I Don’t Want to Pray

"Jesus and the Children" - Artist unknown

“I don’t want to pray,”
slap words sting
from my four-year-old daughter.
How have I millstoned God to her
so she won’t bring
her earaches to Him?

I remember “Are you saved?”
evangelistic, zealous aunt
cornered me, seven.
Next time she visited,
I hid.

Jesus is different
His words a compelling beckon
lure-and-bait questions
irresistible Pied-Piper-tune stories.

I see my little girl
one of that eager wriggling crowd
pressing too close
for disciples’ comfort.
His eyes draw her near
she leans, trusting, against Him
He lifts her on His knee.

While He talks
she watches the way
His chin moves
fingers His beard
catches His eye
whispers
“I have an earache.”

© 2003 – Published at Utmost Christian Writers. Also Published in Calendar.

Berry Season

In Krause’s fields the berries lie
‘neath Fraser Valley’s June-blue sky.
They fantasize a fate of fame
on platter for M’sieur, Madame:
“Discriminating — come and buy!

“Or if you ring us round, a pie
with glistening glaze to glorify
we’re fine with that, or set in flan,”
from Krause’s fields.

July sun swelters… “Hear our cry!
It seems we’ve set our sights too high.
We’ll modify and reprogram
and gladly now consent to jam,
leather or juice. Pick, or we die
in Krause’s fields.”

© 2003 Poets Online

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This was another poem written in response to a prompt at Poets Online. This prompt challenged us to write a poem in the form of a Rondeau. You will, I’m sure, recognize in this poem the echoes of “In Flander’s Fields” by John McCrae, which is the most well-known Rondeau. A friend of mine who read “Berry Season” didn’t like it at all. She felt it trivialized the McCrae poem. How do you feel about it?

Dehydrated

Their luscious flesh is over-rated
Dripping juices leave you sated
But an hour — then stale-dated
Past the prime is garbage fated.

Though my plumpness has caved in
My form encased in wrinkled skin
Still, concentrated flesh can win
At sweetness over tree-branch kin.

Young sisters ripen in the sun
Flaunt roundness but to me men come
To remedy a stopped-up tum
Prune always chosen over plum.

© 2003 – Poets Online. Also published in Calendar, 2004.

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I wrote this poem in response to a 2003 prompt at Poets Online (a great place to find prompts of all kinds, by the way – just click on ‘Archives’). The model poem was a sensuous poem about fruit by Diane Lockward. The challenge was to write one’s own fruity poem. Dehydrated is my attempt at a parody of the usual sexy fruit poem.

The Day Daddy Died

The day Daddy died
I found myself alone in the farmhouse
and I was like Samson when he awoke
to Delilah’s “The Philistines are on you!”
Then the ropes of new habits –
weighing 3 oz. of tuna, 2 oz. of cheese
apportioning rice, or potatoes or pasta
in meager ½ cup servings, eating my 1-oz. slice of toast
with a precise teaspoon of butter and honey
washed down with ½ cup of blue milk – snapped

and I clawed through cupboards
for prunes and baking chocolate and raisins and nuts
dug in the freezer for old cake and ice-cream and blueberries,
hard as marbles,
checked every opened box and package
ravaged every tin
until the waist-band of my new
size 12s cut into my skin
and there was room for no more
but still I was hollow inside.

© 2003 – Utmost Christian Writers Gallery Archive. Also published in Calendar, 2004

Calendar

Essence of spring drifts from the sticky buds,
Robin’s lively lilt now wakes me early.
Under the clouds, crocuses clutch a tight bouquet.
Humming lawnmowers are summer’s elevator music.

Robin’s lively lilt now wakes me early,
The smell of sun screen seeps through all my clothes.
Humming lawnmowers are summer’s elevator music.
Fruit stand has berries and apples by the box!

The smell of sun screen seeps through all my clothes;
Your fun is over, mocks the drenching rain.
Fruit stand has pears and apples by the box:
Houses don sequins and tuxedos.

Your fun is over, mocks the drenching rain.
We laugh and push each other’s cars through mounds of snow.
Houses doff sequins and tuxedos:
Naked trees stand pensive in the cold.

We laugh and push each other’s cars through mounds of snow
Under the clouds, crocuses clutch a tight bouquet.
Naked trees stand pensive in the cold;
Essence of spring drifts from the sticky buds.

© 2002 – Utmost Christian Writers Gallery Archive. Also published in Calendar, 2004

On Crescent Beach

Gravel path separates sea
and beach houses – enticing castles
with great glass vistas, rustic arbors
porticos of stone sheltering lazy loungers,
chairs in conversation.
Protected by moats – gardens,
outlined in stone, brick, white picket,
brown cedar, rounded shrubs smooth as shaved heads,
filled with green velvet and planters spilling
daffodils, pansies, sprays of giddy forsythia,
tulip faces of flame pressed open against the sun.

On the path humanity
power walks, arms pumping
and ambles, holding hands,
struts and strolls,
pedals and rolls.
The old shuffle, the new
totter, the absent-minded mutter
while dogs bark and wag, zig and zag.

Plank walls partition the beach.
At low tide their water-ends glow emerald
in a glassy setting.
Pebbled, seaweedy sand is strewn
with forest bones and gargoyle driftwood
bleaching in the sun.

The world fades as I recline against a log,
bathe in lemony sunshine,
luxuriate in the sea-fresh breeze,
serenaded by the delicate slosh of waves
that ripple and relax
onto the shore.
A million silver threads
sparkle through a gray lamé sea.
Somewhere across the bay a motor hums.
A seagull calls an echoing yodel.

© 2002 – Utmost Christian Writers Poets Places. Also published in Calendar, 2004

I take my walk just in time

I take my walk just in time
under the frowning sky,
share the green with black crows and white gulls.
They graze while I ponder should I
give it up this tinkering
with words that pilfers time
from creased shirts and dusty corners?
There’s little coin to justify
hours spent and what will be its fate
on that final bonfire-trial day?

Beside my path stands a gull so near
we could touch.
smooth pearly gray
wingtips telescoped to perfect
white dots on black.

Surely God, the original and extravagant Creator
Who thought it no waste
to paint alpine flowers,
craft ocean stars
and decorate with this polka-dotted petticoat
understands the urge I feel
to build for the epiphanies of my life
little piles of words?

I turn home with lighter heart
step to subtle happy rhythms –
a woodpecker rattling her way up a finger of snacks
and on my jacket the intermittent pat pat
pat of reconnaissance raindrops.

© 2002 – Utmost Christian Writers Poets Places. Reprinted in 2006 in Poetic Spirits of the Valley – a collection of writing by members of the MSA Poets Potpourri Society.

This is a Poem

This is a Poem

This is a poem about the last page.
This is a poem about feeling panicked.
This is a poem about lists.
This is a poem about putting up lights and garland and angels.
This is a poem about credit cards and tired feet.
This is a poem about finding Mom’s recipe and buying butter – for baking!
This is a poem about choosing the right card and signing your name 47 times.
This is poem about wrapping paper, tape and ribbon.
This is a poem about bells and snow and playing old records.
This is a poem about feasting.
This is a poem about getting around to reading the familiar story
and wondering, how did I let something that started out so simple
get to be so complicated?
This is a poem about Christmas.

© 2001 in Celebrating the Season 2001 -  Christmas Anthology, Essence Publishing.