That Last Morning

That last morning, you woke me up when the light from the alarm clock was brighter than the sky outside. It didn’t bother me because I knew the clock had been winding down since January of last year, when I prayed that you’d see one last snow fall. You got your snow. You got your week by the sea. You played with the children you loved. Earlier this week you even got steak. So when I heard you whimper during the morning shift (Dad always takes the night shift) I lay down next to you. I rubbed your back until you felt better. And together we watched the sky lighten, waiting for Dad to get up and so we could that last morning walk together. 

On that last morning
your pain finally left you.
My pain is lessened
knowing that we gave you these gifts—
a full life, a gentle end.

Kit, looking dapper

Song Choice: Cracker Jack by Dolly Parton

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem is linked to the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United. It was written for my sweet boy Kit, who crossed the rainbow bridge last Friday. I am grateful that our whole family was able to be in the room when it was time to say goodbye.

Liminal Tea

I did not have a bowl of tea under the cherry blossoms on my birthday month in the way I had hoped. This spring’s strangeness outlasted both my birthday and those blooms, going past the scent of summer honeysuckle, and likely to linger after the veins of the last red leaf of autumn are crusted with frost. 

But the peace I find in my practice is also long lasting. Though the fall threatens more strange fruit and bitter harvests, though winter is a specter I can’t yet imagine, my battered mind finds a moment of respite in a space apart, created where the scent of matcha rises when water first meets it, and cradled in the sound of the whisk dancing in the bowl. And even if I cannot pass a bowl of tea to another’s appreciative hand, that rest found between the liminal spaces of foam and pouring water can travel freely for miles, any time to anyone who sets aside a corner of their heart for tea. 

I’ve learned to adapt,
mixing matcha for one. But
I can still share tea
steeped in my heart, an ocean
away, yet linked by spirit.

This was taken on the New Year's tea celebration my tea school holds every year.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

Song Choice: While My Guitar Gently Weeps performed by Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and Others

Liner Notes for This Groove: This piece was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #35, The Joy of Rest. It was also inspired by a request from my tea teacher. This September Urasenke North America is holding a chado relay, where they invite members from the different tea schools in North America to share images and words about their practice during these socially distanced times. I am a member of Urasenke Philadelphia and it will be our turn to share from the 7th to the 9th. 

Something Better

It's hard not to look at the stupidity all around and not feel angry. I am no saint. Anger tore a gash in my side and settled in my stomach. But although it tries to burble up my throat when I speak, it doesn't have my mind, nor will it ever take my heart.

I have enough rage
to burn, but it won't help us.
Love's the only way
to smash a cycle of hurt
so something better can grow.

Song Choice: For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield

This poem was created for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' prompt, Wordy Friday with Wild Woman: Staying Strong in a World of Climate Crisis.

Love by Robert Indiana

Just the Basics: Blogging Around with Rommy, Week 24

My family is as drawn to the ink-blue bays of Maine as surely as the mosquitoes are drawn to drinking our blood. But any space not reserved for bug-spray is at a premium. We are four travelers with interests that accumulate stuff—stuff to entertain ourselves and stuff to share with the near-family that meets us there.

My husband’s hoard glitters with dice scattered over decks stacked with monsters and mountains, resting on a foundation of books that have helped him build adventures with stranger things. My son dithers in deciding which author will be his tour guide during the moments not filled by games and exploring the shore. My daughter is ever prepared for microdisasters. Her bags hold the bug spray and band aids. She is keeper of the snacks, plotter of bathroom breaks, and monarch of the mundane but easily forgotten things.

I of course have my realm of tea.  Noel Coward’s fearful question “Wouldn't it be dreadful to live in a country where they didn't have tea?” hovers over when I pack. It would be dreary to go two weeks without my favorites, and I cannot disappoint my near-niece and god-daughter and leave their preferred blends behind either. Fortunately for me, my words travel well, even to places with lackluster wi-fi. And that ink-blue bay works wonders for my inspiration.

Two weeks of life crammed

pell-mell onto a car roof.

I unpack it all,

brewing my words and good tea

steeped in the sight of the sea.

I always look forward to the view from the cabin every summer. Is there anything
you are looking forward to this summer dear Groovers? Let's talk in the comments. 

Song Choice: In the Sea by America from the movie The Last Unicorn

This poem is linked to Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads' Tuesday Platform.

One Seed, Ten Thousand Seeds: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 18

The shade of a blessed tree watches over the seedlings that came from one righteous act. One of six thousand good deeds seems so small against the six million lost in lightning and storms, in the showers that choked. But to see the seedlings growing strong and true to their roots, in this place where my grafted limbs have been trained to do justice to the sublime green—this sends a fresh seed into my heart for me to treasure when I am weary in the fight for the soil I’ve been planted in.

A modest hero

defined by quiet resolve

and strange defiance

inspires my jaded heart

to go and resist again.

