Love | pictured words

YESTERDAYS (Father’s Day 2020 Sonnet for my Dad)

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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.

DEAR MOM,

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DEAR MOM,

I wonder if you smiled after tucking me in at night, as I yelled, “I love you and I like you,” until I heard you reach the bottom of the stairs.

When I was in high school, you and I would often walk Naples’ beach. I told you how much I enjoyed our beach walks. You told me I would get a boyfriend, and would no longer choose to walk the beach with you. I got that boyfriend, and spent a great deal of my waking hours with him.

I wonder if you smiled each time I asked you to walk the beach with me.

Even through my teen years, you made sure you were home when I got home from school. You didn’t want me coming home to an empty house. You stopped whatever you were doing, and took time to talk. Even then, I understood the blessing of that.

I wonder if you smiled whenever you remembered me telling you I appreciated coming home to you.

I believe early Alzheimer’s began to separate you from yourself. I think you recognized that, and feared eventual separation from all of us. Perhaps that’s why you began saying, “I love you. You know that.” You wanted to make sure your love for us was so deeply rooted that there was little risk of it getting lost somewhere in a possible future of unknowingness. You know that. That little phrase attached to I love you was part of who you were. Yes, we knew that. You were kind, and good. You loved well.

I wonder if you smiled somewhere inside when I whispered, “I love you and I like you,” in those final days when you were growing less responsive.

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April 21, 2020

MASK MAKER, MASK MAKER

Photo courtesy of Pixabay’s Pasja1000

Mask Maker, Mask Maker,
Make me a mask.
Ward off my cough.
That’s all I ask.

Mask Maker, Mask Maker,
Nothing too posh.
Just make me a modest mask.

Mask Maker, Mask Maker,
Put folks at ease
as they pass by,
and I must sneeze.
Your mission, see,
is to render for me
a smidgeon of PPE.

Then drop it
off over yonder.
Leave quickly,
and leave nothing else, please,
for me. Well, I wouldn’t holler
if TP’s included (I’m ill at ease).

Mask Maker, Mask Maker,
Thanks for the mask!
My husband’s at peace,
no longer repeats
day after day, “Sharing isn’t condoned,”
now that I have one
of my own.

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April 12, 2020

REQUESTED (Izzy’s sonnet)

On the occasion of Izzy’s 6th birthday, I just wanted to again share the poem I wrote when she was born. Happy Birthday, Izzy! As soon as this Covid-19 stay-at-home is safely lifted, Poppa and I will have you for a sleepover and proper hugs. In the meantime, enjoy your birthday, pretty little sweetie! ❤

REQUESTED (Izzy’s Sonnet)

God graciously gives gifts that prove His love,
And this time used a cherished little one
Whose precious face is reminiscent of
The one who caused my heart to come undone.

Another set of prints upon my soul
Has made her presence known, and it’s sublime –
Just like a piece that makes a puzzle whole,
Or syllable that finishes a rhyme.

Upon three years of practice on my part,
You’d think by now it might have gotten old.
But every day brings wonder to my heart,
And now my joy has multiplied twofold.

Delivered straight to us through Heaven’s door –
The one her sister earnestly asked for.

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April 11, 2020

OUR PRESENT DAY TWISTER

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ~ Dorothy Gal

The tempest we face today blows me away. It has twisted our world and what we chase.

As we shelter in place, the view from space shows a cleansing of the air we share. Sweet messages and charming drawings in chalk fill each walk, drive, and trail. Mailed letters are back “in” as they’ve not been in decades. Roller blades, bikes, and hikes, and sharing while distancing …

We are witnessing a change, as we rearrange the life we’d learned to expect. Soon we’ll reflect on the effect staying at home had on us. On our planet. And just as we began it, we’ll be back to activities with the liberties that define us.

I pray when we are no longer confined, we’ll continue to align with the gentler pace the shelter-in-place afforded. For we’ve been rewarded with renewed love of home and neighbor, and the favor of unexpected gifts in the midst of forced simplicity.

With misty eyes, I reflect on these affecting words from Oz. Let’s never return from what was.

© Marie Elena Good, 2020

The above quote that comes near the end of the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy has returned home, has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. I cannot voice it without choking up; cannot think of it without misty eyes. The sentiment is heartwarming wisdom, and the wording is exceptional. I wish I had written it.

April 9, 2020

ONE (Ekphrastic)

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Love, laughter, and fun
under the same moon and sun,
for we are all one.

#seventeenintwenty

November 15, 2019

A WORLD OF NO FORGIVENESS

Illustration: Quentin Blake/Puffin

“Look at what you has done. And there be no forgiveness.” (From Roald Dahl’s “The BFG”)

A WORLD OF NO FORGIVENESS

This story begins
not with, “Once upon a time,”
but with, “At no time.”

At no time has there
ever existed a world
of no forgiveness.

We could not go on
without mercy and pardon
for one another,

from one another,
and, yes, also for ourselves.
For our Creator

has built forgiveness
into the very fabric
of our humanness.

How deeply ingrained
is our need for forgiveness?
How deeply ingrained?

How deeply healing
when I myself forgive me?
And again I ask

How deeply healing?
Our God made a way for us
to be forgiven.

Made in His image,
the road is already paved
to forgive others.

Made in His image,
the road is already paved
to forgive ourselves.

So let’s live our lives
in the state of forgiveness
that’s been granted us.

“Look what you has done
and there be no forgiveness,”
and upside-down lakes,

and trogglehumpers,
and dreams that float like fireflies
are just a story.

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October 24, 2019

HOCKING HILLS AUTUMN 2019 DAY 5 (2)

Photos by Marie Elena Good

Lovers and children
make paper hearts. God uses
all of creation.

#57519
#hockinghills

4 Comments

October 20, 2019

YOUNG MOM

Photo credit: STUX at Pixabay

Some days seem the longest long longer than a run-on sentence that fills her space with no breaks to grab a breath or bite or blink of rest and yes she’s blessed but stressed and pressed where tiny pupils move left to right left to right no end in sight no time to quench her appetite for slumber in what’s left of night just left to right left to right left to write what’s left to write …

(I do believe too many young moms in our midst feel just like this. 😦 )

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October 6, 2019

A HOLY HUSH

Photo by Keith R. Good

Sleep came,
but the dreams that accompanied it
were disturbing
and all I could do was pray for peace
as worry for her threatened to devour me.
Disquiet was my life for months

and months

and months.

Then one night I found myself
walking a path of undisturbed snow.
The moon was my only light –
just enough to illumine the path,
glisten against the falling snowflakes,
and reveal the immense evergreen forest.
There was silence,
save the calming crunch
of snow beneath my feet.
I walked the breathtaking beauty all night,
accompanied by One who knows me intimately –

the only One who offers stillness
in the midst of turbulence.

“… and he said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” ~ Mark 4:39

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pictured words

Tag: Love

June 21, 2020

YESTERDAYS (Father’s Day 2020 Sonnet for my Dad)

May 10, 2020

DEAR MOM,

April 9, 2020

ONE (Ekphrastic)

November 15, 2019

A WORLD OF NO FORGIVENESS

October 24, 2019

HOCKING HILLS AUTUMN 2019 DAY 5 (2)

October 20, 2019

YOUNG MOM

October 6, 2019

A HOLY HUSH