Tag: Poetry

The Nursing Home

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was HABITAT

asia-1822460_640Last night I was reading some poems written by a man visiting his aged mother in the nursing home, and decided to write one myself, about an incident that happened when my Mom-in-law was 97. She had dementia, but not the total loss of Alzheimer’s, so she still had a sense of where she was living.

Wheeling Mom around the nursing home
we find the visitors’ room almost empty today.
Just one old gent in his wheelchair, staring silently
in peaceful meditation — or frustration?

We stop awhile in our rambling – and why not?
We’re just killing time, really. The last hours of a lifetime.
I pick a spot by the picture window and we gaze outside.
Beautiful yard. Even if her vision’s fuzzy, I hope
she can still catch some of the spring colour.

She looks around the huge room, discerning
a bit of the high ceilings and classy woodwork.
“My grandfather built this house,”
she informs the man, with a touch of pride,
not remembering that this isn’t a house.

When we first brought her here she thought
it was a junkyard, the final habitat of old and unwanted.
But that memory’s gone; now, thankfully, she likes
this place her grandpa built — sometimes just worked on.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
the old fellow snaps. One of the lucid ones, bad luck.
Held captive here by his lack of mobility, perhaps,
but wheelchairs don’t affect the understanding.

“He did!” Mom insists. “My grandpa built this place
and Uncle Pete helped.” Because didn’t they both live here?
And weren’t they both carpenters? Good ones, too!
She remembers her Dad getting letters from his sister;
she and Uncle Pete did live here, back in the ’30s.

Her dad was blind so she read everything to him,
so she knows. How dare this man contradict her!
Of course she remembers her grandpa. Even Uncle Pete –
if only from those letters Aunt Catherine wrote.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
But his harsh retort just bounces off her certainty.
I decide to continue our stroll and wheel her down the hall
while she can still be right – and he’s definitely wrong.

Have Some of My Cake

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

Good morning to all my readers and followers.

Bright sunshine forecasting a beautiful day and I’m celebrating my birthday by having a coffee, doing the laundry, and generally staying home and avoiding all human contact. 🙂

Not quite true, as I’m cooking supper at the seniors’ residence this afternoon; also, my dear husband gave me a card and a kiss before he left to pick up a few groceries. Thankfully,  I can visit online as well, so won’t you all join me this morning for a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, and a few relevant verses.

CoffeeCake.Farooq Sharif

Here are a few haiku I wrote yesterday, combining thoughts of warmer days to come with our current situation:

morning joggers
run rings around
my safe space

a bumblebee
not knowing the law
comes way too close

if only mosquitoes would get the point of social distancing

Memories Within

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is LOOKING WITHIN

Today I plan to do some looking within my cupboards to make up a good shopping list. Shopping is one thing that seems to have changed a lot in this current crisis and I’ve always been rather haphazard about it before, forgetting the list at home, forgetting some important item. Now I need to sharpen up, when both our shopping time and store supplies are limited.

I’ve also been looking within my sewing closet; yesterday I took advantage of the grandchildren being home from school and took a box of sewed blocks (for two baby blanket tops) over to their house. I had the granddaughters help me lay out these squares out on the floor and decide their order.

Any project is a whole lot better when you have cheerful helping hands—especially when they belong to flexible children who don’t mind crawling around on the floor to set out the blocks and shift them around to a suitable pattern. And we get the added bonus of making sweet memories together. 🙂

Here’s a poem that speaks of another kind of looking within; no matter where we are and what our stresses, we can all take a moment to enjoy a stroll through the corridors where we store our pleasant memories.

Floral + Poem.Prawny
                  Image by Prawny  —  Pixabay

Recipe for Seasoning Spring

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning everyone,

The Word of the Day prompt this morning is ADVICE.

Coincidentally, blogger Bill at The Write Idea has given a bit of advice this morning in his haiku about “releasing the dragon.” READ HERE. I decided to take it, and find a dragon I could release.

I have quite a number penned up (pardon the pun) in notebooks, hoping to someday be set free. Yes, it’s time to open a few gates! I grabbed an old journal full of scribbles, turned to the back page, and found a raw poem I jotted down a few years back. I touched it up with a spritz of polish on the scales, did some filing on a few toenails, dabbed a dash more colour on some spots — and now I have my dragon ready to present to you, dear readers.

RECIPE FOR SPRING DELIGHT

Take the wonder of a blue sky,
add the blessing of warm sunshine,
bar the blasts of bitter wind,
but allow a few warm zephyrs
to tease the icicles to tears
till they splash the winter-killed
grass with a rousing message.

Add a number of misting poplars,
a sprinkling of meadowlark trills
and a path bordered by catkins.
Whisk yourself into this mix
some inviting March morning;
and marinate in the delights of spring.

children balloons

Something Precious

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

The Ragtag Daily Prompt for today was SOMETHING.

We had our usual Sunday morning service, then company came for dinner, and I’ve been reading a novel this evening. So I’m very late getting something written, but here’s my little verse:

I’ve heard exquisite music
some philharmonic’s played,
and been in great cathedrals
to hear skilled voices raised.

At times a passionate solo
brings a lump to my throat;
and my heart has been inspired
by a quartet’s rousing notes.

But so much more exquisite
are the tunes of our own crew
in the evening when we’re singing
those old songs tried and true.

There’s something so appealing
when childish tones ascend
to join with ours in melody;
as the evening hours end.

And “the night is filled with music”
as the long-gone poet said;
the home with joy keeps ringing
when we’ve all gone off to bed.

Love of Living Things

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is GREEN

We’re enjoying wafts of spring here, lots of sunshine and puddles alternating with colder days and more snow. No sign of green, but a lot of brittle brown grass showing up. It’s a start. 😉

Like the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman, I delight in our colourful seasons. Although the word GREEN doesn’t appear in this verse, you get the idea, so I’ll post it as my response to the prompt.

Amor Vitae

I love the warm bare earth and all
That works and dreams thereon:
I love the seasons yet to fall:
I love the ages gone,

The valleys with the sheeted grain,
The river’s smiling might,
The merry wind, the rustling rain,
The vastness of the night.

I love the morning’s flame, the steep
Where down the vapour clings:
I love the clouds that float and sleep,
And every bird that sings.

I love the purple shower that pours
On far-off fields at even:
I love the pine-wood dusk whose floors
Are like the courts of heaven.

I love the heaven’s azure span,
The grass beneath my feet:
I love the face of every man
Whose thought is swift and sweet.

I let the wrangling world go by,
And like an idle breath
Its echoes and its phantoms fly:
I care no jot for death.

Time like a Titan bright and strong
Spreads one enchanted gleam:
Each hour is but a fluted song,
And life a lofty dream.

—Archibald Lampman