Toasted

February 13, 2016

Bringing our yesterday’s 

into today is no mean feat. 

Too often we drag our 

worries along with us. 

But this bit of writing

has little to do with worries. 

It’s about toast. 

Not the toast of clinking glasses, 

but the first slice of 

toasted homemade bread.

Butter melting on crisped 

brown bread, topped with honey. 

If some worry has wormed 

it’s way into the morning ~ 

a good crunch on the toast

may take the chew out of it.

“I always like toast in a crisis.”

~ James Goss, Doctor Who: Dead Air

Author's note: photo from February 13, 2016 

Our Only Task

Drawing a blank on a screen 

with no texture, 

only the tactile nature 

of the keys feeding 

the black letters,

square and rigid,

on a screen with no texture.

But these black letters, 

square and rigid, 

write enchanting stories of 

prairies, mountains, lakes 

and oceans; trees and grasses,

peoples, animals, fish and fowl

asking us to imagine colour and texture.

“Books may well be the only true magic.”

~ Alice Hoffman,  Magic Lessons

Glare

 

A day without writing 

blinds me. Even so, 

I putter along, 

my mind still busy writing in 

the invisible ink of thoughts. 

When I look out the window

to see the orange tabby ~

king of the block ~ 

I imagine that he knows 

where all the mice are, 

or the friendly back door 

where food is always 

on the back step just for him.

Stories and poems trail along 

while I do housework sorts of things, 

like finding a fluff of cat hair 

that resembles a mouse. 

My pen seldom touches 

the paper when I see these things.

Maybe they gather in my mind 

like the dishes in my cupboards 

to be used when needed. 

A day without writing blinds me 

with the glare of my thoughts.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

~ Anaïs Nin

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

All Along

I don’t know when I knew 

that writing would take me 

on a journey, 

dipping into and around 

roads across quilted prairies, 

a hot air balloon soaring high in the sky 

a jet ski that would send me 

splashing across 

the top of waterways long or wide, 

through forested granite mountains

tromping through snow banks in the shivering cold

sketching my own journey with epilepsy

but when my pen 

found notebooks and journals

and each morning with tea 

to sit and write yesterday, 

or plans for today 

or dreams for next year or 10 years along.

When I saw shelves and stacks of boxes 

filled with all the morning musings 

I guessed that I had known all along.

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, 

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

~ Pablo Neruda, poet and Senator of Chile

(1904 - 1973)

Changing Fortunes

It was easy to keep interested 

in my working life, 

at least in my passion 

for addictions nursing care. 

But when I retired, 

almost 6 years ago, 

I had only my own life 

to be interested in. 

No schedule, 

no policies or protocols, 

no box on the calendar to say 

what I could do on what day. 

I didn’t have to squeeze in 

outside entertainment 

or family activities 

or even getting groceries. 

I had a choice between crushing boredom 

and some kind of interest in my life 

that had nothing to do with nursing care. 

~ quite an uncomfortable habit. 

I could have kept writing about addictions issues.

~ The neurobiology of addiction

~ Actual protocols for withdrawal management

But the powers that be hadn’t listened to little old me 

so I looked in the mirror and turned my writing to me.

I could still write about neurobiology

But about epilepsy this time.

Interest in my own life appeared 

as if by magic ~ maybe out of boredom 

or perhaps because I have lived with epilepsy 

for more of my life than anything else.

There you have it:

To reword a stanza from the Desiderata: 

~ ‘Keep interested in your own life,

however humble, for it is a real possession 

in the changing fortunes of time’ ~

“Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. 

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; 

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.”

~ Max Ehrmann

(Written 1927)

Who I Am

It’s hard to stay in one place 

when my mind insists 

I should be doing something else or going someplace else,

urging me to believe in something more concrete than 

writing in storied poetry when selling my words is better. 

It’s hard to stay in one place 

when I listen to all my mind chatter.

The only solution is to tell myself that 

writing is as concrete as I choose for today.

Tomorrow may be different but I doubt it

so I’ll deal with it when tomorrow comes.

Today is the day, the moment I am in. 

It is easy to stay in that one place 

where I am enough and grateful 

for knowing and being just who I am.

“And even if it is just for one moment, 

I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.”

~ Sarah Kay, Paradox

Inspired by Paradox by Sarah Kay