Poetry Exchange

It's Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Penny at A Penny and Her Jots.
And today I'm sharing the last poem exchange of the summer, organized by Tabatha Yeatts.  My last partner for this year's round is Carol Varsalona!  She seems to have done her homework and enjoyed the "assignment" in this year's summer poetry exchange.  Carol has kept up with my recent motorcycling adventures, as well as drawing from my April A to Z Challenge where I wrote poetry based on vanity plates in Maine!  Since Carol also has a vanity plate, she used her plate to write a creative acrostic and print it up on a bookmark with plenty of sparkle!

Donna is....

        Enthusiastic
        Learner
        Admitting

        Real
        Exciting
        Adventure
  founD on the road

By Carol Varsalona, all rights reserved

She also found a newspaper article on women bike riders and used the article to create a Found Poem.

"What? Wearing Motorcycle?"

"No confusion,

I'm a woman on a bike

who wears what's comfortable!"

Bold, Blonde,

Biker Babe

Journeying Through Life

By Carol Varsalona, all rights reserved

Carol also supports a charity that brings education and sustainable living to Masese, Uganda.  The women there make beads and string them into jewelry, selling them to raise money to care for their families.  Carol sent along a beautiful string of ocean blue beads - a certain conversation piece to wear and bring awareness.

Thank you, Carol, for your multi-faceted gift!  Sweet, sweet, sweet!

What a great summer this has been!  I'm going to keep on riding until the leaves fall and I get too cold to continue.  Tomorrow my husband and I are riding to the park (I say "park", but I mean ocean) on our bikes, with lunches tucked away in bags on the back.  Maybe I'll tuck a bathing suit and towel in there, too!  We're going to pretend we are tourists...on "Daisy" and "Retired"...
I still can't believe I did this... that I'm DOING this!
Neither can my husband.

If you'd asked me three years ago if I'd ever ride a motorcycle, I'd have laughed and not even have taken the question seriously.  Three years ago I was having trouble seeing.  I couldn't drive a car at night.  I could barely drive in the daytime.  My back hurt.  I could not walk or ride long distances easily.  I was having problems with gluten (though I didn't know what it was that was making eating an iffy thing).
Got my cataracts fixed in the fall of 2013... things literally started looking good.
In 2015, I discovered gluten was ruining my life and cut it out... things started working well.
In 2016, I lost 50+ pounds... everything became easier and less painful to do.

I can see, I can eat, I can move!  I am not the same person I was three years ago... but I'm kinda feeling like the person I was 30 years ago.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful poems this summer!  I feel so blessed to be in this group... why, 6 years ago, I wouldn't have said I was a writer (no commenters on anything posted for those first three posts!).  And I didn't know any writers.  But everything has changed.  And I like every single change.

Changing

Chameleon, caterpillar,
dandelion, me -
Look at us just one time
what is it that you see?
Look again another day,
scan us up and down;
Do we look the same to you
or have some changed their gown?
Leaves on trees, clouds above
Eggs about to hatch
Nothing stays the same it seems
always there's a catch...
Sprouting wings, changing garb,
gray to brilliant blue,
Cycled lives of wonderment...
What's in store for you?

by Donna JT Smith