Category Archives: poem

straw sandals by Jennifer Marin [Guest Post]

So, I like everything about this guest post – from the message preface to the deceptively simple verse. Jennifer Marin is a fabulous designer (among other talents) but has never considered herself a poet, at least not that I know of. Goes to show that everyone has a little poetry in their soul 🙂 Please follow her at @Hungry4Design

“Looks like my handwriting…. Found it in my 2006 notebook – from the very first 3 months I was here [United States from Venezuela]

Another year is gone
A travelers shade on my head
Straw sandals at my feet”

airport blues (if it was you)

drinking real chocolate milk and it settles into my bones with
a sweet sigh.

everyone around me is in such a hurry; they race to another day,
like its just another flight.

i thought i just saw your face but it was another in a hat in an airport
far from home.

if it was you,
you were booking another flight without saying hello or goodbye.
If it was you,
i guess i would let you go and prepare for another restless sleep…

i would be the one
you’d watch who constantly searches, trying to figure out why everyone is in
such a hurry.

if it was you,
you’re finally out of sight and i can stop straining my neck to see the face
that isn’t you.

decadent memories rot teeth. here we go now. hurry up and leave.

(circa 2002 in sketch journal form)

great grandmother (written by my great grandmother Alice B Johnson)

This poem was written by my great grandmother Alice B. Johnson and is taken from her book, Where Children Live (1958). While not the style I write in, I think it’s beautiful and sweet, and I’m happy to post it here. For more from Alice B. Johnson, click on her name under categories.

Great Grandmother

The years rest like a diadem
Upon your silver hair —
Serenity is like a cloak
That you gently wear.

Years of loving kindness show
Upon your furrowed brow,
Like promised harvest that has known
The earth, the sun, the plow.

Life’s burdens have not passed you by,
Nor sorrow’s parting loss —
Yours the constant faith that sees
The crown beyond the cross.

No bitterness or fear has left
Upon your heart its trace —
Love is the mirrored beauty seen
Reflected in your face.

Tenderly and lovingly
With your arms you hold
Your precious great-grandaughter,
Less than one year old.

She doesn’t see the marks of time,
Where age has sifted through —
She only knows the comfort and
The blessedness of you.