Rosy

It's getting colder and colder up here in the Northeast corner of the land.  Should have a wood fire going in the stove...but I guess I'll just turn up the heat and stare out the window at the cold and tired rose bush.  Can't wait for spring.  We can skip over winter.  And summer.  Spring and fall, spring and fall...that's all I need.  But that's another poem for another day.  Today is "Rosy".

my toes
and my nose
are really froze
i think that they are doomed
do you suppose
my rosy nose
could smell a rose in bloom
or should
these rosy toes o’mine
go where
it’s warm and days are fine
and
other posies loom?

It's a comfort to know that closer to the equator and in the southern hemisphere there are some rosy roses and warm noses, and that soon it will return here, too! 
My cat knows how to keep his nose warm.

And now to enjoy more poetry and poetic subjects, go to our Poetry Friday hostess Katya Czaja at Write, Sketch. Repeat.

Thankful for my Childhood

When my parents were young, age 26, they moved from Massachusetts to Maine with their 4 children, to move into their new home in the country, leaving most of the family and both of their jobs behind them. They were so young.  But people were older then.
My dad was fresh out of the Coast Guard and a welder, and my mom was a registered nurse at Mass General, and their work schedules meant they were almost never home at the same time.  They wanted something different for their new family.  They wanted a new fresh branch for the family tree.  It was a bold move, and I'm so glad they did it.  I wasn't glad at the time.  I had no emotions about it.  I'm not sure I even knew we were moving.  We just did it.  And when we got there, we found we had a huge house out in the country.
My dad got a job at the Hyde Windlass in Brunswick, and my mom stayed home, starting the Bonnie Brae Nursing Home in our house.  When Dad was home on weekends, he was the cook for the nursing home.  I think he eventually quit his job to help at the nursing home full time.
It was an interesting life living in a nursing home.  We sometimes helped out by sitting with patients on the front porch and bringing them apples from one of our apple trees.  We mostly talked to patients or stayed out of the way, though I do remember one time that my brother stood on the back pegs of a wheelchair and tipped a patient over.  And I do remember the time I forgot to lock the bathroom door and a patient came in while I was taking a bath in our old claw foot tub.  You'd think we'd have had more than one bathroom for a family of 6 and nursing home patients.  Mostly they used bedpans and big wooden commodes though, and had sponge baths, so the bathroom traffic wasn't that bad.  There was also a double outhouse in our attached barn.  No one used that though.  Years earlier, it must have been a luxury, though, to have an outhouse almost in your house!  No outdoor treks in the winter!  My brothers got locked in there almost as soon as we moved in.  Not sure how.  But there were lots of things my brothers did that I couldn't understand.
This was the house with Walter Reed's Gulf Station at the end of our driveway.  The place where my brothers decided to buy cigarettes and say they were for my parents.  Their mistake was in buying the wrong brand.  Walter called my parents and said, "So you've changed to Marlboro?"  So though I didn't understand the whys or hows, I still learned lots of things from my brothers.
This home was where we played sports as a family every Sunday.  Sometimes it was basketball at our hoop on the barn on the dirt and grass.  If the basketball landed on the big wooden platform in the weeds, we were not to go get it.  That was the cesspool, an old fashioned sewer system of sorts, and they didn't want us to somehow fall in.  Sometimes we played football in the big flat part of our yard below the hill and apple trees and before the hay field.  I broke a bone in my foot stepping in a hole left when we pulled up the grape vine arbor.  No one believed me at the time, and I just finished the game.  It hurt for years off and on, and then when I was in college, they had to x-ray my foot for another injury, and they told me I'd broken my foot once - which I knew.  Baseball was our summer sport.  We used some combination of the two apple trees and the elm tree as our bases.  They were in a straight line, so it made for a triangular playing field instead of a diamond.  Our bat was usually a stick, a vacuum cleaner wand, or some other straight but not regulation bat item.  The ball, likewise, was a rolled up sock, paper, or other material wrapped in electric tape or just rolled up tightly (no duct tape then).  Our home base was the grape vine arbor mentioned before, and later when that was taken down it was something else we just put on the ground. Our Manx tiger cat, George, used to like to follow us around while we played football or baseball.  He would wander back and forth trying to keep up with the game, talking all the while.
Some Sundays I just wanted to finish reading a good book, like Honey Bunch, Just a Little Girl, or Heidi, but it didn't matter, we were all herded outside for the big game.
Looking back, I'm glad my parents made us play the family games.  I'm glad they had the boldness to pick up and move us. 

I found this last night.   It's by Anne Voskamp, the author of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, which I have now added to my must read list.

Limerick Rebuttal

Yesterday for Poetry Friday, Greg Pincus at GottaBook wrote a limerick about a time-eating poem...I just couldn't let it lie...not lie like not truth...like lie down there and don't anything about it.  So my comment had to be a relimerick.  (Does this ever stop...now I have gotten another thing in my head that I will have to write...just a minute...I have to bring up Pages and jot a note about another poem I want to write...be right back).

Good.  Done.  But now I can't stay here long.  I have to go write it.  You didn't think I could write it that fast, did you?  That was just a note to help me remember what I wanted to write about.

A N Y W A Y - - Like I said Greg wrote a poem and I liked it, so I replied in my comments with this that is written below that came to me.  So read his first and then come back.  I can wait.  But not long.  I have to go write something else that I wrote on a page in Pages.  I don't remember what, so it's a good thing I wrote it down when I did, and that I remember that I did that, as sometimes I forget that I wrote a note down and find it years later.

Okay.  Are you back from GottaBook (linked again in case you didn't go there yet)?  This is too big a build up now.  My poem is not that good.  I should write more and profounder stuff for this big a build up.  Sorry.  But here it is anyway....duh, da-da-daaaah (horn proclamation noises):





Though what you are saying seems sage
I balk at what’s written on page
Though your poem brand new
Will stay timeless, ‘tis true
I don’t need it helping me age!


That's it.
Thank you for your time... and you don't look a day older!

Sleepover

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup.  Pay her a visit, and enjoy the poetry banquet.

Do you remember sleepovers?
We had sleepovers with friends and cousins, and they always went the same way. 
Food, playing, laughter, whispering, getting scolded for still being awake - really, what did they think would happen? - scary stories, pillow fights, and 3 am.
I can still bring up memories of those late nights - early mornings - the first time you knew that night really did become morning again - the wonderful feeling of being awake when no one else in the world was (or so we thought).  It was an experience that could only be truly appreciated in childhood.  You see the same late to early hours in motherhood, but somehow they aren't as exciting then.

