Not Just Papers

 

Sorting thoughts

organizing them into groups with titles, 

selecting papers that stay 

those that go, 

personal history: 

tempting to toss a grade school report card, 

the last pay stub from previous employers, 

fridge magnets that hold special meaning

souvenirs from my travels, 

photos of nieces that are grown, 

birthday cards, 

and the gigantic stack of carefully torn squared off scrap paper, 

family history, 

and of course important folders for

tax information

  mortgage documents 

    insurance papers

Unexpected finds of 

   computer cords, and cords, and cords

   obsolete computer connecters

   red paper clips

So much like going through 

photos in boxes and bags 

holding them up to the light 

remembering the road of life .

“Nothing is a waste that makes a memory.”

~  Ned Rorem, composer

Drift

 

Penning poetic words tonight sounded easy but when they kept spilling through my fingers to drift away, I was left to mutter ~       ‘writing is hard’!

“One day I will find the right words, and they will all be simple.”

~ Jack Kerouac,  The Dharma Bums

Just a Curiosity

I needed a place to put my coins ~ change saved for 

a gift down the road

I keep them all wrapped 

snugly but they are too heavy 

for a plastic bag! 

I emptied a plastic container that had held four cranberry scones ~ they were good ~

toasted with butter and cream cheese. The heavy weight of the coins in this empty container 

that had held just a treat for me struck me 

with the weight of our food purchases.

Just a curiosity while keeping these coins safe.

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Too Early

My eyelids droop ~

little strength to stay 

open even though 

I am not ready to

turn lights out. I’m 

not even close to 

laying my head on the 

soft pillow that 

whispers my name.

“Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Afternoon Moon

Look up! 

When I walk 

I stop to look to the sky

blue and decorated 

with the lace of trees. 

More intriguing is

a cloud white moon 

riding high in the afternoon

shaded with dark moon craters

~ I greet this celestial body 

with a smile, a nod and a click of my camera

and if shining silver when I turn out my light, 

I’ll say ‘goodnight moon’. 

with no science to prove 

the steady, insistent pull 

of the moon on earth 

but I have felt and 

seen those tides.

“It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon.”

~ Galileo Galilei, astronomer

(1564 - 1642)

Oatmeal and Granola Sourdough Bread

From a flat sourdough starter 

revived & rejuvenated 

a lovely loaf of bread arose

that toasts up into 

crunchy deliciousness

“There comes a point in your life when you need to stop 

eating other people's bread and make your own!”

~ Chris Geiger, baker

Weathered

This a tough one 

this winter of ice and snow 

and rain and ice and snow 

temperatures dip and dive 

to really, really cold and 

climb slowly to just cold. 

I have no complaints though 

because I know 

it is only temporary. 

As temporary as clouds scudding across the sky; 

as the grass grows and then fades away til next spring; 

as the wind that is blustery and bossy one day 

and next is a mere pussy cat purring 

through the hair on my head. 

So this tough one of winter will pass, 

the excitement of spring and summer 

spread dandelion umbrellas and the fluff of poplars, 

while we say that 

the rain in spring time is too much or not enough; 

the sun in summer is too hot or too bright. 

the leaves in autumn are falling too soon

So, I say, weather is just a tough one ~ but then so am I. 

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more that we think we can.”

~ Frida Kahlo, artist