Found Poem: Psalm 116

Psalm 116

I love the Lord, 

He heard my voice;

Gracious, merciful Lord,

I offer thanksgiving.

Praise ye the Lord!

by Donna JT Smith

Sunday's Found Poem

Today's found poem is from Psalm 100: 1-5 in the KJV Bible.  It developed nicely into a Haiku today.

 Psalm 100: 1-5

Make a joyful noise,


Serve with gladness, Come singing:

His truth endureth.

I hope you have a wonderful day!  Do something good or fun, or both, that you have fond memories of for a long time - perhaps for even longer than the winter!

Friday

I told you I'd tell you about the Metaphor workshop today, but unfortunately I was only able to attend for about an hour.  I kept hearing an insistent buzz from my cell phone across the room, and finally went to see what was up.  We had a family emergency that I couldn't deal with there.  It would require extended time out of the class, so I had to excuse myself.  Rachel said she would send me the comments on my poem, as well as the comments on the other participants' poems.  So I am awaiting those in snail mail.

Meanwhile this week I helped a friend compile a book in Blurb, and because I was going to help her, I refreshed my skills in Blurbify by writing and assembling the book I was going to make for my 3 year old grand daughter for Christmas.  Here's a page from it:

Chicks

Just a little while ago

Some eggs were slowly hatching

Now you see chicks everywhere

Pecking, eating, scratching!

I am now editing out the dedication page and making it available for sale on Blurb by the end of the day today.  Of course the pictures and text are clearer in real life, since I've pixeled it down some for a web page.  Each page has an image, a short poem, and a question for young reader "audience".  I'm excited to give it to her, and will have to think about ways to separate it from the hubbub of some glittery toy so she notices it!  I should have added a princess page - that was a mistake

Michelle Barnes is celebrating the availability of her second amazing anthology of poems from her Today's Little Ditty blog challenges.  You can pick up a copy here:

The Best of Today's Little Ditty 2016 is available 

 in paperback for $9.95 or as a Kindle ebook for $5.95.

Click HERE to purchase at Amazon.com

It is beautifully illustrated by Teresa Robeson. Read her interview with Teresa here.

Today of course, is Saturday, but because I MEANT this to be posted on Friday, I'm linking it to Poetry Friday where it is being hosted by Jane Whittingham at Raincity Librarian. Go there to connect with lots of great links to poetry and poets!

My Five Word Thankful thought for today:

Brought to You By the Letters

Alphabet's versatility =

messages for posterity

 

Acts 1: 4-11

Acts 1: 4-11

wait for the promise

it is not for you
to know the times
ye shall receive power

and be witnesses
unto the uttermost part of the earth.
when
he was taken up
out of their sight
they looked stedfastly toward heaven
two men in white apparel said
“why stand ye gazing 

up into heaven?
Jesus shall come
as ye have seen him go”

This was an answer to prayer this morning.  I love when that happens.

THIS morning (Monday), I looked at it again, and decided to tweak some more, just for fun and see if I could condense further.  And I like it better now.

Acts 1: 4-11
wait for the promise -
it is not
for us to know
the times -
receive power,
be witnesses
unto the earth;
Jesus shall come
as seen go 

And He is still a help to me.

Metaphor for Today

Today I have a metaphor workshop. As preparation prior to the workshop, this past week we were sent some readings to do about the topic, and copies of all 12 participants' poems.  We are to find positives in each poem, making note of rhythm, line breaks, word usage, etc.

As I read, I am getting a better handle on what they are talking about in writing poems of metaphor.  As I read the other poems, I am getting scared.  Mine is nothing like the others.  The others are more "grown up", more sophisticated; and some I just don't understand.  I feel like the Grandma Moses in a group of Rembrandts!

I'm already thinking of edits to my poem, not Rembrandt quality, but at least more to the point of the workshop!  I have written a couple or three short poems using metaphors that I think may be closer to what I should be trying for.