**************************************

Sleepover 

Up to the bedroom

Scampering in haste,

Squealing and giggles,

There’s no time to waste;

It’s sleepover night,

There’s big fun in store,

Throw down sleeping bags,

Toss pillows galore;

Yankings of blankets,

Punches of pillows,

Fighting with feathers,

Laughter in billows,

Chips in pajamas,

Graham crackers in hair,

Flashlights in bedsheets,

And whispers to scare;

Reprimands called out,

"Keep quiet up there!"

More stifled giggles -

Were they not aware?

It’s sleepover night,

There’s no time to sleep,

So much to be done,

Night watches to keep;

But just when it seems,

The daylight will come,

Eyelids are drooping,

Heads nod one by one;

A spidery pile

Of legs and of arms,

No one is stirring

Nor hearing alarms,

For sleepover night

Is not what it seems:

It’s stay awake night,

And good morning dreams.

*******************************************

Thanks for This Week

I had thought I might be able to do a "Thankful for..." post each day this month, but things just got complicated right away in November, and I let half a month go by without doing that.  But last Wednesday my car wouldn't start, and I've been without my trusty steed for a week.  When I thought about it though, there were still some thankfuls in the whole thing:

Unfortunately, my car got sick.  Thankfully, it was right in my driveway, not out on the highway.  Unfortunately, I had to have the car ambulance take it away on a stretcher.  Thankfully, I had an emergency roadside assistance plan, so the tow was free (though I wondered if my driveway would be considered roadside (thankfully, it was)).  Unfortunately, it needed a bunch of repairs caused by a tensioner failure which would cost mega bucks.  Thankfully, they took some of the labor charges off since they had to do some recall work which would involve some of the same labor as the repairs. Unfortunately, it would take a few days to get to the repairs.  Thankfully, I have a wonderful grown son who saw to it that I got around to do my errands.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything really that is terribly unfortunate (or is that fortunately?)...thankfully, my thankfullys far outweigh my unfortunatelys.

I Saw the Stars Tonight

There are still so many things I'm discovering that I didn't realize I was missing.  Yesterday I noticed that our side windows in the car were tinted.  Huh.  Then last night was a moonless night, and I looked up.  I had thought for a while now that I just didn't have quite the same fascination for the sky that I'd always had.  Try looking at the night sky through sunglasses.  That's what I was seeing for years.  I literally cried for joy when I realized I could not count the stars again.  I didn't want to come inside ever.  And I find myself excited about seeing them tonight.

PS for those unsure of the correctness of the "I" in the photo caption...see Grammar Girl.  I is correct....I am correct that I is correct.

I didn't take this picture.  That's not I in the picture.

I saw the stars tonight
and I remember them;
I remembered how they filled
the space of space
three dimensionally,
some small, some bright,
some clustered tightly
daring you to look at them
directly,
teasing you by
dimming,
but springing back
to full dance
when you glanced away.
I heard them singing
to me as
I traveled the road -
the glittery plane of
white Milky Way -
cutting through the dark sky.
Tonight I saw the stars again
and I remembered them
and I cried
for joy;
they were still there;
I could not count
the stars.

©Donna JT Smith

Pearly Whites and a Picket Fence

I posted this Thursday, but am using it for Poetry Friday, hosted by my good friend, though I have never met her in person, nor ever heard her voice, except the "voice" of her writing, but friend, nonetheless, Linda Baie at Teacher Dance.  Go there, click on links, read more poems and meet more lovers of poetry!

I do not know where these came from or why.  Well, I do know from where...from my head. I just picked a word and started brainstorming with it.  The "why" I don't know, though.  Probably because being a first grade teacher for so long, I got to see so many bloodied mouths, fingers and teeth.
Really, first grade is quite a bodily fluids kind of year, what with teeth falling out, bathroom timing accidents, vomit, coughs and sneezes (oh, and sucking on fingers, thumbs and shoelaces)... First grade teachers, if they make it through their first two years, live forever, having built up super-duper antibodies.

So Are the Teeth

As barnacles on a rock, so are the teeth in our jaw.
As pearls line up on a string, so are the teeth in our mouth.
As a line in a crossword puzzle, so are the teeth of first graders.
As Chicklets in a box, so are the teeth of second graders.
As pickets in a fence, so are the braced teeth of teens.
As biscuits popped in or taken out of the oven, so are the teeth of great grandparents.


Any other ideas?
****************************************************
Teeth

Canine cornered doggy lips,
Sharp fangs of a cat,
Tusks of giant elephants,
Incisors of a rat,

Orange dentured porcupines,
Denticles of sharks,
Rabbit’s yellow nibblers,
Making toothy marks.

Baleen smiles of great big whales,
Molars of a rhino,
Milky whites of browny cows,
Making eating fine-o.

Toothy grin of little boy,
Girl’s of pearly whites -
Teeth beneath their pillowed heads:
Tooth froggy’s delight.

********************************
Of course, my first graders would put up some resistance when I told them there was no tooth fairy, but gave in to laughter when I told them there was a tooth froggy.  Frogs have no teeth, so Tooth Froggy collects teeth to make dentures for frogs so that they can chew their food better.  It's a good deal.  He pays for the teeth, and then sells the dentures to the toothless frogs and other creatures.  He makes enough money to buy more teeth and take an occasional vacation to a warmer place in the winter - avoiding sleeping in the frozen mud all winter.
They never really gave up their Tooth Fairy, but humored me on the Tooth Froggy story.  ALL of my students had seen a tooth fairy at some point in their lives, if they'd lost a tooth.  They could describe and draw their personal tooth fairy, also.  It made for interesting tooth fairy mobiles in our classroom.

One of my favorite books to read to them was Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth, by Lucy Bate.  It's such a sweet story, and I loved Little Rabbit's innocent voice.  It's an old story, but the kids always loved it.  Good books are timeless.  Teeth aren't.

P.S. Frogs do actually have teeth, albeit nothing to write home about.  They are very small cone shaped teeth, which in most frog cases are only on the top jaw.  They aren't for chewing though, so they would still need the dentures for that.  These teeth just help them hold prey as they swallow them whole.

Whiney Whys

I don't mean to whine, complain, nor be judgmental, BUT why are so many things considered okay to do now?

For example in a department store:

• Why is it okay for kids to ride the bikes for sale inside a store?  Isn't this dangerous for both the child and other customers, never mind the fact that I was hoping to buy a NEW bike for my child or grandchild.

• Why is it okay to bounce the balls in the store?  I know they will look used soon after bouncing them on the driveway, but again I'm paying for new merchandise.  Can I get a discount for used?  ...I didn't think so.

