girl says:
“don’t worry!!!”
emphatic, confident,
exasperated.
girl knows!
she is grown.
parents know
these assurances
are trouble.
-
girl says
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happy birthday baby rex~ welcome to the world!
My cousin Kelly and Frank just had their first baby, a beautiful boy Rex! Amazing experience holding the first little baby in the family!! So happy that all are healthy and happy 🙂 it’s all still too new, so no poetry on that topic today….
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the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (as written in my journal)
Not sure why I thought to look up my journal entry around the time of Katrina, but I did (maybe it’s all the reading about the BP oil disaster). And it brought back the fear and the horror and well, I thought maybe it was good if we all took a moment to remember. Tragedy, with time, is very easy to forget for those not involved. Sounds preachy, but true…
journal entry 9/1/05 12:58am
“tonight rumors
that I had lost my job
that gas stations were closed
that bodies were still
swimming in the sewage
overtaking New Orleans….
one of these is
true.”“this is for sure an unbelievable time the unthinkable is happening – it was really only a matter of time. Katrina– cause of the flooding of a city that always meant good times always meant debauchery, laughter, the lazy life, laid back Southern style. now the streets just sewers of debris and bodies. people are dying. people are losing all sense of right and wrong. that breakdown of society that ID that can no longer be contained and the rest of us… helpless? watching mouths open. we sleep and wake to see more bad news and that gas will hit $4. only a matter of time.
we are so fortunate. so now when it is quiet we can say a silent prayer for the Gulf Coast and a secret sigh of relief that it wasn’t us. blink it could all be gone. right now, is there any other way of thinking? nah. and now i should sleep and get ready for the morning….”
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high heel shoes
high heel shoes
scattered across my floor,
I used to hate that height
but now I buy them
taller taller…I like the feeling of
a head held high
I am who you imagine
on this new road
you see me
walking tall,
hips swaying,
lips glossy,yet it fades when I return
empty the suitcase, scatter
heels across the floor…
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late night city gossip
Here on our Patterson hill
see the lights of downtown
pulsing,the men with knives and guns
the sporadic sirens
all demanding,
the streetlight orange rowhomes
the white marble stoops
all conspiring.The hound dog neighbor (Hannah)
wailing,
she’s heard all about me,
these city streets,
their brick cobblestone cement,
whipersing,
the gossip never ends.[ps: found this little poem in an old journal, circa 2006 or so]
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the pacific northwest (and a haiku to Mt Rainier)
i have returned full of Chinook salmon and pictures of mountains…. that Mt Rainier~ captured my imagination like none other (except perhaps Denali, but i don’t think i truly appreciated it then). so happy and can’t wait to return someday….
timber trucks whipser
legends of a mountain top
so serene and bluecapped white she rises
older than my brittle bones
prouder than Tatoosh.
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seattle, portland, volcanoes…oh my!
hey all! currently traveling through the Pacific Northwest and won’t be updating much this week…. I love Seattle! [yesterday did Pike’s and the Underground tour] and today driving down to Portland and stopping at a few mountains on the way. Hopefully will be good fuel for poetry later on…..
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happy mother’s day~ "a mother’s heart"
Happy Mother’s Day~ spent a lovely weekend with my family and am so thankful for my mamma. She is the bestest!! A poem from my great-grandmother Alice that is especially appropriate. Shows that some things never change…. [taken from her book of poetry The Fruit Thereon]
A Mother’s Heart
A mother’s heart is tuned to listen for
The groping sound of hands upon a door —
The midnight striking of the mantel clock —
The turning of a key within the lock.A mother knows when waiting hours are past
And each loved one is safe at home at last.
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Travels in Europe, 12 days by Coach (haiku)
talk of days before
as if lifetimes ago but
i’m still on the bus.[NOTE: my cousin and i did the whirlwind American-style tour of Europe~ 8 countries in 12 days… the kind of bus tour that all Europeans make fun of. i was reminded of this when talking with a German friend the other night who, currently living here in the States, now understands why we do these fly-by-the-night breeze-throughs of Europe; we don’t get enough vacation time to do it any other way!! and let’s face it, when you have limited time, you want to see as much as possible. anyways, the feeling on our coach bus was like the scene out the window~ days blurred past us faster than we could dare process, yet somehow we were always back on the bus….]
Poetry by JC Snyder 