This growing is painful, or exciting...I'm not sure.  Ha!  I think I had those emotions in childbirth, too!  Now there's the beginning of a metaphor for you.

The Birth of a Poem

She thought she knew
Before it grew;
Excitement brewing,
Thoughts all stewing,
Then came the clue
There'd be pain, too!
Sometimes a flow,
Then times more slow;
But this she knew,
There was joy, too.

Donna JT Smith

I'll let you know how Grandma Moses felt or did next Friday.
Until then, keep perusing the list of poems at Jama's Alphabet Soup for Poetry Friday this week!  Jama's serving some delicious doughnuts!



 

Found Poem 2 Peter 3: 1-28

Sunday's Found Poem from the KJV Bible:

2 Peter 3: 1-28

I stir up 

remembrance:
The Lord will come
as a thief in the night;
heavens shall pass,
earth burned.
What ought ye to be?

Diligent, without spot,

blameless. 

Grow in grace,
and the knowledge 

of Christ - 

to him be glory

for ever. 

By Donna JT Smith, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017

Power

It is Poetry Friday.
It is Poetry Friday whether you have electricity or not.
(Update:  WE HAVE POWER!)  Ours went out at 2:30 am on Monday...see yesterday's post.
The storm we had was called a bomb cyclone.  They are caused by a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure.  I guess it was instigated by Tropical Storm Philippe that merged with a cold front (I'd call it  collision, not a merging...but hey, I'm not a weather expert) right over Maine.
But it is still Poetry Friday.  And on Wednesday, I had time to be at Starbucks with lots of other cravers of WiFi and coffee. I had time at LL Bean's coffee shop on the first day of no power.  They had WiFi and iced coffee and iced tea.  No lights.  Just the essentials.

Here's my storm poem.  It's been fun hanging out watching people starving for the Internet and coffee.

Power

We are tethered
to the wall,
Power surges
feeding all;
Lifeblood's concourse,
should it fall,
As a leach minds
nature's call,
So we'll wander
and we'll crawl
Seeking outlets
in the mall
Ere our iPad
starts to stall
With no power
All's a pall.

by Donna JT Smith


Visit more Poetry Friday offerings with the electric Linda Baie at Teacher Dance!

Spiritual Journey First Thursday

Gratitude

Fourth day with no power.  Still have to be careful of trees resting on wires, closed roads, etc.
I am so sorry for making this long, but I started writing it when I found out the topic, and it so nicely coincided with the storm, and all the things that happened that, though on the surface seemed difficulties, were actually blessings and true reasons for deep gratitude.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colossians 3:15 - And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This should be an easy one.  On the first Thursday of each month Irene Latham has arranged for us to post and be hosted about a topic selected by the host of the day.
Today's hostess is Karen and our topic is Gratitude, the roundup is Here on Irene's site.

This week has been full of reasons to be grateful, to have a heart filled with gratitude.  We started off the week, on Sunday, at church, where people were talking about preparing for the storm.  "What storm?"  I had no idea there was a storm coming.  That is mostly because we don't get much in the way of news or weather now.  We mostly watch Netflix.  There's not fast Internet where we live and we don't get cable.  We had a dish, but there are so many trees and leaves, it wasn't reliable.  So basically we don't get TV, and news is only if we remember to look online.

We checked the Weather Channel on our phones.  And yes, there was a storm coming with hurricane force winds and plenty of rain.  My, my, yes.  Plenty of rain.  Just look at that band of green, yellow, orange and red coming at us enmasse.
I was so grateful people had warned us of the coming storm.  I was grateful for being able to easily check the Weather Channel.

When we got home, we took all items off our porch and tucked the Weber grill in the garage, where it was time for it to go anyway.  Then we waited.  Our generator was on the porch ready, and I asked my husband if it still worked.  He assured me it did and it had gas in it.  We'd used it last winter.  No, we hadn't.  But okay.  It works.

