New Neighbors
It’s dark. I see the lit porchlight across the street. A glow shines from inside the home. For several years, there were no lights. It seemed no one lived there, but I knew better. The house used to be graced with a family. Then, only the man remained. He seldom came and went. When darkness fell, the house disappeared.
There’s something about
how the light warms the snow, and
how love warms the house.
© Marie Elena Good, 2025
No Party for Me
I cannot vote for
killing babies in the womb
or outside the womb
killing grown babies
we send off to fight a war
to never come home
or come home missing —
pieces of themselves murdered —
never to come back.
I cannot vote for
babies who grew up to think
it is okay to
endanger those of
different cultures – cultures
they were taught don’t love
and that they are not
welcome to safety, if their
safety is near you
if their safety costs
dollars from a rich nation,
or even if not.
If their safety might
make you even just a bit
uncomfortable
then it isn’t worth
your time or your energy,
even if you find
it costs none of that.
I cannot vote for
babies who never grew up
never grew out of
thinking more highly
of themselves than others, and
showing it daily.
I cannot vote for
those unwilling to see that
some people need help
not because they are
unwilling to work, and not
because they’re lazy.
I cannot vote for
those who want to take away
American rights —
even those rights that
perhaps I disagree with,
or don’t understand.
I have no party.
I have no candidate, but
I love my country
and I will fight to
hold fast the America
that’s slipping away.
© Marie Elena Good, 2025
Twenty Twenty Five
My year’s focus word
is listen. I chose it, not
knowing what’s to come.
The last twenty days,
I see myself shouting on
social media.
The need to be heard
in daunting times is real, but
shouting gets tuned out,
so is left unheard.
And yet, the need is still there.
I can’t help but shout.
The last twenty days,
my listening turned to an
Intense need to scream.
I don’t scream outdoors
out of respect and care for
all of my neighbors.
I don’t scream indoors
for fear of terrifying
my loving husband.
I scream inside me,
silently, lest I drown out
my God’s still, small voice.
© Marie Elena Good, 2025
Call Me Home
She’s lived with me twenty-four years now.
She loves me.
She appreciates how cheerful I am,
no matter what is happening in her life.
Even those who visit us feel my sunny spirit.
No matter her day,
I know how to make her relax.
Her gait has slowed
more than she likely realizes.
I hear and feel her shuffle
across my hardwood floors.
Sometimes she seems to catch herself, and
picks up her feet a while.
The shuffle returns.
It always returns.
More and more, I hear
pauses
as she searchers for a lost word.
She often discovers the first letter,
but can’t retrieve the remainder.
Then sometimes I’ll hear, “All gone.”
Just like her mother used to say.
My post stands at the bottom
of the steps leading to the basement.
It bears my weight,
and the weight of her worry.
Might she or someone she loves
fall and hit their head on my post?
What are the chances of survival?
I hear her and her husband
as they contemplate their future with me.
Perhaps make my guest bedroom
a half-bath and laundry —
eliminate the need for stairs.
But it’s a part of me she admires
just as I am.
She’s lived with me twenty-four years now,
and hopes for twenty-four more.
Maybe her husband and I can make that happen.
I know he’d be on board with it.
She and I are a good team,
making him more cheerful and relaxed, too.
© Marie Elena Good, 2025
I PACE, AS I FACE MY GOD
Lamenting. Praying for His intervention. Seeking Him through tears that feel like they could flood my floor. I contemplate how my Jesus, co-Creator and sovereign over all of it, describes Himself as “gentle and lowly of heart.” It’s not part of who He is, it is who He is. Gentle and lowly is His driving force. It is the force behind His strength. It is His very being. I pray this for my country. I beg this for my country. May our heartbeat become gentle. Lowly. May this be our strength, who we are, and how we are known.
One man. One moment.
Hearts ruptured. Lives imperiled.
One swipe of a pen.
© Marie Elena Good 2025
COMFORT FOOD
Mom’s homemade pizza
and cinnamon rolls that she
made with extra dough
and her homemade pies
and cinnamon rolls made with
extra pie crust dough
chicken paprikash
rich with a sour cream gravy,
served with dinner rolls
stuffed green peppers, or
Italian sausage sandwich
with onion, pepper,
and mayo on a
bun, served with potato chips,
onion dip, and pop
oil-popped popcorn, made
on the stove in Dad’s old pot,
buttered and salted
Aunt Shirley’s cheese ball
Aunt Peg’s roast beef with gravy
and all the fixin’s
and her to-die-for
apple dumplings covered with
hard vanilla sauce
Grandpa Dunn’s bacon
Grandma’s pancakes swimming in
real maple syrup
Toast, and tea served in
my teapot from Grandma Dunn
when I was unwell
All that came out of
Aunt Dora’s basement kitchen
that begged us, “sit down.”
Aunt Judy’s version
of Aunt Dora’s sauce, which she
claimed was never right 😉
homegrown tomato-
spaghetti sauce with meatballs
that simmered all day
and was poured over
capellini (angel hair)
served with garlic bread
Grandma Marchionte’s mush
piled on a breadboard from which
we kids all chowed down
believe it or not
fried bologna sandwiches
blackened, with mustard …
But it’s what’s in the
air that most brings me comfort:
scents of memories.
© Marie Elena Good 2025
SPLENDOR
An evening snow
of tiny glitter seems of
no real consequence.
Yet it’s all it takes
to blanket lawn, coat tree, and
hush and light the night –
its quiet splendor
reflecting the still, small voice
that sang its being.
© Marie Elena Good, 2025
Teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) to Possible U.S. (United States) Citizens
We are too different to unite.
I will never be convinced
Integration is possible.
I see
Insurmountable hurdles.
Listen: Don’t be fooled into thinking these are
U.S. citizens in the making
© Marie Elena Good 2025
A reverse poem. Now read from the bottom line to the top.
Return of the Proverbial … Well, You Know …
It’s just a strainer/drain stopper for my kitchen sink. My Amazon cart fills with various designs, while my kitchen drain plugs up again and again and again. Don’t even ask me how much money I’ve wasted in total, as I don’t even bother to return them.
My drain plugs, cart fills,
and garage houses many
just in case models.
Meanwhile…
More than five decades
ago, man went to the moon
and safely returned.
© Marie Elena Good 2024
The photo is my newest drain stopper, with a strainer beneath it. I think this one might actually work! Ha!
Of Humble Means (Sonnet to The Newborn King)
Expectant couple travels far and fierce.
She, full with child, atop a gentle ass.
He, worried as her sighs begin to pierce,
And finding there’s no room in inns they pass.
He, with no proper room to birth her child,
Secures a proffered stable to take rest.
The Babe comes quickly, there amidst the wild.
He frees her Son, and lays Him at her breast.
The Newborn listens to the bleating sheep.
The feeding trough He lies in smells of hay.
His weary mother tries to get some sleep,
Through rolling sounds of cry and bleat and bray.
Great throngs of angels revel in this day –
In lowly trough, there lies The Truth. The Way.
© Marie Elena Good, 2017
pictured words 