The trip was long, the road was rough, I would do it all over again.

Thank you for being my mother and entrusting me to take this journey with you.

I love you, Mom

she held my hand

and took her last breath

remaining blossoms

*

I snapped the camera just as she turned.  Just after she asked me how old she was.  Just after she said it was impossible that she was going to be ninety.  Just after she declared she was only twenty-seven.

I could see it in her eyes.  The blank stare that sees beyond time yet holds on to the past.  The struggle between here and there.  The movie that ends and credits are rolling.

birthday cake

her reluctance

to blow the candles out

Happy 90th Birthday, Mom!  I love you!

March 3, 2016

For Tommy's wife and children, his best friend Jeff, and all of Tommy's family and friends -



I will survive
the shipwreck
and calla lilies
will bloom
once again

walking through
the butterfly park
I capture
a dragonfly

Seventy years ago today Mom and Dad got married at a very young age.  I wondered how it all would have turned out had they stayed married all this time.  Mom wondered about that too as she told me the story about how she met Dad.  I could see it in her eyes.

first love

the hours and years spent

in that one moment

out of the woods

out of the fog

a crow

the harbour

masked in dense fog

still, the egret

so quick to snatch

its prey

a gentle breeze

spreads a dandelion faerie

far and wide

love is

as simple as that

sun halos

mom says

she doesn't know much

about anything

anymore

black friday
just another day
in the forest

november sunrise

silently inches its way

across the yard

unfolding the morning

one ray at a time

making lemonade

out of a lemon

blood moon

fall

is in the air

and all over

my deck

hot august night

after a super sunset

a super moon

Poets on Site Prompt - what's in the wind

summer 1974

in the middle of the desert

buying an Indian trinket..

a chill runs through our bodies

as the wind howls its haunted past

skyfall

the deafening silence

beyond the shore

It was a holiday, we were at the cabin enjoying morning walks, fresh air, the serene magnificence of the oaks, the blue jays, life...and then the phone rang.

memorial day

it's been five years

since you passed

still, I find it so hard

to move that mountain

Thank you for serving in the Air Force, Dad.  Your eight kids miss you.

first Spring gust

from out of nowhere

a haiku

NaHaiWriMo prompt - bump

Finally, a bit of winter has arrived in Southern California, hurried cars, auto wars, frustrated drivers forgetting the trickery, the slickery of roads, all going home at the same time, the same pace, the same rat race, fighting the sleep in a heap of wet smog, dodging a Beemer who wants to be first, is the worst, all getting there in due time, eventually, but with this rhyme we are all the same, as we drive home together in the rain.

first rain
bumper to bumper
all the way home

Small Stone - Jan 31

The fog rolls in, gently over parched hills, fading the green from the pines, changing browns into grays, turning the familiar scenery into an unknown land, yet adventurous, wanting nothing but the freedom to roam and play out its part, in the uncertainty and inevitable ways of the forest.

withering wind

again mom calls me

mom

Small Stone  -  Jan 28

It still hasn't rained in this area yet.  A few sprinkles last weekend that evaporated so fast they couldn't be measured.  These past few days the sky has filled with plenty of clouds that look promising but seemingly scatter and dissolve into the sunset, adding one more day without rain.

empty dreams..
painting pink dragons
instead

Small Stone  -  Jan 27

I went to see an elderly friend in the hospital today.  She was in a deep medicated sleep, breathing heavy, eyes silent and unaware, hands and arms bruised from all the care she was given in the ICU; remnants of a survivor of a massive heart attack.  I wondered if she knew I was there?  I couldn't wake her, no one could wake her.  Just held her hand and told her that I loved her and wished her well so we could play cards again...her favourite thing.  She didn't stir until I got up to leave.  Again, I held her hand, told her I loved her and would come visit in a few days.  With eyes still closed, she gave back the faintest, most lovely smile.

winter ocean
pulling at the sun
pulling at my heart

Small Stone - Jan 13

midwinter drought

so much orange

in today's sunset

Small Stone - Jan 11

Today, yes even on Sunday, I got a phone call from an obviously scumbag Telemarketer who asked for my stepfather by his full formal name.  He said he talked to my stepdad a few months ago about remodeling the kitchen and was following up to see if he was going to honour the contract by putting a deposit down.  I listened to his spiel about how easy it would be over the phone to use a credit card, and waited until he stopped talking and then said, "I don't know about the arrangements you’ve made with my dad but I can try to forward the message to him if you would like and he can take care of it?  The silly Telemarketer said, “I would appreciate that, Miss.  So I said, “It might take a while to get a hold of him though because he died eight years ago and I don’t exactly know where he’s at."