That night, early morning...2:30 am....I awoke to the wind howling and the shuddering of the house as it tried to die.  Off, on, off, on, off...beep (I think the smoke alarms were protesting).  Then on, off, on, off...beep...repeat, repeat, dead.

And it has remained dead.  Four days and counting.

When it was real morning, my husband got up and started the generator...not.  It was dead.  It had gasoline, it started, but it wouldn't continue running.  Hmmm.  Not so grateful about that... but not to worry.  Let's just focus on what we CAN do.

We waited for a few hours before venturing out to see if there was power anywhere else. The dog ran out in the rain, then we wiped her feet and back and fed her.  She was so wiggly grateful!  It would be nice to have coffee and breakfast.  I'd be wiggly grateful, too!

We left the house unprepared for the massive outages, powerlines down and trees crossing the roads.  Our one McDonald's in the area was on generator power, and was open!  Its usually colorful screens were displaying the LG emblem on a black background... and it was packed.  Surrounding towns had discovered our little haven of hashbrowns.

Though it was shoulder to shoulder packed with people waiting for food, everyone was in good spirits.  We thought our son was coming to join us, so we ordered two extra sandwiches.  But he was already trying to weave his way through wires and trees to make it to work, so didn't show.  We gave our sandwiches away, to someone waiting.  How fun it that?  I was thankful to be able to do that.  The recipient was thankful to have them.

Then we began our search for a generator.   We gradually headed inland and north a ways where the storm didn't seem as devastating. Still there were none to be had; others had already been there before us.

Oh the second morning, I happened to text my brother to see how he'd fared and let him know that we had no power and our generator had chosen this time to stop working.  We live on an island with basically one main road that ends literally on a dock into the ocean (and yes, people have driven off the end accidentally in the fog), so when they are looking to restore power, we are not top on the list, since heading our way is a dead end - not on the way to another town until you hit London.

Anyway, he had a generator he was getting rid of!  I should have texted him the day before!  But if I had, I wouldn't have seen my sister at a McDonald's and had a nice breakfast chat with her.  We are only about 45 minutes away from each other, but don't see each other as much as we should.  On our way to get the generator (about an hour south of us), my sister came in one side door, as we came in the opposite side, and we met at the counter.   We both grinned in surprise!  This was neither of our local McD's, and neither of us frequented this one.  So it was a chance meeting, and I was grateful for the opportunity to touch base with her.  She had no power either, and was out in search of food, as we were.

Got our generator...

Then we discovered that the connector we had on the house was an OLD four prong one, and this generator was the newer style four pong.  We could, however, still use an extension cord and directly connect our refrigerator to the generator through our kitchen window.  Sweet!  Our food was all spoiled, BUT we could accommodate our son's freezer full of meat after emptying ours!  I was grateful we could save what he had.  It was a LOT of frozen meat.

The search for an adapter continued.

On Wednesday morning I had an idea - maybe our contractor would have some idea of an out of the way place that would sell generator supplies.  He came up with a local and lesser known place than Lowe's or HD to check. We scurried off to see if they had the part!  But when we got there we were told that the last one had just been sold.  We sat in the parking lot looking on our phones for another option.  Suddenly we had a knock on the window and were asked to come back in the supply store, they'd just found one.  Someone who worked there had evidently set one aside for himself to purchase.  I am so grateful to him.  I hope he has a working generator or power - he probably does, but wanted to make sure he was ready for the next storm. What a blessing!

So much to be thankful for - we got a generator just in time to save all the frozen meat my son had in his freezer, in spite of all odds.  We got a part we needed when it looked pretty bleak.  We were able to keep warm, find gas, find food, talk to strangers as friends.

Being without power does not mean we are powerless.  In some ways it gives us more power than we knew we had.  We call on reserves we had forgotten existed.  We call on friends.  We depend on others.  They call on us.  