In a grocery store:

• Why is it okay to hand a kid a bag of grapes or a banana from the bunch to eat while shopping?  Both are sold by the pound, and I didn't see any provision for weighing your kid before starting to eat, though you could put him or her on the scales at the register when checking out.

At restaurants:

• Why is it okay to build a fort out of the individual serving creamers, butters and sugar containers?  Oh, and wear the bowls they were in on your head, like perhaps you needed a construction worker's hard hat or a crown.  I guess it is pretty hard for a four year old to understand that though when your father and mother are helping construct the condiment castle and teaching you how to put them back so neatly no one will ever suspect you have had the bowls and food in your very grubby, marker stained hands.  I'll bet the bedroom walls are beautiful.

But then, Mom and Dad don't want to stifle creativity.  And there are some self-esteem issues, doncha know.
But it isn't really even all about the kids' poor behavior then is it?  Sometimes the adults don't even HAVE kids with them...

• like the lady at the salad bar at the grocery store who filled her container so full she couldn't close it, so she had to put some of the olives back using her fingers.  I mean, really, what else could she have done?  She couldn't close her container.  She didn't want to dirty the tongs in the olive serving dish. (What?  Wait.  That's right, those were tongs for putting them in.  There must not have been any return-tongs!)  She knew her hands were very clean.  Hmmm, but there was that grocery cart handle...oh, and the purse strap the baby chewed on..wait, did she wash her hands after she fixed her shoe and tidied her hair, scratched her nose and... ummm.  I wouldn't worry about it. 

• and the guy who makes sandwiches with those protective gloves on.  The protective gloves are not meant to protect you from my sandwich.  They are to keep my sandwich clean.  So.....if the gloves are dirty...then my sandwich...do you see where I'm going?  Yup, your hands will still be clean.  My sandwich, not so much.  So stop opening registers, handling money and pushing your hair out of your face with with them on while you make my sandwich, please.

I guess I did want to whine, complain and be judgmental.  How'd I do?
I promise, I won't whine tomorrow!

Another Poem Format to Try

Okay, Joy!  Here goes!  Over at Poetry for Kids Joy, Joy Acey has posted some poems in a particular format.  I have about the same format, but with a non-Halloween bent.  These are fun and challenging.  Try one, but first check out the rest of Joy's to get the format down!

Knocking at my door
Was a Great Horned owl
On his head was a cap
He was wrapped in a towel.

Because I’m just a mouse
I crouched down in a cower,

But he asked me
quite nicely,
"Could I use your shower?"
********************************************
Knocking at my door
was a sticky porcupine;
he used my brand new toothbrush -
made his orange teeth shine.

I didn’t want to rattle him,
I didn’t want to shout;

But I really
wanted Porky
to be on his way out.

©Donna JT Smith, 10/25/2013

Hmmm.  Looks like mine are taking a "bathroom" theme!  I'd better stop before I get to the next fixture.

Hmm.  Too late!
****************************
Knocking at my door
Was a little brown mouse
Why would this tiny rodent
Come to my big house?

He borrowed toilet paper
-didn’t mean to be a pest.

I thought he’d need
some help but
he just rolled it to his nest.

©Donna JT Smith, 10/26/2013

****************************

Shhhh!  Don't tell anyone.  Only the people that get this far will know it is my birthday today.

A Falling Out

Maple Pine Oak Birch

No idea what I was going to write before I sat down at 1 pm.  I did not want to miss Poetry Friday.  So this is what came out as I sat looking at these trees out here in my back yard.   Acrostics...?  Ok.  Acrostics it is...or acrostics they are.

Mild mannered
And
Politely
Leaving leaves
Everywhere

Bellowing autumn winds
Intensify yellow flames before the
Remaining white
Candles stand extinguished
High on a hill

Perpetually
Immersed in
Needles
Ever green

Weeping
In
Languid
Loneliness
Over
Water

Hardy boughs
Envelope
Many a
Little creature
Over the
Cold winter as a
Kindly mother hen's wing.

The only tree I don't see is the willow...but I'm thinking of the willow at a nearby park.
And now to go to read more poetry by visiting our gracious host for Poetry Friday this week:
Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

Hey, Mortimer, Do You Have a Minute?

 
Today is Poetry Friday!  Yea, for Fridays and poetry!  When you are finished here head on over to Cathy Mere's Merely Day by Day where she is hosting today's Poetry Friday.  You are sure to find a treasure trove of links to some splendid poems! (splendid... I'm going to use that later today in conversation, I think!)

I am hosting the poetry-loving Mortimer Rabbit for The Mortimer Minute.  He is going to ask me a few questions today, and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

If you would like to have Mortimer visit your website and ask a few questions, here are the 3 guidelines:

1. Answer three short questions, one of them taken from the previous Mortimer Minute.
2. Invite another blogger (or two or three) to take part on the following week--writers, teachers, or anyone who loves children's poetry is the perfect choice.
3. Link to the previous Mortimer Minute and to your choice for next week. 

Well, over at Random Noodling, I discovered Mortimer, the rabbit, interviewing Diane Mayr.

Mortimer and the whole interviewing deal seemed harmless enough, and I decided that I wouldn't be opposed to having a bunny interview me.  Here is how the interview went (question #3 came from Diane's interview, and the other two Mortimer came up with as new questions for me):

^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^*^^

Me: Hello, Mortimer!  Nice to finally meet you nose to nose.

Mortimer:  Why, yes, I suppose it is.

Me:  So I hear you have some questions you would like to ask of this poetry lover and writer!

Mortimer: Yes, I do.  Here's my first and very most important question: If you were a rabbit and liked to write poetry, what would you write?

Me: Well, I think I might write a little hop-skip-and a jump ditty!

Mortimer: Kitty?  Did you say kitty?  I am not too fond of cats.

Me: No, ditty.  A ditty is just a little something written down like a song or poem...

Mortimer: Oh, okay.  No "Owl and Pussycat" poems, please.  They make me nervous.

Me: Okay, no owls and cats in the ditty.
Here goes:

I hop -

I jump -

I bound around!

I twitch -

I freeze -

I hear a sound!

I spring -

I dart -

I can't be found!

Mortimer: That almost sounded like there WAS a cat or owl in that poem.  And I sounded like a scaredy-rabbit.

Me: Okay, then.  How about this one?

I've the quickest legs for changing gears,

And for rabbit radar, the longest ears.

My nose will ever test the air

To see if I should take some care.

A daily carrot and lettuce leaf

Are good for health, is my belief!

