Outside

For Carrie’s 100th Sunday Muse BlogSpot. whoo hoo! 100! I am having trouble with my ancient computer and so I cannot post the pic of a teal door.  I ended the poem with an American sentence.  Congrats Carrie and thank you so much for the prompts!  Here’s to 100 more.

Outside
“Everyone is battling something emotional behind closed doors – that’s life.” Caroline Flack

Behind the door I spend my days alone.
I fix meals for one,
sleep alone,
don’t talk to anyone.
I have become the ultimate introvert.
Outside my door –
spring arrives.
the lawn is full of tiny blue
forget-me-nots,
dainty blue Johnny jump ups,
countless purple muscari hyacinths.
green flushes the branches of trees
and the blue sky covers all.
I don’t feel alone when I am outside.
I walk around and remember.
then I go back inside.
The alone starts again.

Spring returns with a canopy of blue overhead – the vernal sky.

Fall Knocks Slowly

For Real Toads Tuesday Platform

Fall Knocks Slowly
Fall knocks slowly at summer’s door:
an old friend with shyness at returning and
maybe told to leave.
Leaves turn yellow and
slowly drop on green grass and
turn brown to be swept away
by chill winds.
Breezes once warm start
to be chill at evening
and daylight’s gold luster fades
to early evening.
Evening comes too soon for those of us who love the
sweet warm days and azure skies
but summer opens the door to fall and
the visitor glides in and
settles down to stay until
winter bids it go.
In the cold winter
might stars seem to burn brighter –
heaven’s nightlights to keep us safe
while we sleep and dream of spring.

copyright kanzensakura

Haibun: Snowy Days

For Sherry’s prompt over at Toads – Earth Grief. A haibun.  It is all too sad and heartbreaking.

Snowy Days
I remember the winter when I was six. It snowed every Wednesday in December and January. I had just read the Bobbsey Twins and I wanted an ice fort, just like they had. Of course, my father was going to make it happen for me. One morning we went out into the backyard and began to build it. Just before lunch, we finished. He poured water over the entire structure and it froze overnight. It didn’t melt until early spring and a couple of friends and I had fun jumping on it to collapse it. But it snowed every Wednesday without fail. The snow was three feet deep and took its own sweet time melting. Winters were cold when I was a child. The cold turned my cheeks read and seeped into my clothes. Now we are lucky if we get snow, much less cold weather. It will be sunny and seventy degrees on Thanksgiving Day. Probably on Christmas day as well. I miss the cold weather of my childhood. I miss the coming into the house and taking off my snowboots and sitting down before the coal grate and sipping a mug of hot chocolate. I miss snuggling into the blankets to get warm at night and my father coming into the bedrooms to replenish the coal in all the grates. I miss the clanging of the radiators. It used to be cold when I was a child. Now, it is rare as hen’s teeth.
cold snowy winter days –
snow falls without fail –
now polar bears starve

me at age 6

dVerse Poets: Open Link Night

Come join us at dVerse to read wonderful poems by wonderful poets today at 3:00 pm EST. http://dversepoets.com/2017/01/12/openlinknight-187/

watching the trees sway

standing on my back porch
I am confronted by the potting shed
at the back of the lawn.
Nobody’s Cat,
a crippled tuxedo boy
had crawled under it Thursday evening
unknown to me,to die.
his crippled arm had been swelling
and the weather had been getting more
cruel in its cold.
I took him a plate of food,
(I had been feeding him for a year)
and he gobbled it up.
Next morning and evening,
I took him breakfast and dinner,
through a quickly deepening snow.
Sunday, he did not respond to my urget
kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty –
none of the four times I had been.
nor on Monday nor on Tuesday.
the weather had dropped to -5F for several nights running.
now I stand on my back porch
being confronted with the potting shade.
my eyes travel past it to the woods beyond
down a slight slope.
I watch the trees swaying in the wind –
it is warm today, Pneumonia Weather
as the old timers call it.
I watch the trees swaying –
delicate whites, dark umber,
bland beige, light brown.
I watch them swaying
back and forth,
back and forth.
I know in the next big wind,
some of them will go down –
some to live sideways
and some to die.

Poetics Tuesday: River of Silver

Today at d’Verse Poetics, Bjorn is our Pubtender. He has given us a variety of petroglyphs, carvings found in caves in Sweden.  There was quite a variety of them.  Their primitive beauty is timeless.  Although I know this is not the story behind this, I chose to write a story of two lovers caught in hard times and longing to sail away to something better.  Come join us at d’Verse to see more of these amazing cave carvings and read the poems written by poets of today about those people of so very long ago.  Here is the link:  http://dversepoets.com/2015/10/13/dverse-poetics-carved-in-stone/

River of Silver
Up here in the cold north I
Looked out on the blurred black and white photograph
Of the landscape, in the pouring rain –
Ruts full of water
Bare trees shivering in bitter wind.
Sat on the edge of the bed
And watched you sleeping.
Wanting you to wake up and
Hear me say how much I loved you
And how much I hated it here in this cold land.
Let’s go south babe.
Let’s just take that river of silver south
To the land of sidewalk preachers
And yes ma’am and no ma’am
And where flowers bloom all year
and rushing out of
opening and closing screen doors
of small cafes
the low buzz of cordial conversation and
the perfumed glory of coffee
and fresh hot hushpuppies,
Where we can order a basket of them for cheap
And slather with sunshine butter
And drink with coffee black as coal
And thick as the slow voices
And lightened with sweet condensed milk –
Babe, it’s warm there.
Let’s leave this land of grey cold
Let’s take that river of silver –
Us two – where even in the rain
You can find places of warmth.
Let’s take that river of silver
To the land of gold,
Even if we can’t spend it
We can be together
And be warm.
Let’s take that river of silver.