Again, I'm sorry this is so long.
Oh, I forgot.  I'm thankful that we bought some remote controlled LED puck lights to try under the cabinet lighting a few days before the storm.  Boy, did they come in handy, and you can carry them to any room for light!  Simple blessings, little things that still give me a grateful heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Philippians 4:11 - Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am content.
Thank you, Lord.
Amen

Sunday's Found Poem

Sunday's Found Poem from the KJV Bible:

Deuteronomy 31: 6-13
 
Fear not,
       God
       will not fail thee.
Be of good courage,
       The Lord
       will be with thee
As long as ye live.

     by Donna JT Smith

Metaphor for My Life

In November I will be going to a writing workshop given by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.  It is over an hour away, but (or should that be "and"?) I think it will be fun.
The workshop is called "The Magic of Metaphor" and is being given by Rachel Contreni Flynn.

For the workshop, each participant must submit one poem for critique, a week before the class.  So here's mine.  Started yesterday, tweaked and expanded this morning.  I think I'm done.  I hope so.  I'm at least finished.

Caught in Cotton

My life, a quilt,
With coffee spilt,
Hand stitched, it holds,
Pieced new and old
Some thinning parts
And softer spots
A mix of hues
And scattered knots.
Most threads are taut
Though some uncaught.
Uneven seams
That capture dreams.
And over there
A little tear.
Or was that a tear?
A tear or tear; it isn’t clear
Unless you hear.
True blue, blood red,
In layers spread.
I wrap myself in
Undone frays,
But shed
Each thread
When comes the day.
Then handed down
In measured folds
Caught in cotton -
Memories told
Pieced together
Daughters to sons
Embellishments
In new quilts spun
But all the while
My fabric’s there;
My life, a quilt,
Had much to share.

Donna JT Smith, October 26, 2017

Enjoy more Poetry Friday with our hostess, Brenda, at Friendly Fairy Tales today.

Genesis1:9-16

It's Sunday 2 of my "Found Poems" in the Bible - a bit of experimental poetry from verses of the KJV - snippets in order as found in those verses.

Genesis 1: 9-16

God made
Heaven
Land, Seas;
Grass, herb,
And tree
Day and night
Signs for seasons,
Two great lights
And
    stars
        also.

By Donna JT Smith

Oh, Pumpkin!

Last week we drove through Damariscotta, where they were having their annual pumpkin fest...

There was a huge crane hoisting a giant pumpkin for a weigh-in and a huge crowd was gathered - well, huge for Maine anyway.  There were a few hundred people there and more roaming the main road to view decorated pumpkins on the sidewalk.

These are not your run of the mill giant Jack-o-Lanterns - these are huge, unglobal fruits that take on personalities.  And the grower of each pumpkin goes with whatever the pumpkin is calling out to them as they decorate it and turn it into the something grand it was yearning to be!
Here are a few examples:

We usually see the Regatta, where they have carved out the inside of the pumpkin to make a boat.  Then they attach a motor and try to ride around the bay with it.  Some work quite well.  We missed that this year, unfortunately.  But if you ever get a chance to see it, I highly recommend this Fest and Regatta!

Oh, Pumpkin!

Oh pumpkin, oh, pumpkin

you're such a fine fellow

a whole lot of orange 

a little bit yellow

sometimes with some green

and tinges of brown

and all will make way

when you roll into town! 

you may be a mermaid

an owl or otter

a tooth with a brush

just ready to totter,

but inside you're all pulp

with some seeds and some goop

and I want to have you

perched out on my stoop

for you are a pumpkin -

finest gourd of the fall

and I like you bestest of 

any and all.

Donna JT Smith

Time for more poetry at A Day in the Life, with Leigh Ann who is hosting Poetry Friday today!

Friday Phew!

Yesterday I got part of a thought with Laura's 15 Words or Less, but didn't get back to share there.  So I'm posting today to go with her awesome image of a rescued owl.

Whooo's

Night mapping,
Mouse trapping,
Feather wrapping,
Talon tapping,
Beak snapping,
Wing flapping,
Day napping?