He hung up.

blowfish for sale

every day of the week but

never on sunday

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

new year's day

again the resolutions

I made last year

CALIFORNIA DREAMY......Sunset Sequence

today's sunset

yesterday's dream

where do they go

after dark

Word Count 36792  -  7 more days!

journeys end

a curve inhales

the north wind

50 YEARS AGO TODAY - JFK

A DAY OF FORMIDABLE CHANGE

by Stevie Strang

It was Friday morning, church day for the ninth and tenth graders, and we were on our way to Mass.  Down the dreaded steps to the lower field, across the volleyball court and then up another steep set of stairs to the campus chapel.  It was a weary trail of exercise just before lunch and too soon after the morning gym class.  We couldn’t wait to be Seniors and then we would be able to walk across the coveted ramp that ran beside the library windows on the second floor.  The ramp was a straight walk from the classrooms to the chapel but was also a privilege, earned and reserved, only for the Senior class.

Three months into the new school year and already two tenth graders were expelled for smoking marijuana in The Cave under the Senior ramp.  As we filed into the little European style chapel, Sr. Ursula stood at the foot of the alter, arms sternly folded at her chest and hidden under the bib of her black habit, waiting to reprimand both classes and warn us of the perils of cannabis and mortal sin.

Gabby, Yvette and I sat on the ninth grader’s side, in the back pew next to the stained-glass window that had the most purple in it.  The morning sun filtered through the windows on the other side of the chapel and beamed their brilliant colours over to us, making rainbow fairies on the wall just above Elaine Bronson’s ratted Bubble hairdo.  Why we thought that was so funny, I don’t know, but we sat there and giggled about it until Elaine turned around and told us to shush.  She was holier than we were, silently kneeling and praying for forgiveness before she would receive communion, so we followed her example and knelt down.

innocence

even the rainbow fairies

laughed

Pat Crumley came in late, as usual, and sat in the pew in front of us next to Elaine.  She was detained in Sr. Leo’s office with a verbal warning about her skirt being too short…again.  Sr. Leo did not know that Patricia was with the two tenth graders in The Cave, under the ramp; Pat gave us a quick glance of relief as she knelt down in prayer.  The first year at the Academy, a prestigious all-girl college prep school, was a filter.  If you were called into the office three times you were expelled, never to return.  That was Patricia’s second offense. 

It was almost eleven o’clock and Mass had not yet started.  Sr. Ursula told us to read our prayer books or quietly say the rosary while she went to see what was delaying Father Booth.  As soon as she was out the door both classes started accusing each other of snitching about the marijuana incident.  

“You should be expelled too!”  A tenth grader from the front pew stood up and pointed a finger towards Pat.

“Shut-up candy-ass or you’re gonna get pants’d during lunch.”  Pat shouted back.

Blame was echoing all the way up to the exposed wooden beams of the tiny chapel when Sr. Sheila, the principal, finally came in and slowly walked up to the podium.

“You’re a goner now, Pat,” Yvette whispered and then made the sign of the cross and sat back in the pew.

Sr. Ursula and Sr. Sheila scanned the chapel from front to back with solemn faces of disbelief, seemingly searching for someone to blame, something to scream at.  Gads, had we been that loud? 

The chapel went completely silent.

“I have some disturbing news...” Sr. Sheila hesitantly said.

The pause was almost unbearable for Patricia.  She closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip. 

regret

remembering the moment

just before

“The President…our President…” 

Patricia opened her eyes. 

“President Kennedy…has been shot and killed.”

Pat turned her head towards us and let out a scream then quickly covered her mouth. Yvette’s face went pale as Gabby gathered our three bodies together and cried. Two boarder students from Venezuela fell to their knees and started praying the Hail Mary out loud.  Elizabeth from Connecticut fainted.  One by one bursts of tears and gasping screams emerged from each pew and flooded the chapel as tenth grade girls comforted ninth grade girls.  Elaine Bronson threw up.

Sr. Sheila tapped the microphone.  “Girls, girls…now girls, we have to be strong and pray for the departed soul of our fallen President, for his wife, his children, and our saddened country.  Father Booth will not be available for Mass at this time so please return to your homerooms for further instruction and information.”

She then excused herself, her black veil rhythmically flying up in an angry breeze that was powered by her hurried exit back to the privacy of her office.

Stunned into silent weeps, we filed out of the chapel, past the nurse who was tending to the bump on Elizabeth’s head, back down the stairs to the lower court and up the second set of stairs, without complaint, holding hands and comforting each other as we returned to our homerooms to listen on the PA system to the sparse details of what had gone so wrong in Texas. 

The mundane childishness of ninth and tenth grade bantering and silliness seemed pointless. The purity of innocence was shattered.  We were thrown into the grown up world, by tragedy, by default, by necessity. 

We did not know it then but we were changed in many ways; many ways that we had yet to discover and fully understand.

November 22nd

how green the grassy knoll

was

Published in SIMPLY HAIKU, Winter 2011, Vol.8 No. 3

Word Count for NaNoWriMo  31936

haunted moon

the shadow of a child

left behind