The King

Fearsome and beautiful you sit on my rail

Letting me know you are the king

Birds disappeared on arrival

No lunch from my feeder today

As you contemplate your next move

Your eyes hold a Covid loneliness

One of isolation and sadness

Exquisite creature, do you feel our pain

Or is the lonely soaring life

Your everyday normal

*****

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Grace asked us to us personification in our poem. Hawks are such magnificent creatures. I love when they come and visit me from time to time. This one was much closer than most, asserting his dominance of the territory perched next to my bird feeder. I can almost tell what he is thinking as he rests on my deck rail.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com then click on Mr. Linkey to read more poems.

A New Beginning

When I retired from teaching elementary school, in 1998, I still had fifteen years until I could fully retire. I ran my own Home Repair business for two and a half years, and then taught a building construction class with the Community College for another two and a half years.

It was the winter of 2005, and my class of ten students dwindled down to six, after the first week. We were partnering with Habitat for Humanity, giving them hands on experience in actually building houses. The snow that came that first week caused a few to drop out. As a result, the class was canceled. It was discouraging to me to be left without an income until another class could be scheduled.

My friend Bunky ran a vinyl siding business. He heard that my class was canceled, and called asking if I would come and fill in for a couple of weeks as sales manager for the warehouse. He had just fired his whole warehouse staff “for selling siding out the back door!” I knew nothing about vinyl siding and just a little about the computer, but I agreed to do what I could. This was Saturday. I went in on Sunday afternoon to learn how to do invoices on the computer, and started work the next day! It was very unsettling to attempt to run the warehouse by myself, but I learned all about it. That was on Valentines Day, 2005, and I continued to work for him for the next six years, until I retired in 2011!

Snowfall takes its toll

Students not ready to work

Friends help each other

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Lillian asked to think of a time in our life when we had a New Beginning! She asked us to write a Haibun consisting of up to three short paragraphs followed by a traditional Haiku.

Join us and read more at: https://dversepoets.com and click on the Mr. Linkey box.

Friends in Low Places

Today I walked through the cemetery of my childhood

thinking

of all life stories encapsulated there.

Friends and neighbors

inscribed on theses stones;

A card catalog

of stories one can no longer check out.

Ancestries long buried in dust

some lost in time;

Yet the stones live on

calling for recognition from the living.

Today, as I walked

I remembered friends and neighbors

who shaped my life

with their smiles…

their words….

love shared…

I think to myself

“I’ve got friends in low places…”

I must be getting old!

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Peter asked us to consider beginnings and endings in poetry. We are looking at how the lines flow and how endings are used to punctuate what we are trying to say. He gave us five things to choose from as we write our poems. I tried to incorporate some of these in my poem today.

1. how and where to end that line 
2. endings as quotations like The Golden Shovel form – where one poem quotes another 
3. endings and beginnings – verse forms that loop and repeat
4. underlining your endings, and
5. surprise ending

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This was inspired by reading Derrick Knight’s post: Return To Brompton Cemetery – derrickjknight

Where are You?

“Helen, where are you! When are you coming home. I miss you, please…let me know when you return. I will be down in Bruce’s room watching Wheel of Fortune.”

Paul wrote these notes carefully and neatly on the back of the napkin he brought back from the dinning room. His mind smoky, his focus clouded, he thought to himself, “Reading what I have just written, I now believe she may be gone for good.” His mind soon clouded again as he leaned back in his recliner.

In the time since he moved into his new apartment, he had not seen his wife Helen. He could not imagine where she might be. She might come through the door at any time. Day after day he waited and wondered. He left notes for her, in case she returned, while he was out, but to no avail.

*****************

Today at d’verse, Lillian is guiding our Prosery. Prosery is where we take a given line from a poem and incorporate that line into a prose piece of only 144 words. Today she asked us to include the line: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe” taken from Louise Gluck’s Faithful and Virtuous Night and her poem Afterwards.

I decided to write my piece about the emotions and feelings of one with Alzheimer’s disease. Eight years ago my father-in-law had to be confined to a care facility in the weeks following Christmas. Although he seemed to adjust well to his new environment, not being with his wife was very traumatic for him. This is a glimpse of that time. Although we took him to see her, he did not remember after he was back at his residence.

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Photo: Dwight L. Roth

The Color of Christmas Songs

Synethesia

The Colors of Christmas

So many wonderful memories

wrap themselves around my brain

as the colors of Christmas come alive

with every Christmas song.

