It's Tuesday?

I hardly know what day it is any more.
We spent three days in Arkansas last week, returning on Monday just before midnight (well, actually by the time we drove home from the airport it was just beginning Tuesday).  So that's the day I started my week.  Along with being retired, so not having to make a daily calendar in the morning with first graders, I get lost in my days easily.
We attended the wedding of my niece.  I'm hoping that my parents (her grandparents) could see it well from their front row seats in heaven. 
Arkansas was too hot and humid, though.  I don't think I'll ever be able to move out of Maine to a warmer climate.  I will just stay here and pull on another sweater and throw another log on the fire.
This past Saturday, my siblings and I worked at my brother's antique auction.  My parents used to run the store and have auctions there.  I'm pretty sure they watch over us as we work together there, continuing the work they started many years ago, hopefully with smiles.
September was the month that they both departed this earth.  It is hard to believe it has been 13 years for Dad and 11 years for Mom since they passed away. 
In addition to my niece getting married in September, this month was also my husband's and my 42nd wedding anniversary, so there are and will be some happy memories  to replace some of the sadder ones.
I've begun volunteering one morning a week at the high school in the Career Center this month, just completed a workshop to help mentor new teachers, started mentoring a new teacher and begun working one afternoon a week reading with second graders.
September has been busy.  I've also been writing.  This is the first day in a long while that there hasn't been a poem posted here.  I feel out of sync.

Out of sync,
Forgot to blink.
My fingers fly,
But not as spry;
I think, I think,
No thoughts to link.
Oh, poet's world
Of poems unfurled,
The moment's gone;
I'm just a pawn
With pen in hand
In foreign land.
No rhymes today;
I've sailed away
And let them sink -
No sound but "clink"!

Clouds

I have a few poems about clouds that I've written...one that I wrote AGES ago, I'm not even sure I can find.  It is somewhere in my house, I'm pretty sure.  After we had fire damage and were out of the house for 11 months, I lost track of a few important items.  Some of my writing was included in that.  I think it is still there, just misplaced for the time being.  I really need to go through some stuff and find it again!

So anyway, having just gone on a plane down to Arkansas for my niece's wedding, and going through the clouds, it reminded me then of a question I'd asked my mom when I was a little girl.

Today's prompt to write about clouds at Poetry Jam was perfect timing for me.  And then this image of Brooke Shaden's worked perfectly...the prompt at dVerse (my first link here) - to use one of her photos in her gallery.  I chose her beautiful image of "floating on clouds".

"floating on clouds" by Brooke Shaden

Logic

Such things that,
  are logical
    and obvious now
Involving things
  like puppies
    or high jumping cow,
My young brain
  required answers
    of “why” and of “how”...

Are you sure your belly
   has a baby,
    not a puppy?
Why does a cat
  have a kitten,
    not a guppy?
Can the person
  in the TV
    see me as I spy?
What is on
  the other side
    of the azure sky?
Do fish in the sea
  swim under
    islands, too?
Can a horse,
  like the cow,
    leap over the moon?
Could I understand grasshoppers
  if they talked
    very loud?
Could I, very carefully,
  take a walk
   on a cloud?

Learned lessons
  of puppies
    or a high flying cow,
Such things
  seem logical
    and obvious now -
Except perhaps
  walking high
    on a cloud
I think
  treading softly
    should be allowed.

©Donna JT Smith

I was astounded to find that an island was a hill or mountaintop surrounded by water.  I was disappointed when my mother told me we could not walk on clouds.  I was a bit doubtful when she told me that people had human babies and dogs had puppies, and cats had kittens, and no they never got mixed up.  She was about to have my baby sister when that issue came up.  I probably wanted a cat.

Harvest in Maine

Potato House

Abandoned potato house in winter

Russets, Mountains,
many
more
Katahdins, Kennebecs
by the
score
picked and tossed
from stretching
field
into barrels
wood and
steel
hands with dirt

too deep for
cleaning
bones and back
so stiff from
leaning
trucks rolled in
and barrels
rumbled
kept them
moving never
grumbled
child and man
worked side by
side
harvest was
their family
pride.

© Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved

Spring on the farm

Another Day

into wooden barrels
too large to carry
children off school
pickers for a month
to help
bring in the harvest
trucks full of
potato barrels
rumbling up
to the potato house
to drop off their
starchy treasure
white gold
in brown dirt
the barns are empty
and cave in
for lack of
need
metal and motors
do the job of
hands and wood
new steel buildings
replace the old
stone and wood
and I am sad
when I can’t find
a
potato house
to take a memory
photo

©Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved

Most hand picking and barrels have been replaced now and the tradition of calling off school for the month of September for the high school kids is not really necessary any more.  They are not needed for the manual labor on the family farm that they used to do, having been replaces by machines.