I'm soft and furry,

And prone to hurry;

Although I am small

And you are so tall,

Still you can depend
On this bunny friend!

Make it a habit

To hug your rabbit!

Mortimer (twitching his nose and scratching his left ear): Oh, yes that was much better.  More fitting for me.  Did rabbits some justice, I must say.

Me: Thank you, I'm glad you liked it.

Mortimer: Now, the second thing I'd like to know is - Do you know any rabbit riddles? 

Me:  I do. 

Mortimer: So do I.  Listen carefully and think. What do you call a rabbit that has fleas?  Now that is a question, but it isn't one of my allotted 3 questions, you know.

Me: Okay,  I won't count that question.  Hmmm... What do you call a rabbit that has fleas? It seems it would have to be something like a "buggy rabbit".  Am I right?

Mortimer: No.  The answer is "Bugs Bunny".  But yours was pretty good.  You are clever.  You could be a rabbit - except for those ears.  Can't fix the ears.   Too bad.  But it's the whole package or nothing.

Me:  Well, that's disappointing, but I guess I'll just resign myself to being a human.  I rather like my ears trimmed short anyway.

Mortimer: No accounting for taste. Let's continue.  My third question is this:  I've heard that many poems rhyme, but sometimes they don't.  Which type do you prefer and why?

Me: I would have to say that I prefer ones that rhyme, as you can see from the ones I wrote earlier, though I have written non-rhyming poetry, too.  I like the sound of words that rhyme, I really like the rhythm as they are read and I like the challenge of trying to make the hard work of rhyming sound natural and easy.

Mortimer:  I'm fond of rhyming poetry also.  I wrote a poem, you know.

Me: Really?  Can you recite it?

Mortimer:  (clears throat)
I am a hare, so I am not square. 
I am a bunny, so I don't eat honey.  
I am a rabbit, so I eat carrots.  
That last part is not quite the way I want it yet.  I've some revising to do.
Now, technically this is a fourth question...or fifth really if you were counting, but who's counting?  Oh, dear, that would make 6.  Nevermind.  I asked Diane this question when I was down in New Hampshire -  Which way to the highway? 
 

Me:  You are in Maine, so there aren't many highways.  Remember, you are also on an island, so you'll have to go over a few bridges to get to the mainland.  Then you will either head north to Canada, or go south or west to New Hampshire.  East wouldn't be a good choice; that takes you to the Atlantic Ocean. It's really close, but I don't think you'll want to swim anywhere, being a rabbit and all.  I think your best plan is to take out your GPS and get a reading from here to where you want to go.

Mortimer:  Oh, you must mean my RBS - my Rabbit Burrowing System.  I know it's somewhere here in my pocket...ah, yes, here it is. Hmmm... It looks like the nearest rabbit hole that leads to Marileta Robinson's place - the next Children's Poetry Lover - is just over there under that hemlock! Well, must be off to the next hop, skip or jump! Lovely meeting you!  Next time we must have lobster and a whoopie pie!

Me:  Good-bye!  It was nice...

And he was gone.  Scoot.  Down the hole.  Just like that.  I would have liked more time with Mortimer, but a minute is like an hour to a fast moving rabbit...

He's on his way to Marileta's place now... a children’s writer and former editor with Highlights for Children and High Five, with poems and stories in Highlights, High Five, and Hello.   Wow, he should have quite a time visiting her!  I'm going to check in next week and see what will be going on. 

15 Words a Bunch of Times Makes a Longer Poem

Over at Laura Salas' place, she does 15 Words or Less on Thursdays .  Today the picture is of a red and black hued funnel shape.  It inspired a short piece there, and then kept nagging at me until I finished it.  I changed the raise to be at the end of the first stanza, so I could use the rhyme to enhance its structure.  You need to go to Laura's place though, to see the picture AND to read other interpretations of the image.  Lots of wonderful work!

A
time to
leave this earth
a day to be released -
hands in hallelujah raise.

An
escape from
tears and sorrow
no more worries and despair -
long forgotten worldly days.

A
path to
a cloudless sky
above the whirl below -
voice lifts up in praise.

A
way to
a cloudless sky;
no more worries and despair -
hands in hallelujah raise!

  © Donna JT Smith

Ok.  Done.  The structure on this is a bit pantoumish, with repeating lines from previous stanzas (in order going up) in the last stanza.  Maybe I will call this new form smithoum...

And tomorrow - a lighter note!  A Mortimer Minute!   Come back for Mortimer's visit to Maine!

Wednesday: Wanted...Now Found!

This has nothing to do with anything...doesn't it just look SO good, though?  It was.

Wanted: Children's Poetry Writer or Lover of Poetry for Children for a Mortimer Minute!

On Friday I will be entertaining Mortimer for a minute or two.  If you have a desire to be interviewed by a bouncy bunny, a hippity-hoppity hare, a long-eared leaper, a rapid rabbit, a jolly jumper...well, just let me know, and I'll tell people where to hop to next week!
You make up the questions you'd like to have a audience of kids' poetry lovers to ask (except for taking one of mine that I used).  You answer the questions.
You mention my site as the place you hopped from, and the person or persons that will be hosting Mortimer next.
It's as easy as that!


Found: A Children's Poetry Writer for next week!  I'm so excited!  Thank you, Marileta Robinson.  I tagged Marileta, and she has graciously accepted the invitation to host a Mortimer Minute.  She will be interviewed by the bouncy bunny next week.  See my interview this Friday!

Revisited

So, I know some have read my prior version of this poem.  But as Andrew mentioned there were bumpy parts, and I had to agree - there were parts that still bothered me.  So I have edited again.  I think it is to my liking now.  And I am going to leave it alone.  If some day it bubbles up from the deep again and screams at me to fix it, then I will discuss it with myself and the poem.  But for now, and a long time, this is it.  And when you are done, go by and check out more poetry links for Poetry Friday hosted today by Laura Purdie Salas at Writing The World for Kids.  

Days of Roses

Yellowed walls meet her eyes
Where lives ago were roses.
Faded shades lie below
Where weary paint reposes.

It wasn't always yellowed walls
It wasn't always faded
For once upon a time she knew
A world that wasn't jaded.

Oh, rose of youth, short days ago
Or maybe it was years?
How could it be that long ago
To ring now in her ears?

The laughter and the singing,
The warmth of hugs and touch
Though taken, oh, so lightly then
Today would mean so much!

She almost sees the faces
She almost hears their voices
If she had time to give again
Would she make different choices?

The faded roses tell her "no,
Life was what it should be";
She loved and it returned to her
Much more abundantly.

