Morning in Different Ways

I like mornings. Mostly. Today I came across something I'd written Oldest, Middle, and Youngest were Big Guy, Little Girl, and Baby, and I started thinking of morning in different ways.

Starting

waking, stretching, yawning, washing,

dressing, eating, brushing, cleaning,

rousing, changing, feeding, singing,

driving, walking, opening, planning,

prepping, waiting, smiling, greeting,

Starting

I though, if I can think about mornings with verbs, why not nouns? Are they different for weekends and workdays?

Morning                                                Morning

Pillows and blankets                             Pillows and blankets

Alarm and light                                     Slippers and robe

shower and brush                                  Whispers and lamp

clothes and shoes                                   Coffee and cookies

coffee and toast                                      Sofa and book

Morning                                                 Morning

Hmm...maybe morning is a person....with a split personality?

Morning calls softly on voices of birds,

its coffee-scented breeze pulling you to your feet.

It breathes deeply as the first rays of sun

touch your face, welcoming you to 

a new day.

OR

Morning screams suddenly with a shrill voice,

vaulting you abruptly from dreams to reality and bed to floor.

It pours glaring lights into unready eyes

and laughs at weak protests over

a new day.

Maybe I should try irony--after all, I'm composing poems about morning as the sun sets through the windows by the sofa.

Sun Play Here and There

April sun in Indiana is thin
and plays hide and seek with flat gray skies,
but mostly chooses hide.

April sun in South Carolina is loud
and calls for you to come play in warm breezes,
but also sits in calm corners.

MIdnight Memory

       Midnight Memory

The rhythmic squeak of the rocking chair

slices through the silence

of the sleeping house.

Shadows from the streetlights

sketch hazy pictures

on the walls,

and a small warm body

drapes over my shoulder

like a blanket

tucked under my chin.

Really There is no other choice

Some not-quite-as-random-as-they-seem facts:

• Once the SOLSC was over, I knew I wanted to keep slicing on Tuesdays
• I have an old notebook and a tattered folder with some bits and pieces of old writing
• Last night, the BONS were together--eating, laughing, telling stories, and sharing writing
• The BONS know there is poetry hidden here and there in the notebook and folder
• It's Poetry Month

So really, there is no other choice. I'm feeling nudged (pushed, pulled, encouraged, called--you pick) to pull out a couple of the poems and put them here. Where you can see them. 

To the BONS: I'm holding you all personally responsible for this!

This one was first written in spring of 2003, though it's about a fall tradition.

Round the bend

at the top of the hill,

smoke curls over the barn

where family history is made.

Cars standing,

head toward the wind

like cattle shoulder to shoulder

in the pasture.

Familiar faces

appear distorted,

like looking into an old mirror;

it happened so quickly.

Approaching slowly,

reconnecting with nods

and picking up

year-old conversations.

Rich tradition

sticks across generations;

through change, much stays the same

as the family story goes on.

We Can Just Keep Going and Going

As I was trying to think of how best to reflect at the end of my first SOLSC, I realized that my first graders had summed up much of what I was feeling. While I learned a lot about myself as a writer and the importance of belonging to a community of writers, bits of doorway conversation best reveal my thoughts.

This morning, as my kids came into the classroom, giving hugs, jostling past each other and filling me in on their lives during the 17 hours since I had last seen them, N. squeezed me tight and said, "Mrs. M.--we did it! We passed the challenge!" Her face was lit up and she bounced up and down with excitement and an obvious sense of pride.

A. overheard and wandered over, shoulders slumped, his brown eyes thoughtful. "But it's kind of sad too, right?" he said, "that it's all over."

J. barely looked up as he moved past A. to get to the coat hooks. "We can still slice though! There are new books (we had slice booklets) and we can just keep going and going."

A. followed J. to his desk, and seeing a new blank book just for slices, hurried away to his own desk. He sat down, tossed a smile my way, and began to dig through his desk for a pencil.