silently by my bed. Or 

my bookshelves quaked with the thousands of 

voices and languages within all the covers.

The most frightening part? 

I’d never buy another book or even 

go to the library! My life of travels and 

colour would become still and silent.

“Thoughts need words. Words need a voice.”

~ Sharon M. Draper, educator

Tattle Tales

I walked briskly toward an ordinary appointment always stopping to look both ways before crossing one street then the next and the next until I came to the bush where I had seen berries on another day. The berries then were bright green as if waiting for someone to tell them ‘go’. Today, as I passed, they were blushing as if embarrassed to be caught out in the sun or maybe hinting that autumn might be around the next corner. Chatting with 

the clerk at the pharmacy, she suggested 

it might be the poor things are stressed by the 

heat. With no one else around to answer nature’s 

conundrum, I walked home, without looking around 

the next corner for autumn. The fall of seasons

will come soon enough whether I look for it or not.

“There is a voice that a doesn’t use words.”

~ Rumi

A Dusty Garden Path

Along the dusty garden

path, wild flowers 

welcomed me. No English 

country garden but a Nature 

Garden of native wildflowers. 

Only the organized chaos 

of the prairies, welcoming 

bees and butterflies. These 

clusters of gold attracted me along with the bees. Their long fingers, decorated with tiny golden flowers, called 

the bees and butterflies to relieve them of nectar. I was going to remember

their name but alas, that memory 

only lasted a second or two.

“They are wildflowers. They would not want a name.”

~ Silas House & Neela Vaswani, Same Sun Here

Author's note: Native Prairie Plant Garden at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum entrance

A Gentle Cascade

 

Glistening green leaves caught my eye 

as if a vining hand had reached out to me suggesting that the photo op of the day 

would be missed if I kept on walking. 

I stopped, looked at it. It was quite lovely 

but no flowers, except for perfectly shaped 

leaves in a gentle cascade down a quaint old gate. 

I did feel compelled by the vining cascade 

to take its picture and so I had this photo 

for tonight’s bit of poetry.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”

~ March Riboud, French photographer

(June 24, 1923 - August 30, 2016)