Paint and time may dim the rose
But her eye still discerns
The days of love and life gone by
And happiness returns.


© Donna JT Smith, 2013

Days of Roses

I had the first stanza of this written a while ago, earlier in spring, and had used it for something else.  I found it this morning just after 4 am - my cataract surgery is at 8:30 - so I guess I couldn't/can't sleep (been up since 3:30).  I added quite a bit to it and then edited the original part some.  Now I'm hungry and can't eat until they give me a muffin after the surgery.  Oh, well, I'll survive...I have plenty stored up for use in times like this!  Now, if I could only store up sleep.

Days of Roses

Yellowed walls meet her eyes
Where lives ago were roses
Faded shades in layers below
Green paint now imposes.

It wasn't always yellowed walls
It wasn't always faded
For once upon a time she knew
Her world had not been jaded.

Oh, rose of youth, short days ago
Or maybe it was years?
It seems so very long ago
But still rings in her ears

The laughter and the singing
The warmth of hugs and touch
Though taken, oh, so lightly then
Today would mean so much

She almost sees the faces
She almost hears their voices
If she had time to give again
Would she make different choices?

The faded roses tell her "no"
Life was what it should be
She loved and it returned to her
Much more abundantly

Paint and time may dim the rose
But her eye still discerns
The days of love and life gone by
And happiness returns.

Donna JT Smith

Now head on over to the Slice of Life offerings at Two Writing Teachers!

It Isn't Summer

As I promised myself... now back to some poetry. 
After reading this, head on over to Poetry Friday being hosted by Doraine Bennett at Dori Reads for links to more great poetry and poetry related posts!
It's finally fall here.  We have had some nice crisp nights and days, scattered with some warmer days, with lots of sun.  We had had a rainy stretch a while ago, but now it is fine fall feast, an awesome autumn offering...a sweet season sensation!  I could try to go on, but it's getting forced now.  So I will end with this - something I wrote a while back and stuck away in Pages on my iPad.  I must gather these things together someday and see what I have.

Last of the Colors

Summer's ending
Last strains of green
Reds overtaking
With autumn's scene

Smells of last hay
And spiced goldenrod
Apples now ripened
Give fall a cool nod

It's time for the last of
The colorful things
The last before snow's
Frosty white zings

Where mittens and hats
Are the only displays
Of color and warmth
Till return of spring's days.

No Surgery Today

Sorry to bore you with another post about sight...but I'm still amazed and delighted.  You know my husband and I have all new clothes now, what with this color in my life again.  They aren't actually new clothes, but they have been given a new lease on life with the added benefit of seeing them in color!  I just love the blues and reds in his "new" old tie! (see pictures below, especially if you don't want to read more about eyesight drivel)


I've been looking forward to having my second cataract removed today.  Well, I woke up yesterday with a sore throat.  I let it be, using the technique of ignoring, but in the back of my mind I worried that it was a cold coming on. I still held out hope that it was just the eye drops irritating my sinuses and back of my throat.  It got a bit better as the day went on, but last night it was sore again.  This morning I awoke with a headache and chest congestion and cough...

So much for my second cataract being chipped away and replaced today.  Guess I'll have to go with disparate vision for a bit longer.

I'm still not totally convinced that it isn't the medicine that I have to put in my eye two days before the surgery.  The nurse says it isn't.  I guess we'll see if it happens again when we try for the second date.

In a way, it's nice to delay the second one for a bit longer.  I get to continue to appreciate and be fascinated by the difference in vision quality.  I'm afraid in some ways that I will forget how bad my vision was after a while and take it for granted again.

The timing for my cold was impeccable.  Such precise timing.  There must have been a reason.  And for that I am glad.  I want to have the second cataract done and my vision restored to all its former glory, but for some reason it has been delayed.  It will most likely never be my privilege to know the reason.  But I am thankful, and know that soon it will be time.

But for now I want to continue to appreciate the before and after difference, and later I'll have lots of time to enjoy the forever difference.

Funny story - another person and I were having a discussion in church some time ago about the stained glass windows and our favorite parts.  She mentioned an oval with grapes in it as her favorite.  I asked her where that was.  She pointed it out.  I could not see grape shapes anywhere in that window.
Last Sunday morning, I looked with my right eye only at the stained glass windows with the sun streaming through and exclaimed over their beautiful blues and reds.
"Can you see the grapes now?" she asked.
And I looked where she was pointing.  Yes, I could!  I could see the vibrant purple against the deep red, using my good eye.

My left eye (with a cataract I hadn't been aware of before my surgery due to the fact that my right eye was sooooo much worse) still can not see it.  Both colors, the red and purple, are a muddied brown-red.

I wonder how long I've been colorblind and haven't realize it.  I wonder what other wonders there are out there.
I PROMISE my next post will NOT be about my eyes!

But I couldn't resist this before and after simulation I created.  I took a picture and using my left eye with the cataract and my right eye that has been fixed, I edited the pictures to show what I was seeing before (and still see with my left eye) and after (with my right eye).

Left eye view with cataract (that I thought was wonderful vision - though it's actually a little more jumbled than this - with some double vision going on with it - and the red and blue are a little more muted than this):

Right eye view with cataract: 

You can see how I might think that my left eye was wonderful, if you just looked through my right eye with the cataract. But then the above view was replaced with this view!

My husband's "new" tie after removal of the cataract in my right eye:

I'm loving these colors!

Let's not even think about how it was for driving at night...

Time creeping

Turning pristine

To worn;

Reds are brown,

Life toned down -

Forlorn;

Landscapes frayed,

Tattered days

And torn

Oh, for light,

Untarnished sight

Reborn!

Stained Glass

Stained eyes
Eyes strain
And we don’t know
The creep of sepia
Into our world
But then
He comes
And whittles away at
The years
And tears
And shows us what
Our eyes could not see
Blind to the brilliance
Right in front of us
All the time
And curtains
Are parted
And the world becomes
Clearly defined
With millions of twinkling shades
Of color
Of light
That were there
All along
Though only now
Can we see the glory of
Stained glass.

Making the Wrong Timing Right

(This has taken me FOREVER to write.  I'm still juggling glasses for reading and light.  No one pair works for everything.  BUT my sight in my cataractless eye is coming along just wonderfully.  So if anything is written wrong, let me know.  I just can't go through and try to reread it. Time to go do eyedrops again. The links are just in case you are interested in some of the spots to which I've referred.)

We often have the best times when our timing is all wrong.

