I Get to Dance, but Don’t
I have two feet
one left, one right
and I could dance
and think I might
but somewhere deep
I know I won’t.
I don’t know how
and so I don’t.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
pictured words
a simple pairing of pictures and poetry
September 19, 2018
September 16, 2018
CURIOSITUNITES
Castoff the conception that curiosity
killed the cat.
Inquisitiveness is
the origin of opportunity.
Actually, cultivated curiosity
converts to curiositunity,
and curiositunity
attracts astounding actuality.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
September 10, 2018
A CORD OF THREE STRANDS
They began, young.
Lovely and in love
Healthy and hopeful
Playful and promising
To have and to hold
From this day
Forward, fast
Furiously fading
As Alzheimer’s attempts
To dilute and damage
Life and love
Strongly seduced.
Still,
Promise prevailed.
“All my love, and love me always”
In illness and health,
Held by God’s hands
And the cord of three strands,
Stands
Against all
Ashes to ashes
Forever co-mingled
In the perpetual presence
Of the One who,
Singly, and synchronously,
Breathed life
And an always love.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
“And if someone overpowers one person, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” ~ Ecclesiastes 4:12
Forever my love to Mom and Dad, now eternally at rest, in the presence of the One.
September 9, 2018
INTERMENT DAY
All day, the sky shed tears, and I,
at times.
I prayed no more tears, graveside,
but they fell
and fell
on faulty umbrellas
and baying bagpipe
and wailing sax
and tone of Taps
and stars
and stripes
and dated stones
and downcast cheeks
and woeful thoughts
and hard-fought fear
while lavish love
flowed fierce and full,
affecting a fragrance
of
unreserved grace.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
Patricia A. Fagnano
March 16, 1931 – February 9, 2018
James F. Fagnano
January 7, 1932 – March 15, 2018
Mom and Dad, laid to rest.
In the presence of God
and the hearts of all,
the hardest day of my life,
and a thing of beauty
at once.
September 8, 2018
On the anniversary of their wedding.
September 7, 2018
THERE ARE TIMES (AND WE ARE IN THEM)
There are times (and we are in them)
when people communicate
without vision,
in every way in which that phrase
may be defined.
There are times (and we are in them)
when truth seems intangible,
and lies lie before us.
With us.
In us.
There are times (and we are in them)
when the enemy of our souls
thinks he has the best of us,
because we give him reason.
There are times (and we are in them)
when the God who created all
sees His creation through eyes
we cannot even glimpse,
much less grasp.
There are times (and we are in them)
when this same God
immeasurably loves His weak children
and holds our downcast, shamed faces
in His hands.
There are times (and we are in them)
when the need for one another
is greater than the sum total
of the sin we daily live.
There are times (and we are in them)
that crave recognition of
our Savior’s costly love for us –
to help us see ourselves and others
for what we are:
children
in need of love.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
September 2, 2018
TIME IS OF THE ES-SCENTS
Too much time to toil
smells like coffee break.
Too much time to broil
stinks of ruined steak.
Too much time spent mowing
smells of outside, in.
Too much time spent crowing
reeks of haughty din.
Time spent giving speeches
hints of stage-fright sweat.
Time spent strolling beaches?
Stale outlook reset.
Wasted time on druthers
leaves stench day-to-day.
Time spent loving others
breathes in sweet bouquet.
© Marie Elena Good
August 29, 2018
LISTEN TO HEAR
Agreement is not crucial.
Kindness is.
Divergence is not futile.
Blindness is.
In one way or another,
We should learn
To hear our diverse brothers –
Not to spurn.
© Marie Elena Good
August 26, 2018
DIAG-NOSES
He was handsome.
Warmhearted.
Excellent mind,
when it mattered.
Nobody more well-
mannered.
Clearly he had the world
at his fingertips.
Then came the diagnoses:
and they were many,
and they were hard to stomach.
This unmasking of
high impact issues
caused setbacks.
He felt he was
plunging into limbo.
No more spearheading projects.
No more chairing committees.
No more researching solutions
at breakneck speed.
But then good news was delivered!
He’d been misdiagnosed all along!
The moral of the story?
Though I try bloody hard to be humerus
It’s all in vein.
And you know what else?
For as long as you have breath,
you’ll never not see noses
in diagnoses.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
August 19, 2018
SCATTER BRAINED
It’s not so much in the forgetting,
nor even in the retrieving.
See, it’s in the connecting.
Though my brain is smallish,
that which is stored
here,
is far too often not perceiving
that which is stored
there.
The nerve!
Apparently my data is shy –
certified tongue-tied.
Unwilling to bond with
or respond to
the other facts and files
in my brain’s adjacent aisles.
They may as well be miles apart.
Oh the trials that stem
from data that scatters.
It matters.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
August 15, 2018
LEARNING TEACHES
Photo credit: Michaela Mavis
We’re on an information highway,
traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.
With instant information gratification,
who needs fact memorization?
Surely it’s time to table times
and periodic elements.
But, no.
For learning stirs a yearning.
The churning of knowledge
and haulage of speech and fact
actively draws us.
gnaws at disinterest, and
erects a monstrosity of curiosity.
Learning reaches us.
Teaches us.
And in return,
we learn.
© Marie Elena Good, 2018
