Mainely Write

It is Poetry Friday, so it's time to get a good, healthy dose of poetry.  The poets and poems are being hosted at Live Your Poem with Irene Latham.

Some good friends of ours, (well, they are good friends of my daughter, but I have come to know them as our own personal friends also) some time ago, decided to adopt.  They have three children, and decided they would adopt their fourth child.  They wanted a boy, which would mean they would have two girls and two boys then.  It would be most likely an infant, and from the USA.  They would name this baby boy, John.

But that is not exactly how it turned out.  To read their story, Mom has started a blog.  She has never blogged before, so it is a work in progress.  Please, go here to learn more about the incredible journey to bring John home: His Name is John: Our Story.
I wrote them a poem for John, when they found him.  We could all see him, read about him, pray for him, etc. but he could not know yet that there was a family - real pe…

On Laura Purdy Salas' 15 Words or Less today I wrote to the picture of her dog, Jack, shaking after a bath. I posted this on the Comments there, but it wouldn't hold its format. SO, I'm posting it here, too! I really wanted it to come out in the right shape!

Tornado Dog

Show us again, Toto! How
     did it go, when your
  house spun
  in the
Tor
     na
  d
o
   ?

Poetry Jam today...write a new poem with the topic of Feet or Shoes....
Here's my take:

Metric Foot

With accents and syllables to determine it’s tone
A metrical foot can stand on its own -
Dancing to dactyl or swinging spondee,
Kicking up iamb or toe tapping trochee;
Anapestic rhythm can’t be left alone
Unless your poor sole has, alas, turned to stone.

©Donna JT Smith

It's Poetry Friday...one of my favorite days of the week!  It is being hosted by Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference.  So many links to poetry, so little time...you'd better get there fast then, to get started!

And speaking of Tabatha, few weeks ago Tabatha Yeatts organized a Winter Poetry Swap.  And through that swap I received a wonderful poem by Matt Forrest Esenwine that I would like to share with you today.  Because he too is from the Northeast, his poem about birches and snow brought up images in my mind...and remembrances of heavy snow with birches bent low to touch the ground.  We had some birches doing just that before Thanksgiving, but I couldn't find my pictures.  I did finally locate some from last year though.
Matt also included a beautiful milkweed ornament, that arrived just in time to be added to our small "motel Christmas" tree we've used ever since our Thanksgiving weekend house fire in 2007.
Matt's had one bad spate of luck lat…

We missed our Christmas visit this year with our daughter and her family, as everyone was taking sick time during vacation time.  So, last night my daughter called and we chatted via Facetime - she had my 8 month old granddaughter on her lap and my 3 year old grandson beside her (that would of course also be her daughter and her son...but this is my story).

When GD got fussy, I pushed the button one of her favorite toys for her and put it in camera view.  She stopped to look at it.  Then GS asked to hear his favorite truck noises, so more buttons were pushed and the iPhone camera shifted over to the red truck that I keep here for him.

I watched him do forward rolls, and he showed me his new truck with the big wheels.  I listened to him read a book.  I could see baby sister craning her neck to peek in to watch the screen, too.  He called out the names of the months after me...it's a thing we do - I say a month in a sing-song voice and he mimics me...February came out something lik…

I began writing a poem for today, then remembered I had been planning on posting one from Matt Forrest Esenwine that he sent me.  I realized I hadn't told him it would be this week, so have now postponed it until next Friday.  Then Michelle H. Barnes emailed me to say she was going to post my poem I wrote for her for the Winter Poetry Swap organized by Tabatha Yeatts.
So now, my post is going to merely refer you to Michelle's site: Today's Little Ditty.  There.  Post done for Poetry Friday.  Easy-peasy.  (Now there's a poem that rhymes...)
Go see Michelle now.  She's there with her new word for the new year.
Then go visit many other wonderful poetry links at The Miss Rumphius Effect where Poetry Friday is being hosted by Tricia Stohr-Hunt.

Ok.  Nevermind.  I just finished the poem anyway...inspired by Gingersnap...

If I were a dog though I'm glad that I'm not I’d do what I’m told And learn what I’m taught When you said to sit I’d stay in that spot If you thr…

There is nothing quite like puppy ears.
So soft.  So supple.  So warm.  So floppy.
Ginger sits by the door now, staring at it, when she wants to go out.  You don't have a lot of time to change from slippers to shoes and grab a coat and leash, but she has given you fair warning.  It is time to go out.  She has things to attend to.  Now. She's nine weeks old - how much can you expect?  Every second to her is like a minute or more to us.
And when I carry her down the stairs and plunk her on the ground, she has a "spot" that she races to, ears flapping up and down and back, as if she were trying to fly.  And then she settles in once, twice, to take care of her business.  A couple of "good girl"s from me, and we are flying back to the house.  It's cold out.  There's a nice warm spot in front of the woodstove with our names on it.
I am happy that I finally got my coat on the "get the puppy outside quick" circuit.
And fortunately, finding and ret…