For our anniversary yesterday, we had decided to take the train from Brunswick to Rockland, enjoying the ride in the old time cars, and then walking to The Brass Compass for the Lobster King Club sandwich (which is to die for good and probably one of the best kept secrets of lobster sandwichdom in Maine).

We were late getting out of the house, but would make it in time for the 10:00 departure, however my husband discovered that he had no handkerchief, nor tissues, and his nose was running like a faucet due to some newly blossomed weed evidently.  So we had to stop at Reny's and grab a new batch of handkerchiefs and some tissues for good measure.  And decided to take the train from Bath instead, as it left there at 10:25 and we were right there, early now.
We went inside the train station that sits by the bridge over the Kennebec River and next to the Bath Iron Works, wandering around and waiting.  A few other people came in, picked up brochures from the Visitor Information Center there, and left.  I finally went up to the counter to check to make sure we could buy tickets on board.  The kind, but not from Maine, volunteer spoke with a foreign accent as she told me "Oh, no.  There are no trains on Mondays."

How did I miss that?  Oh, maybe because I am fumbling with sunglasses, bifocals, print size on my iPhone and two disparate eyes - that's how.

Okay, so our anniversary trip has suddenly been cancelled.  What to do?  Go with the flow.  Improvise.  Make it up as you go.  Do something else completely.  Wing it.
So we wung it.  We just started driving, looking and thinking, and making it up as we went.

On Sunday I heard of a nice lobster place in Sanford, but what was its name?  I had to text someone to find out.  Yeah, Shain's - ooh, Shain's also makes ice cream.  It's about an hour or so away.  So off we went to Shain's of Maine, for a $5.99 lobster roll, the way it should be - not too expensive.  I had a Shain's Root Beer with it.  Even the sodas were only $1.

I tried to take a picture, but I ate it before I could snap one. I didn't even remember to take a picture of the chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich for dessert. They were both very good.

Then we continued our drive, south to Kennebunkport and looked at the ocean as we drove by.  We couldn't stop, though there was plenty of parking.  As a non-resident, we needed a $15 parking pass for the day from the town office.  It isn't free until September 15.  It was a beautiful drive though.

We almost stopped at the grocery store and picked up steaks to take home, but before we could do that we changed our minds again and headed farther north and inland...all the way to Farmington.  We stopped on the way for some crackers and soda and iced tea to tide us over.

Before we had finished our drinks, we discovered a wonderful lake with benches right up to the water's edge where we could sit and sip our - whoa there's the yearling doe by my window, munching on leaves and grass -

anyway -yes, sip our drinks and relax, watching the water and boats being launched into the lake for fishing excursions.  It was a great, relaxing time as the sun was going down.

Here's the evidence.

Wow.  It just doesn't get any better than this.

We finished our drinks and got back in the car, heading into the college town for some real food.  I really wanted to find a place with some atmosphere; not a college hangout, but we'd take what we could find.  As we drove through the town, I spied a "storefront" restaurant that looked like it had candles on the tables.  So we went around the block once to find a spot to park and go in.

It was just what I was looking for, even though it looked as if it had been a Woolworth's in it's former life.  It was quiet, with subdued lighting, candles, and a nice menu.  Just before our meals came, a woman began playing medleys of relaxing music on a baby grand piano.  Wow.  What an awesome surprise!

We had been talking about what movie we might like to watch when we got home and couldn't come up with any ideas, so I texted my daughter who is a library of obscure but great movies.  She gave us some ideas.  And then I got a text from her saying before you get a movie, check your email.  So I checked my email.
Wow, again.
She had sent us a gift card from iTunes to buy or rent movies - our anniversary gift.
Nothing had gone as planned today. 

We ran out of time to see a movie last night.  But next Saturday we are taking the train to Rockland, and getting a lobster roll or club sandwich at The Brass Compass.  And then we will come home and watch a movie.

I wonder what will REALLY happen...

A Radical Love - Our Story

Sometimes I think we're so conservative we're radical.  Happy anniversary to us!

Said Quilt to the Potato, "Seams that you have your eye on me!"

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Our lives could have been written so, so differently, if not for one night long ago:

A friend of mine at college had locked herself in her room, threatening to commit suicide.  She finally let me in.  I talked to her for hours in that dark room that night.  No one told me I couldn't counsel in a life or death situation, so I did.  Everything turned out fine.  My dorm mother, who didn't really know me before this, suggested that I apply for a Resident Assistant position that was opening up for the Fall Semester. I did, and I was hired.   That night was a turning point for my friend, but it also changed the course of my life, and that one special guy that I didn't even know yet.

In the second week of September, at the beginning of my Junior year in Child Development, I, an antique dealer's daughter, met my "husband to be", a potato farmer's son.  He was a Senior in Electrical Engineering, and we were both Resident Assistants in neighboring dorms.  We met at the first Resident Assistants' orientation meeting the week before the rest of the students arrived.  He saw me and decided to ask me for a date. I was seeing someone else at the time, but decided to get to know this farmer.  I broke up with the someone else a few days after meeting my future husband.

By Christmas we were engaged.  We were going to wait to get married after I graduated, but decided in July that we'd get married before school started again in September.  We figure it was pretty nearly a year to the day after we first met, that we married.  No one told us that it couldn't or shouldn't be done in that amount of time. No one said you should get to know them longer before you get married.  We knew each other just fine. We decided on September 9th, a week before classes started again, to get married in a little church we'd never even attended, but was near the campus.  It looked nice, so we went with it.

I found a pattern and made my wedding dress and veil, and helped bridesmaids make their dresses using the same pattern in different colors.  No one told me you didn't make your dresses, especially your wedding gown, so I did it.

We ordered three marble cakes - round, in different sizes - from the local bakery.
I stacked the cakes and decorated them myself, though I'd never done a layer cake and had never decorated anything but family birthday cakes, kind of.  But no one told me that I needed a professional, so I did it.

I hand-wrote my 100 wedding invitations, envelopes and reply cards. I learned basic calligraphy so they would look nice.  We didn't have computers and printers.  I didn't know it would be too much work for one person, so I did it.

I carried a single yellow rose for a bouquet, and made candles for the bridesmaids to carry for our evening ceremony.  Not much of a bouquet, but just right, and candle making was big back then.  So "ta-da"!  Did it.

We had tuna, chicken and ham finger sandwiches and chips and pickles and olives and fruit punch that the ladies of the church prepared.  No one told us that wasn't fancy wedding food, so we ate it.  Everyone sat in folding chairs and held their plates in their laps and set their cups on the floor.  No one told me that we should be sitting at tables, so everyone was able to mingle and chat and move about happily.