Rudolph conjures up that little red nose

along with Frosty the Snowman’s black hat

and his eyes made out of coal.

Silent Night shines in that warm yellow glow of the stable

And angelic voice sing in robes of pure white.

White Christmas swirls with white snowflakes

along with Jingle Bells dashing through the snow.

Elvis brought out the Blue (in) Christmas matching our

Twenty-twenty Covid year… remembering those we love.

Who could imagine Santa Clause Coming to Town without seeing red

or the little green elves who make the toys;

Or, You’re a Mean (green) One Mr. Grinch

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear in the blue black sky

full of silver twinkling stars.

And who could forget Silver Bells ringing

above a street covered with snow…

As we Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly crisp and green

The colors of Christmas are felt with every song

Today at d’Verse Grace took us back to the concept of Synethesia, which occurs, for example, when one sense such as music makes one see colors. It can happen with any of the senses. This evening we are looking specifically at music. I have never experienced synethesia in the literal sense, but I decided to look at how Christmas Songs automatically bring colors to mind.

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Squirrel Hunting in the Mountains

Squirrel hunting

Like bringing jerky for supper

Tough to chew on

Today at d’Verse, Sarah gave us a selection of seven different lines from one of her favorite books and asked us to choose one and write a poem about it. These lines come from “Surfacing” by Kathleen Jamie.

I know there is very little meat on a squirrel so I wrote my poem accordingly.

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Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Abiding Love

In the cold of winter, we said, “I do”

with December snow on the ground

and candles burning brightly.

And now my love,

winter is fast approaching;

And, after fifty-one years

we’re still together.

Our abiding love lives on…

“till death do us part”

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Today is Quadrille Monday at d’Verse. Lisa asked to use the word abide for our prompt and write a poem of 44 words. She gave us various uses of the word, one of which was the old hymn Abide With Me. That took me back to the songs of my childhood. I decided to use write in reference to love. The end of December will be fifty-one years for us. It just seemed fitting to write of our abiding love; resting on, depending on, secure in the vows we made so many years ago.

I took these flower photos at about 3:30 this afternoon, blooming in my back yard on November 30th! Who would believe? Frost comes again tomorrow morning.

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Ode to a Gecko

Green Gecko posturing for her kiss

Crimson fan spread like an Egyptian palm

Swelling and deflating spread signals her

To come and join in a sweet summer’s trist

*

But, how quickly you changed as colors fade

Love lasts only for a season you know

Now, as Fall leaves turn brown, dry, and curling

You too have traded your green luster show

*

Now’s the time for gray burnt umber blending

Winter fast approaches…with each cold wind

Time to forget courtship…summer’s gone now

Find space to hibernate… till winter ends

*

Bone-chilling winds…Heartbeat slows…Blood runs cold

Surviving to live/love another day

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Open link night at d’Verse. Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

For more information on Geckos check here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anolis_carolinensis

Orion the Hunter

Years ago we lived in a house with a driveway that lined up with the constellation of Orion. When we came home after dark, we could look up and see Orion’s belt shining above the end of our drive. Later, we moved to a house that was surrounded with trees. Very few stars could be seen and Orion was nowhere to be found.

Three stars bright stars make up the belt and are easiest to see. They are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. They are giant stars that are so far away it takes over 12,000 lightyears for the light from these stars to reach the earth! This is hard for me to comprehend. Our universe is so vast we here on earth are just dust in the wind.

Orion’s belt glows

Starlight from beyond our time

Bright string of pearls

Today at d’Verse, Kim asked us to write a haibun about the stars in the night sky!

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Picture from: orion-constellation.jpg (600×600) (wordpress.com)

Information from wikapedia.com

A Gathering of the Dead

What do you see as you come to the emergence of Winter?

Lying together

Some see death others see hope

Death waiting for life

***

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

This came to me this morning as I was reading through the collection of Jisei poems from Frank Tassone’s prompt on d’Verse. We are to write a death poem or a Jisei. Jisei poems were of Japanese origins, and were often written in waka (tanka) or haiku, but death poems are not restricted to those forms. What is essential is the expression of both imminent death and the significance of life in the face of it. In this sense, Jisei is the poetry of both memorial and celebration.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com and click on the Mr. Linkey link to read more interesting Jisei poems.