Painting a picture of memories ~ those wavering pastel curtains that, save for brief moments of clarity
reveal only fragments,
edges tarnished and frayed
yet beautiful. Oh yes, there are those with little
beauty, except for vulnerability and the strength that just may blossom from the inky black.
“The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”
~ Cesare Pavese, Italian poet
(1908 ~ 1950)
Painting a picture…….
Roots of memory……
Opening an…..
Growing ever…..
Recall of ……
Entering a……
Steps to ………
Sorting through…….
“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”
~ Carl Sandburg
I am growing old. But when
I look at the numbers attached
to my name they don’t make
sense. As though they belong
to someone else with a
visage different than the one I remember. A photo from a
skating event, or beginning Grade One, or a family
wedding. But then I look in the
mirror and see the face I see every
morning. Older and, if the saying
holds true, wiser. In my heart, all
the added years fall away and I am
that child, that teen, that young adult,
that 30 something, and a few more
decades. Those smile and worry
wrinkles, dark hair streaked with
white, and a few creaky joints?
Merely a gentle sculpting of my mind,
my spirit, my soul and my body.
“The great thing about getting older is
you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”
~ Madeleine L’Engle, author
(November, 1918 ~ September, 2007)
Do you remember
Fairgrounds in summer?
Full of noisy teenagers laughing
and flirting with each other, the motors of the crazy rides throwing everyone into hysterics of
laughter or terror, every ride with strident music, and all the games of chance. “You could win
your girl this giant teddy bear!!” “Dunk the clown in frigid water for only a buck!” And then there
was The Claw. Probably called
different names in different midways,
but just as frustrating. The goal? To get
the prize - some brightly colored little
stuffed toy sitting inside a plexiglass
case of multi-colored plastic balls. Getting
The Claw to grasp the toy and swing it to the
chute….almost! That’s what writing is like: all
those words with the most brilliant idea
always just out of reach! But here I am
again, putting my quarter in, believing
that I will catch that it. But not tonight.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”
~ Margaret Atwood
was not something I wanted when
I was 5 years old. Looking out my
bedroom window at the tall brown
elevators and a passenger train rumbling past was more
interesting. But many years have rumbled past and my window gaze
is just sleepy. My grey wool blanket encourages my eyes
to close and in a breath,
I drift into nap~time.
“Let’s begin by taking a smallish nap or two.”
~ A.A. Milne
from a day’s work, to
reveal little pulses of heart
and longing that remain
still and quiet all day while
I go about the reading and
writing, washing dishes and
sweeping the floor, feeding
me and the cat, or walking
home from the bus stop.
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
~ Carl Sandburg
Behind my eyes lives
imaginings of dreams
gone wild in the mist
of wonderings and
waking, ’til morning
brightens my windows
and I close the curtains
behind my eyes.
“Nights through dreams tell the myths forgotten by the day.”
~ C.C.Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