Except for paying the preacher (which we'd totally not thought about, and my father did), we paid for the whole thing out of our own pocket.  No one told us that the bride's parents typically paid for the wedding.  I did not expect them to, and I would not have wanted them to.  So we did it out of our summer job earnings. Including my dress, invitations, candles, cake and food, I think our wedding cost almost $200 back in 1972 (which was still not much back then for a wedding - maybe two months' apartment rental payments).

We lived apart for almost a year, during the gas crisis, while my husband finished his Master's degree and then started his first job, and I taught my first year of school up in northern Maine in his potato farming hometown.  We'd meet on Friday nights at a motel halfway between our two apartments - each of us driving about 2 hours - and head back home early Sunday morning.  There were no gas sales after 5 pm Saturday, and all gas stations were closed on Sundays, so we had to be careful not to drive around too much so  we'd have enough gas in our tanks to get to our respective apartments again.  We got a good deal at the motel where we'd meet for Saturday.  I'm sure we looked questionable with the name of Smith, meeting for the weekend, two cars, no real luggage...

I quit my first teaching job mid-year, so I could go with my husband out to Wisconsin where he'd gotten another job, after quitting his first.  No one told us it would be a bad idea to quit jobs.  When we got to Wisconsin, we got new jobs and bought our first home - a little ranch with attached garage in a little development.  It had heat, water, carpet, 1200 sq.ft, 3 bedrooms, a garage and a nice big basement.  We sold it in less than a year.  No one told us it would be best to live in your new home for a lot of years and build up equity before you sold it.

Instead of the ranch home, we now had a 40 acre farm with a 600 sq.ft. unheated one bedroom stone and stucco home on it (well, there was electric heat in the uninsulated shag carpeted kitchen).  We heated the house with wood after finding out how expensive it was to heat the kitchen with the electric baseboard. There was only an electric space heater in the bathroom.  Sometimes, if we came home late, there was an ice skim on the water in the toilet.  Those nights I slept with my down jacket on until my husband could start the woodstove and get it a little warmer than the evidently 32 degrees it was.  I wonder how we didn't freeze the pipes?  Oh, yeah.  No one told us it was a bad idea to let the house get so cold.

Do we even need to discuss the scritch-scratchy bats living upstairs between the ceiling and roof, the mouse droppings in the kitchen cupboards, those cute mouse-sized (with just as much hair as a mouse) spiders and the transparent snake skins in the basement...it was a very, very old German farmhouse.

No one seemed as impressed with this home as we were.  It had 40 acres!  It had a barn!  We could have horses!  And we did.  We didn't know anything about horses, except that I liked them and had always wanted one.  So we had ten.  And some rabbits.  And a few dogs and a couple of cats.  My mother-in-law was worried that she would never have pictures of  grandchildren.  I'm sure my parents were concerned, too, but they never said a word.  No one told us we should hurry, so we didn't.

When we were about to have our 1st child in our 7th year of marriage, we built a new home on the same property, about 100 feet from the old house.  This new house was "taken" by a twister when it was framed in and roof on, scattered around the county in the valley below us.  We thanked God we hadn't been ahead of schedule.  We rebuilt it.  The day after we moved out of the old house, the chimney collapsed onto the floor right where our bed pillows used to be.  We thanked God we were not behind schedule.

I had two totally natural childbirth experiences.  We were in the hospital, but in a low key, natural birthing room - brass bed, sheets with yellow roses - no meds at all.  And finally baby pictures instead of cat pictures for our parents.

We moved shortly after our second child, a daughter, was born.  We again quit good jobs.  Would it have mattered if someone had told us you shouldn't quit jobs with two little children?  Probably not. Though we loved Minnesota (just across the Mississippi from our jobs in Wisconsin), we wanted to be closer to family.  We ended up in NH for a bit, and then RI.  When our home was broken into in the middle of the day and my husband was out of town and I was taking our youngest to preschool, we determined that we would move out of RI and go straight  to Maine, where family was and where our roots were.

We bought a home in a fairly busy neighborhood.  We liked the house, but it wasn't ideal.  We would live there while we looked for a better place to settle down.  Then we proceeded to live there for 10 years!  Yikes!  We hadn't realized that time was marching on.  We bought a 5 acre parcel in a rural, wooded  development close to the ocean.  Then we planned out how to accomplish this next build and move.

We decided on a log home, which we chose to build when we were describing our two options for homes to our teens.  As I described the houses, I told them option 1 was a log home, with huge windows and cathedral ceiling, and option 2 would be very much like the house we were in at the time, a cape...as soon as the words came out of my mouth "very much like this house", my husband and I looked at each other, and we knew that would not be the house we would build.  It was time for different than anything we'd done before.

Living in this spot, in this house has been wonderful...even with the year (well, 11 months) that we had to leave it while a major soot cleaning was done after a fire.  We lived in a motel for all that time, and realized that our little stone house in Minnesota had been big, and that we didn't need half the stuff we had.  Okay, more than half the stuff we had wasn't necessary.  With one three-foot wide closet that housed our clothes, an ironing board and an iron...oh, and a 1 foot tall Christmas tree... we realized that we had too many clothes in our life, and too large a Christmas tree in our garage.  Life was about life, not stuff.

And now we are about the business of doing something totally different again 14 years after building. We are renovating an old house, not much bigger than that old farmhouse in Wisconsin.  When we first saw the house, it was being used for storage.  It had no heat, no bathroom, no insulation, no chimney.   It had old paneling that was rippled and falling off.  We have given it new everything, except the skeleton.  It is no longer a gray cedar shake exterior, but sporting cheerful yellow cedar shakes with a touch of green in the peak, and a vibrant day lily orange-red front door.  We have included some radical new ideas for the inside.  First, there will be no falling down chimney...no chimney at all with propane and radiant in-floor heat.

Other radical ideas: two dishwashers (one for clean, one for dirty, no intermediate cabinet storage), toilet tanks in the wall, toilets mounted to the wall (for easy under and around cleaning), a washer/dryer combo unit (no, not one up, one down - one unit that does both).  Then for ambiance all wood floors of full 20' length fir, rejuvenated interior doors and hardware, stained glass ceiling and sconce lighting.  I am excited to be able to live there.

I have retired.  My husband will be retired in another year and a half.  We have two wonderful grown offspring.  Our son has bought a house and it's so exciting to see him working on it.  My daughter and her husband are living in a home pretty much like the old one we lived in, but are looking ahead to a larger house now that Grandson is moving around - a lot.  Oh, and they are expecting their second child in May.