Written as a response to the Poetry Jam prompt today on harvest time.

A Poet and a Poem Post for Poetry Friday

Today I would like to refer to my post for Wednesday, but I don't want you to have to look back. So I am copying and pasting it here again. It was done for the prompt at Poetry Jam this week, which was to write about the sea. Coincidentally, it is my favorite thing to see, hear, taste, feel and smell, and also coincidentally was the topic of a poem that Lilian Moore wrote and Laura Purdie Salas shared this past week... not so coincidentally, I purchased Lilian Moore's book of poems "Something new begins" - a signed first edition, no less!  I was tickled to find "Go Wind" in it.  I had forgotten it was by Lilian Moore!  I've used that poem many years in April for our month of poetry in first grade.

And here's my re-posting (with apologies for reposting and not writing something new) of my sea poem, "Sea Senses", which can also be found on this past Wednesday's post - also shared here for Poetry Friday:

Sea Senses

The day I moved away inland
I heard its hissing cries
Of angry, sad and crashing waves;
I saw its lowery eyes.

Time passed and one day I awoke,
I heard it calling me,
Wailing, whining, pleading,
"O, please, come back to sea!"
Miles before it came in view,
I smelled its salty tears;
It missed me while I'd lived away
For, oh, those many years!
Sand in my shoes, I tossed them
And sprinted up the dune;
Those smells and sounds meant
It was near, I'd see it very soon!
Atop the crest the vision
Spreading out so wide
I could not see it all at once
My eyes scanned side to side
The water gleamed before me
With twinkly eyes of blue;
Rolling fingers beckoned me
To taste its salty brew.
I tumbled down the bank of sand,
Across its beach I raced,
And dove into its watery arms -
Its cold as ice embrace.
I watched as waves swept up the beach
My footprints to erase
Home at last, home by the sea
I've found my resting place.

As I communed with water
I heard the voice of sea
Whispering, crooning, singing,
"I knew you'd come back to me!"

©2014, Donna JT Smith

The view at the end of the island... good to be home!

Now go check out more poetry posts hosted by ...wait a minute...another coincidence???
Poetry Friday is at Renee's place, No Water River, today and I noticed that she featured Lilian Moore on August 22!  Well, there you go!  It comes around again!

Sea Senses

Poetry Jam today would have us think of the sea and write about it.  I have so, so many ocean poems.  It's my favorite place to be, smell, see, taste, feel, hear.  I wrote a new one for today, though.  So one more for my collection...

Sea Senses

The day I moved away inland
I heard its hissing cries
Of angry, sad and crashing waves;
I saw its lowery eyes.

Time passed and one day I awoke,
I heard it calling me,
Wailing, whining, pleading,
"O, please, come back to sea!"
Miles before it came in view,
I smelled its salty tears;
It missed me while I'd lived away
For, oh, those many years!
Sand in my shoes, I tossed them
And sprinted up the dune;
Those smells and sounds meant
It was near, I'd see it very soon!
Atop the crest the vision
Spreading out so wide
I could not see it all at once
My eyes scanned side to side
The water gleamed before me
With twinkly eyes of blue;
Rolling fingers beckoned me
To taste its salty brew.
I tumbled down the bank of sand,
Across its beach I raced,
And dove into its watery arms -
Its cold as ice embrace.
I watched as waves swept up the beach
My footprints to erase
Home at last, home by the sea
I've found my resting place.

As I communed with water
I heard the voice of sea
Whispering, crooning, singing,
"I knew you'd come back to me!"

©2014, Donna JT Smith

Blue Jeans

From Poetry Jam, comes the challenge: "This week write a poem about jeans: someone who looks good in jeans, tattered jeans, jeans that you have to lie down to button up, comfortable jeans, stinky jeans."
"BONUS- Write a poem small enough to fit in the pocket of jeans. 20 lines or less."


I have written a poem small enough to fit in most pockets of jeans.  It is 20 lines or less.  However, I don't know if it would still be able to fit in a pocket of my poem jeans.  There wasn't much extra room...the late 60's early 70's weren't "big on" baggy jeans!

I remember
when I wore
my authentic
surplus store,
real sailor,
Navy blue,
deepest ocean
cobalt hue,
bell-bottomed,
tight, lean,
hip-hugging me
favorite jeans.
         Groovy.

©2014, Donna JT Smith

I don't own any jeans now.  But I do have an incredibly comfy jean skirt with awesome pockets!