I Remember John-John’s Third Birthday
My five-year-old eyes
watched a three year old salute
his daddy’s coffin.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
Written in response to Walt Wojtanik’s “I remember …” prompt at Poetic Bloomings.
pictured words
a simple pairing of pictures and poetry
September 6, 2020
August 30, 2020
I’m All Wet (Limerick)
I love gentle rain (yep, you bet),
but I do not like floods, tears, or sweat.
Love lakes, streams, and seas,
and love raindrops that freeze.
But I most love my liquid assets.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
August 23, 2020
FLOURISHING
Sow seeds of love –
for their blooms
are beautiful,
and guaranteed
to reseed.
© Marie Elena Good, 2010
August 16, 2020
Home is where I watch the Buckeyes with Dad
As August slips into the back side,
and daylight is squeezed
into fewer hours,
I miss the distant sound
of drum cadence,
bringing in a new season.
In just a couple weeks,
Dad and I would have had
our decades-long ritual
of gathering in front of the T.V.
and saying (as though it is a surprise),
“Can you believe it is already
the first game of the season?
Didn’t the season just end?”
It didn’t matter whose home we
were in,
until it did.
Those final years, he became too frail,
and it became harder,
and then impossible,
to get Mom out the door.
So we would haul food to their place,
and hope Dad could stay awake
and out of the bathroom
for most of the game.
We hoped he could enjoy it
a fraction of what he used to.
The lamp that was part of each home
Mom and Dad called theirs
now lights my front window
as I write poems
about football
and marching bands
and drum cadence
and Mom
and Dad.
Because poems
and their light
are all that remain.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
August 5, 2020
RHYTHM AND RHYME, RHYTHM AND RHYME
Photo by Stephen Niemeier on Pexels.com
Some folks enjoy rhyming:
embedded in scheme,
delighted in priming
delectable scene
exact in its timing –
tight; metrically clean.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
August 2, 2020
Song (Senryu)
Photo by Paul Bates (Pixabay)
You sang creation
into being. You “sang” me.
Lord, teach me my song.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
August 2, 2020
RHODODENDRON
She was planted with care,
right there
where her dark leaves and white flowers
would give hours of joy each day.
But it hasn’t worked that way.
Years have passed
since she last bloomed.
She seemed entombed –
immured, as she simply
endured
until Keith dug her up,
changed the makeup below,
which allowed the free flow
of water to root, and
we can’t dispute the wonder.
Once freed from earth’s clay,
we saw growth the first day.
Now she won’t just survive.
She’ll thrive.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
June 28, 2020
MORNING’S OPEN WINDOW CALLS
Photo by Keith R. Good
I see and hear the birds, the deer,
the kids that play across the way.
I feel the breeze, and watch the trees react,
and I make eye contact with Chickadee.
I smile as he rests on my sill.
Then I refill my coffee mug,
sit snug and still and know
the golden glow of morning sun,
and glorious One who made it rise
and harmonize with all I see
outside my window;
inside me.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
June 21, 2020
YESTERDAYS (Father’s Day 2020 Sonnet for my Dad)
Just one more chance to hear your drum set swing,
And feel the pride well up inside my core.
And I believe I’d give most anything
To watch as you conduct a band once more.
To hear you call Mom Sweet Pea one more time,
And see the love for her in aging eyes
That cleaved to days of youth, well past their prime,
Embracing the enchantment love implies.
From time to time, I feel as though you’re near.
I sometimes hear your words play through my mind.
Oh how I’d love to linger for a year
While you are here, and death is left behind.
Though we may try to hold what fades away,
Our yesterdays were never meant to stay.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
June 14, 2020
UNTITLED
“They call me Mr. Tibbs.” ~ Virgil Tibbs, In the Heat of the Night
It’s 1967. I’m 9 years old. My dad is explaining the gist of a movie I am not allowed to see. I don’t want to see the movie. More than that, I don’t want to see the nightly news.
It’s 2020. My granddaughter is 9 years old. As in ’67, I don’t want to see the news. Yet, there is a difference in the images this time: Many protesters and police officers are wearing masks, attempting to protect those they see, from a virus they can’t.
The Long Hot Summer
of Nineteen Sixty Seven
begs us take a knee.
© Marie Elena Good, 2020
pictured words 