Poetry Friday - That Thing That Happens

 

created by Linda Mitchell

          It's Poetry Friday, and Janice Scully is hosting HERE on her blog, Salt City Verse. She is sharing a beautiful picture book of poetry and her own poem to her mother. Thanks for hosting, Janice!  

           We are back from our trip to Costa Rica, full of fun and family and ocean waves! Often on these trips, we celebrate birthdays. My granddaughter, Imogene, turned thirteen on the Monday we were there. Sometimes we travel further into August when we celebrate my son's and his son's birthdays, too! Time keeps going and going.

          This week, a memory came up on Facebook, and then I thought of the picture I took during our trip, and the poem I found and read on Imogene's big day. I thought many of you would enjoy it. I have kept it a while on my desktop and tried to find it online, and its author. I cannot. Obviously, I copied it from somewhere, but have no memory of the book it was in. If you know who wrote this, let me know, please! It is a delight for those of us who see our children, and perhaps grandchildren, grow up, and then grow up more. 

        (NOTE! Tabatha guessed who, or knew! The poem is from MY HEAD HAS A BELLYACHE by Chris Harris! Thanks, Tabatha!)

2012

                I'm unsure why they're sitting on the floor in the kitchen?

2024

Backseat Blues

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by my terrific blogging friend Donna, at Mainely Write.  Thanks, Donna.

I’ve been writing goodbye poems over the past months for a personal project about different ways of looking at children (mine, others, and grandchildren, too) growing up.  I’ve chosen to do a series of poems at different stages in children’s lives, essentially saying goodbye each time. I plan to put them all into a book someday for my family.   I have begun using photos to help remember and have now started some work on my children as they grew up too.  I love telling stories through poetry, and I love poems of goodbye, so I thought this would be a good way to combine both passions.  

Here is my most recent one, a mixture of times from remembered conversations during the usual chauffeuring of my children.  If you are a parent, you will know that the best conversations happen from the backseat.  Lately my three year old granddaughter told me I was a good driver.  When we sit still in a car, we notice things, we think things, and we talk.

Poetry Friday Plus Two Writing Teachers Challenge #9 Means Writing!

     The March Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers blog - Thanks Stacey and Ruth.  Poetry Friday is hosted today by Myra, Fats and Iphigene at the Gathering Books blog.  That means wonderful things to read everywhere!

I posted a poem about saying goodbye last Tuesday, The Lonesome Swing, and in that introduction I mentioned a personal project I’m working on about different ways of looking at children (mine, others, and grandchildren, too) growing up.  I’ve trying to write a series of poems at different stages in a life, essentially saying goodbye each time.  The poems so far are rather nostalgic; I hope to put them together in a book with pictures of my grandchildren (10 ½, almost 3, 7 months) at the particular stage I am describing in the poem.  Part of this comes from my talks with my own children, watching my daughter be pregnant last year, the children growing and changing so fast.  Another part is that I love telling stories through poetry, and I love poems of goodbye, so I thought this would be a good way to combine both passions.  Someday I hope to put it all together in a book for my grandchildren.  As we often say, it’s nice to have a goal and an audience to write for.

Real feedback is welcome.  I appreciate it.  Here is the first one:

(1)

I’ve lived with you now

nine months-

heaven time.

I know you rolling,

kicking and shoving,

not always gently

but reminding:

“I’m here, I’m here.”

Even asleep

I feel the weight of you,

the song of your whisper,

humming “Here, here.”

Now it’s time

to seek you,

meet you,

greet you.

I’m not at all ready

to say goodbye to

you and me,

to have it be

you

and

me.