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Poems Poetry

Linguistic Acrobatics

Love is an ugly word.

One that makes the mouth contort and twist round itself.

First the tongue must backbend before springing off the roof of the mouth to hover in midair.

Next, bared teeth bite the lip; scraping skin before the sweet release.

And the word floats like a promise of peace in the wake of violence.

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Current Events family Poems Poetry

15 Years

She was born in the quiet hush of a snowstorm. Fifteen years later, there’s nothing quiet about her.

She’s as fierce as a tsunami and loud as a tornado.

Snow shrinks before the spring, and she, she is the raging river that’s left behind.

Categories
family parenting Poems Poetry

Gray Matter

What will the memories of this past year be? Perhaps, one of the hardest years of my life.

Will they be filled with the rose colored tinge of nostalgia, like the pain of childbirth that time and contentment erase?

Or will they darken the day, coming in as sharp, stinging nettles in the surprise of their remembrance?

Categories
Current Events Education family Haiku Poems Poetry

College

It’s easy to think

I’m abstract terms about “struggle”

But much harder

When your child is hundreds of miles away

And crying on the phone

Categories
Current Events family Haiku parenting Poems Poetry

Back

There are times in life

When the world spins around you

And though you move slow

Time is relentless

And, despite your best efforts to catch it

Time falls through your fingers like sand

It’s been a minute

Established routines were lost

To time’s onslaught

Yet, the spinning slowed

And suddenly Autumn was in the air.

As summer dwindles,

I can think clearly

Categories
Climate family Haiku parenting Poems Poetry

When Spring Came to Fall

A breeze has begun.

Listless still, but cold and crisp

It harbors the fall.

and the end of an old cycle

But, underneath the wind

A budding laugh grows

And she awakens

Like a new spring

Categories
Current Events family Poems Poetry

Summer Clean up

The intangible weight of life

Is laden with excess woes

But made light of strife

When unburdened from a closet of clothes.

Categories
family Haiku parenting Poetry

Nostalgia

Looking through photos

Brings a honeyed nostalgia

That’s soured with fear

What if I remember

Only the picture? And not

The sweetness of the moment?

Categories
Haiku mental health parenting Poems Poetry

Ants

Trying to make sense

Of a life in upheaval

Is like trying to

Hear a conversation between ants

You can see them, sure

See that they’re conversating

Their little antennae move

And they hustle forward with purpose

But what they said?

It’s non-sensical.

Problems are like this too

They appear, but don’t make sense

And decisions must be rushed toward

with all the purpose

of an ant on a mission

but none of the understanding.

Categories
family Haiku Poems Poetry

Deck Parties

Mild, summer evenings

Bring bubbles of joy and chaos

That float like pink clouds

Across dying grass

In a rush we talk over

One another

Not because we’re not listening

But because we’re trying

To steal extra minutes

From a waning day

Who’s jewel bright light filters through fluttering green leaves

“Hurry,” it whispers. “The day will soon sleep.”

So we spill our stories

Incomplete as the broken light

Their shards reflecting our smiles.