Happy anniversary!  I'm glad my husband-to-be, became a husband-to-me!  I pray that things move along not too fast and not too slow...that we are always in the right place at the right time in our lives.
So far, so good.
41 years is a long time if you are miserable,
but oh, so short
when you are radically in love.
No one told us it wouldn't last, so we are forever together.

Quilt and Potato - a few years ago...

In radical love,
Unlike peas in a pod,
But still both green,
A shared path trod.
Unseen likenesses
Burst to the fore
And we continued
In love some more.
Through years of days
And days of hours
We trod our path
Of sun and showers
Feet and eyes set
Toward the goal
The prize of Life
Names on the role.
Renewed, relieved,
Redeemed, reborn -
In Radical Love
We'll meet that morn.

Poem Rewritten and Excuse Given

Hope everyone is having a great start to the school year.  It's the first day of school here in our town.  I'm going in town for cookies and tea with another retired teacher friend, so that we can watch the buses leave the schools and take kids home on their first day.  It is still fun to watch the first day excitement. 
Oh, the end of the first day in first grade...can't say I miss that! 
"How am I getting home?"
"It says you are on bus 21."
"Which one is that?" 
"The same one you came on this morning."
"My mom drove me to school today."
"Don't worry, we will get you to the right bus."
"I think my mom is picking me up."
"I don't have a note from her about that."
"Oh, yeah, it's in my lunchbox."
"No, she's not, the note says today you need to go on whatever bus will get you to your sitter's house..."
Sobbing sounds begin - from both the child and the teacher...

I came across my notes for a poem for March Madness 2013 and reworked some of the lines.  We saw two owls a few weeks ago in a tree on our front lawn.  They flew off as I was trying to focus a camera on them.  I love seeing owls.  They remind me so much of cats.  Flying cats.  Another poem for another day.

A quizzical fowl
Was Sir Rhett the Owl
His question was always the same.
Whoo, whoo?

Simply rhetoric
To a rabbit cadaveric -
Why befriend "what's his name"
As you chew?

Of course, owls don't really chew, but rather tear and swallow...but it doesn't rhyme.  I guess I could have used a bit more poetic license and said "swallooo".

On a personal note...
I'm having one cataract done tomorrow!  And the next the first week of October!  That will perhaps make it easier to read blogs and write my blog again.  Looking forward to that!
Though these glasses helped me see better than I could before, my right eye has continued to get cloudier, and it isn't easy to read with or without glasses on - so I've slacked off a bit.  Looking forward to "seeing you" again!

Feeling a Little Blue?

So, here's my dog, Pippi, sitting by her stuffed moose, Retrievering, as usual.  All in a day's work.

My daughter and grandson left this weekend after visiting for two weeks.

Pippi was very fond of my grandson's toys, though the books were of very little interest to her.  This twinkling ball was wonderful, and she also kept sneaking off with a small, blue stuffed whale of his. I discovered that she enjoys retrieving paper airplanes, too.  Fortunately, she is a Golden, so her mouth is very soft.  We get her chew toys, and she keeps them for years.  I think she still owns every toy we've ever given her.  We try to only give her children's stuffed animals, as she doesn't like the squeak in all the dog toys.  She hardly ever makes a toy squeak though.  But if we accidentally step on it, and it squeaks, she gets concerned for its health and well-being.

Pippi has enjoyed having this cracker dropper/toy hauler around.
I think she misses him, almost as much as I do.
The cat...not so much.

Bye-bye!  Thanks for sharing!

Osprey are Learning to Fly!

Mabel is about to fly today!  Maybe! Check out the Osprey Cam today.  Tory already flew off.  They will return to the nest for a while before migrating south.  They have a long way to go, so after the first few weeks of August they will be gone, heading off to their winter homes in places like Jamaica, Mexico or Florida.

There are a number of osprey nests around the area that you can see from the highway, from the river, and from the bridge.  They are in the tops of trees or on very expensive platforms built specifically for the osprey nests.  Sometimes it takes years for a pair of osprey to build on a new platform.  The pair stay together for their lifetime, though they "vacation" separately when they fly south.  They return to the same nest each year, returning to the same spot within days of each other.

They are fun to watch, so a few places have put cameras close to nests (which doesn't seem to bother them in the least).  Osprey are protected, so there are fines for disturbing them in any way.  Of course, a few years ago when they wanted to paint a small bridge joining the island to the mainland, the State had a problem...the osprey were about to return.  They had to put off painting the bridge for a year while the osprey raised a family.  Then they built a platform, moved the nest there, and put cones on the overhead bridge framework so they wouldn't begin a new nest in the spring.

So go visit the nest in Bremen, Maine!  Hopefully you will get to see her fledge!

Remember when I made that cake...

I still remember the first cake I made all by myself.  I was probably 12?  It was my mom's birthday, and she was at work.  I was the "babysitter" for my three siblings at the time.  I remember thinking what a surprise it would be if I made her a birthday cake to surprise her with when she got home.  I had made frosting with my mother's help before, and I'd seen her make cakes.  Of course, this was before cake mixes and canned icings were available, or at least not in our household.
The cake turned out...interesting.  When I think back on it, it was kind of a disaster, but I remember it as not only funny, but a bit of a creative problem-solving event.  For some reason, I really didn't see it as a disaster.  It was a "go with the flow", "one mistake after another" type of project.  I'm so glad it happened.
Wish Mom was still around today...I'd love to make her another birthday cake!
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She won't be home for hours.
There's time to bake a cake.
It'll be the best surprise,
And not too hard to make.

Just get out some ingredients-
No "packaged cake mix" days-
Some sugar, flour and water;
Sure measure always pays.

Grease pan and heat the oven,
Pour mixture, scrape the sides;
Then put it in the oven
And watch it start to rise.

The sweet smell fills the kitchen
As it sets out to cool.
Begin to make the frosting
But it ends up a pool.

The yellow lumps of butter
Can't hide in chocolate soup
The icing must be poured on
It's more like icky goop.

Tip pan to get the cake out,
Oh, no!  It broke in two!
It makes it worse to fix it,
It's turning into stew!

Quickly arrange the cake clumps,
Pour chocolate butter lumps,
Yell "Happy Birthday, Mom!"
And add surprise-y jumps!

Those mountain cakey mounds
With chocolate soup for icing
Must still have been to my mom 
Just a bit enticing.

I wish I had a picture
Of Mom's birthday mis-cake
And her loving over-look
Of my multiple mistakes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wishing everyone an ever-loving, over-looking mom!

Check out more poetry links at Sherry's place Semicolon .  Thanks for hosting this week's Poetry Friday!