Song Choice: The Change by Garth Brooks

Liner Notes for This Groove: I was so very honored to be part of a special friendship tea ritual Urasenke Philadelphia held in honor of the son of Chiune Sugihara (a Japanese diplomat who saved 6,000+ Jews during WWII) and the son of one of the people he saved, Rabbi Shimon Goldman. I’ve often had reason to agree with the quote “Where there is tea, there is hope” by Arthur Wing Pinero. But I felt especially hopeful serving tea that afternoon.

This was the set up we used for the ceremony. I know it isn't very visible but the script on the tea container translates to "One Seed, Ten Thousand Seeds." Tea tools are chosen very carefully to suit the occasion. I think that this was the perfect tea container for that day.

This poem is linked to Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' Tuesday Platform.

How's your week been dear Groovers? Anything making you feel a little hopeful? Catch me up with your world in the comments section. And feel free to work in a link in your comments if you want to take the discussion onto your cyberhome.

Lost Girl (What Miyaka Knows)

There is no shortage of people ready to point out what they feel is my place. Every flaw of mine is thoroughly dissected and explained, as if I were not already fully acquainted with all of them. It is then I run to lose myself in the pages of a story. I touch my lips to a well of words, take them deep into my body until they are part of me. Then I carry them back, alive with their power to remember I am the creatrix of my own tales.



A hard world demands
me to break. I refuse to.
Saved by strange magic
in my paperback heroes,
I claim my wings and fly.

Song Choice: Itooshii Hito No Tame Ni

Da' Notes: This poem was created as a response to an idea Magaly Guerrero put forth in a recent blog post, Trinkets and Armor: What's Your Passion? Drawing inspiration from a wise old woman, she asked us to share the things that we're passionate about or that soothe/ help when things feel a bit bleak. Reading of course was one of my first, and remains among my dearest comforts. If it were simply about reading, I might have gone with a poem about Anne of Greene Gables (I probably will write an Anne themed thing someday). But there is also something magical about writing too, about being the force creating the world around you. And so to convey that in aspect, I decided to play around with inspiration from one of my favorite anime/manga series, Fushigi Yuugi, where the heroine, Miaka, literally goes inside the world of a book, and her choices drive the way the story turns out. This piece is also linked up to The Tuesday Platform at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads.

A Little Silver

The first time I woke to your smiling face was decades ago. We started the day off saying this was only temporary, but ended the evening admitting we were very wrong. I've been lucky to have many more years of things to be wrong about.

The sunlight reveals
wrinkles concealed by stubble.
A little silver
doesn't faze me. Any time spent
loving you is a treasure.

Song Choice: Stuck Like Glue by Sugarland. I had to go with the video featuring clips from one of my and my husband's favorite cartoons, Kim Possible.

This tanka prose piece is linked to Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads' Tuesday Platform. I wrote it especially in honor of my 23rd wedding anniversary yesterday.

Sunset on the Boy from Tatootine

Everything my friends have fought for has been ground into particles finer than the sand of the desert I grew up in. It is my fault. My failure to live up to the promise others saw in me has damaged families and damned galaxies. I have renounced the sky; it was hubris to think I belonged anywhere but on the ground, extraordinary only because of the things I've broken. But if the dry husk that remains of me can be useful as kindling to create a fire others can warm their dying hopes by, I will give it up and try to be the hero children need me to be.

New hope crushed by old
resentments that did not die.
Failure defines me
only if I do not rise
one last time for tomorrow.

Song Choice: Hurt by Johnny Cash


This tanka prose poem was created by the prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: If You Meet The Hero On The Road... where we were asked to write about a hero. I chose to base this tanka prose around Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars movies. This piece will also be linked to Poets United: Poetry Pantry 404.

Trivial

You were among the first I played that particular game with. We threw out the rule book handed to us by stern faced women in black robes and sought to prove how much we knew about the world, even though the category of indoor sports and leisure was a complete mystery to us both. Arguing over claiming a crucial slice of pie became too much, and we went on to other games. Years later, we showed off cars filled with pegs, happier for having traveled on our own roads. All the rancor of the parting was left behind on the highway; afternoons spent with you made me a better driver in the end. It's for the best it was temporary, but it never was trivial.

Pressed flowers won't bloom 

again. Lovely in their time,

they are memories

sharing lessons to impart

wisdom with passage of time.

Song choice: Night Moves by Bob Seeger

This poem was created for the prompt (created by me) at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: It's All Fun and Games The games I worked with were Trivial Pursuit and Life.

