Mainely Write

I so want to apologize to my Poetry Swap buddies.  I should have just taken this year off.  Every post from May 1 on has been a journey outside of the daily stuff.  And most times I just can't get past the daily stuff.  Even this moment I am eyeing the clock...gotta be somewhere in a few minutes so I don't want to get so involved that I get lost in time.
After the purchase of the home in PA, we had to return in spring to prepare the home in ME for sale.  Now that is sold, I am back in PA and my husband is in ME helping renovate my son's home.
A variety of extraneous issues that I don't want to go into have drawn attention from one thing to another in rapid succession.  I can't discuss all of it, but just know, it has been mind-boggling and randomly concerning.  If it isn't one thing, it's another.  However, there have been enough good things to keep smiling in between...just not enough TIME smiling to relax.  I'm always waiting for the next shoe to dro…

It's time to celebrate poetry.  Today's topic is trees if ya got one....and I remembered this one I have on my blog...so I'm reposting it.  Yesterday I just happened to take a picture of this tree in the schoolyard where my grandchildren were learning to ride their bikes. It is a spectacular oak - so huge!  What a great thing for a school playground.  Though it was hot and muggy, the tree's shade made it the perfect temperature and you could feel a breeze sitting beneath its sheltering boughs.



Poet Tree

 A
little
word
I wrote
one day
I really had
too much to say
I could not write it all
I was much too small but
then I learned about Haiku
so short and stout and then I
knew
that would do
so I wrote a little poem
that said more than it’s words
and from that grew a wish and need
to spread
my words like apple seeds and learn not
to rhyme all the time
one day my tree grew branches and I had more to say
so much more and so much
white space
so I
sneaked
in a
rhyme
j…

Climbing
Once I was young And free of most cares Now that I’m older I find that the stairs Are higher and steeper Than any I’ve known But still I look back On the garden I’ve sown Everything’s good Though perfection it’s not Yet there is a story Back there with a plot It’s taken me here To the next thrilling act The cliffhanger page where You’re missing some fact So I lift my right foot Then likewise my left I drag myself up Till I rest in the cleft Yes the steps are much harder The higher you climb But the view from the top Will be something sublime.
By Donna JT Smith 8/4/2019

Back 30 years ago, I drew these two portraits of my children from memory...not a copy of a photo.  I found them in our move.  Sometimes you just have to make some changes to find treasures you forgot you had.


My grandchildren are these ages now.

Time,Treasures and Trains

When you thought you had it all
and you wanted time to stop
it didn't.
Thankfully it kept on going
to the next precious station.
Life, holding to
the track,
even when switching rails
treasures abounded
with more around
every corner
clutching your ticket
your journey
with twists, turns, jolts
and shifts
continued
to reveal treasures
Remember to
look, listen
and live
in each time,
for each treasure
on each train.

by Donna JT Smith, 8/2/2019

It may not be my best....it may be my fastest though!  I have to go get a van for moving more stuff this morning.  My train is barely slowing down today.
Hope I can get to read more posts tonight in a very empty house in Maine.
Here's how YOU can: visit Heidi Mordhorst a…

We are in the midst of some life-changing events lately.  And when you make big changes, you need to keep connections.  I kept coming back to connections in the middle of change.... Connectedness keeps you grounded.  When spaces change, people change and conditions change, you need to rely on the good connections you have established to keep you grounded yet moving forward.  That is my life now.   I thank an unchanging God for the change to my life He brought, and for giving me all the connections we have established to draw on in daily life and in misty memories.  And that is all I can say.  I started this poem yesterday when I was contemplating our move and its many complications, and the connections to the past it is evoking and enabling as we go through the changes.  It's all just a part of a whole picture unfinished, a leg of a journey you are still walking, a chapter yet to be read, a dot-to-dot to be colored in.
Change
Pieces and parts Layered together Haggard heart tugging A silve…

Thank you for visiting today.  I make it to as many Poetry Friday's as I can.  Lately it has become difficult to pop in.  But I am making an effort this evening (Thursday) to prepare a post for Friday.  I am in Maine and working with a number of fantastic people to help me prepare our Maine home for sale.  Never fear, we are keeping the home we are renovating elsewhere in Maine - but are selling our log home on an island on the coast.  So much to sort and move.



Some pictures in case you know a buyer!  Lol...kinda...lol!

I don't remember where this thought came from, but in cleaning out things, I came across a notebook with bits and pieces of an unfinished poem, and I put it together into this now finished poem.  I am including my ocean watercolor, started, but not finished, of Hatchet Cove in Maine, where our home we are renovating is located.  For now we will be elsewhere.  I will finish it when we get back.


Ocean's Hunger
The hungry mouths of waves begin to gnash and gna…