Bug

Dreadful headlines buffet the breath from my body. I recoil from their continued assault, only to be knocked over like bug on its back. The natural comfort of my carapace becomes a trap. I flail, finding no purchase in the air I flew freely through not so long ago. News marches on. I feel the whoosh as its passing feet come close to crushing me in this vulnerable position. A well timed gust of wind combined with the wriggle of my legs helps me rediscover my center. I go to my place of safety, and remember though I am small, I am also not alone. There are far more of me, buzzing, whirring and clicking in every city and town. And together we are a swarm that outnumbers them all.

Uncaring footfalls

promise my annihilation

unless I stand up.

Fear threatens to entomb me

but anger keeps me fighting.

Song Choice: Valley Forge from The Hamilton Mixtape

This poem was created for the prompt given at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: 13 is Poetry. It is also linked to Poets United, Poetry Pantry 399. I used the following 13 words from the original quote: 

dreadful

annihilation

breath

the

comfort

natural

their

a

on

continue

anger

to

rediscover

The quote given:

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

Genki

You’ll remember if you’ve met me. My eyes are big enough to swallow the world whole. It’ll take a lifetime to digest it all, but that doesn’t bother me. Going so slowly that a stranger can glimpse my face through a rainstorm does.

There is too much world

to walk through. Instead I dance.

I move fast only

to oppose gravity

'til I can face it my way.

Song Choice: Don't Rain On My Parade, Glee Version

This poem was created by a prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: Transformations. It is also linked to Poets United, Poetry Pantry 398. I was super intrigued by the idea behind it and toyed with a bunch of different directions to go, before I gave into my nerd side and played with a popular TV trope, the Genki Girl (follow the link for a good explanation). Although I really love the energy of my song choice (and the perfection of matching that particular performance to this piece) I feel like I need to give props to the Genki Girl I had in mind while writing this, Sailor Moon.

False Spring

Do not trust the sun in early March. It's promises mean nothing. Winter is a lazy monarch in those days, allowing occasional warmth to creep in until she remembers herself. Be patient. In time, she shall yield to her sister seasons. Then it will be safe to grow.

False spring tempts rash seeds

afraid to miss any warm days.

It's braver to wait

under snow, gathering strength,

trusting warmer days will come.

Song Choice: Wait For It from Hamilton

This poem is linked to The Tuesday Platform over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads.

Unashamed

Fate sometimes blows a seed into an inhospitable garden. The balance of sun and shade might be off, or it might be shunned as a weed in a carefully curated bed. But sympathetic eyes understand what it needs to thrive. Watch how stunted plants unashamedly flaunt their colors once they are shown some love.


Unfriendly soil chokes
leaves curious for their own
suppressed flowers. Hurt
flees at loving caresses
when blooms believe in their worth.

Song Choice:  Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae

This poem was inspired by the song/ video mentioned above and is linked to The Tuesday Platform at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and Poetry Pantry 394 at Poets United.

Songbird

When conditioned to the silence of winter, that first sound of bird song can be surprising. Its music is a far better reminder than a date on the calendar that warmth will soon return. Even if there is snow on the ground, each trill carries a seed of spring to plant inside the hearts that hear them.

A bird intends its song
to be heard. It is a gift,
inspiring music
in an appreciative ear.
The worlds needs more songbirds.


Song choice: Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus (acapella version)

This poem is linked up to Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads' Tuesday Platform. It is also linked to Poets United Poetry Pantry 392.

Life in Words

If you can read, you can live a multitude of lives. But stories are more than a diversion. They let your mind play dress up with ideas. It is up to you to decide if those ideas deserve a place in your permanent wardrobe.


Words hold strong magic to charm my mind. The right words tell me a story about myself. I learn much living other lives through words.

Song Choice: Narnia by Steve Hackett

This tanka-prose piece was inspired by a prompt given at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads: Art With Me. It is also linked to Poets United Poetry Pantry 388

The Stories I Tell Myself

London fog pulls hard on the heels of shoes two sizes too small. They weren't meant to last this long, especially in bad weather. But I imagine myself a spy; the fog and cold are trifles.

Miss Minchin doesn't like the look on my face when I return from my errand. She tells me so. It does not matter. She cannot stop me from being the heroine in my own story.

The hard world insists
the stories I tell myself
are lies. All that they are -
my foolish, cherished daydreams -
grow to feed my hope filled heart.

Song Choice:  Fight Song by Rachel Platten 

This poem was created for a prompt given at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: Rhubarb. We were asked to write from the perspective of a favorite childhood character. It was tough picking just one! But finally I decided on Sarah Crewe from A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett.

Natural

My hair is too big for the cap I was given. Blowing myself a kiss, I let it fall along its natural part and adorn it with flowers, unconcerned if they match my dress.

It is tiring

to prune one's blooms to conform.

Define glamour

by the plumage that suits you.

Rebel by loving yourself.

Song Choice: Confident by Demi Lovato

This poem was created for the Midweek Motif at Poet's United: Narcissus (Vanity/Narcissism). I am also linking it up to the Friday 55 over at Verse Escape.