Owl.

by Donna JT Smith

Yesterday they installed my countertop in the house we are in now. 

I love them!

 With the new steps we built and installed ourselves, 

 the redone driveway,

and the new countertop - it has green, white and touches of garnet -

I don't want to move now! 

Things are coming together here!  I know I'll feel better once the kitchen in Friendship starts to come together, too...another story, another day... it is a long story.

Back to Poetry Friday at Irene's place!

Good Morning, Sunshine!

When I wrote the title, it suddenly came to me that my mother used to say that to me in the morning when I awoke.  I could almost hear her happy voice saying, "Good morning, Sunshine!" to me.  I wonder if I was "sunshine" in the morning, or if she was just trying to "make it so"!  Ah, we'll never know. At any rate, I'm sitting here in the dark of morning, having just brewed some coffee atop our billowing painter's wrap countertop.  And I am going to go have me some...

Note paper cup...I don't have a sink in the kitchen, so we're minimizing the inconvenience of washing dishes when and where we can!

Okay, I had to change to a real cup...I'll go to the trouble of washing it.  Coffee is more welcoming this way!

Welcome, Fall Morning

The dark
Is so much
Later in the morning;
My coffee stares up at me
With its large unblinking brown eye
Wondering why
I would wake it up
Before the sun;
And I have No Answer,
Except that I want
To be there to greet the
New day
As it inches its way
Through the parting leaves of maples,
When it sends shafts of light
Between the birches,
To set their skin aglow;
And finally lifts the
Blackness to reveal the green
Of spruce and hemlock;
I will be there to feel it cut through the cold
Drafts of air to arrive at my
Doorstep
As I stand
With my
Warm welcome home
In my hands.


by Donna JT Smith

Though I don't think we will see much sun today, I'm up and waiting anyway!
Have a wonderful day!

Reflecting on a cup of coffee.

A Kitchen, a Driveway, Some Steps and a Poem

I have been so time aware lately.  Aware that the time for working on the house is drawing to a close - or at least to a time when it is not as convenient to do so.

We are NOT in our new house yet.  You may remember that I said we'd had a hiccup with the first kitchen installation, and they ordered us all new cabinets with redesign in areas that needed tidying up some. Here's a photo from the first set that was returned:

So the next set of cabinets arrived in 8 weeks.  The workmanship on them was horrid this time - like they were in a huge hurry to get them here, so they skipped a few steps like: looking for cracks, making sure the cabinet sides were the same size, making sure they had all the coats of paint on, making the surface smooth, making sure no glue made huge drips at the edges, butting the mitered joints together tightly... I could continue, but you get the picture.  My contractor tried installing a few, but they weren't going together well.  I saw them and immediately cried, of course, because that's what you do when you are at the end of your rope.

We are on our third try for a kitchen.  We are not having a big box store do it this time.  We have a custom cabinet guy who is really excited about the possibilities of this house even though it is a tiny kitchen.  The very fortunate thing is that we ARE getting all our money back on the returned kitchen.  We have been waiting to see if we were going to have to take the matter to arbitration to try to get a refund, but it looks as if we won't now!

Then at the house we are in, we decided to upgrade the kitchen and take the formica countertop out and put in granite and a new sink.  So in order to template for the new granite, my husband and son took out the formica and we are going with a new look until it is installed.

The plastic is because - I think I've mentioned a long time ago that we had a house fire of sorts where a tv burned up in our basement, sending slimy, plastic soot throughout the house, coating everything.  It even came up between the showerstalls and walls, necessitating the removal of the showers.  We also had to refinish all the walls to seal in the soot.  All for me.  I got these uncontrollable coughing jags whenever I went in the house.

So..
The plastic is because the formica countertop's under surface and the plywood on the now exposed ends of the cabinets all have soot on them.  We discovered that when I went into coughing fits again.  I couldn't believe it!  But I ran a wet paper towel across the newly exposed surfaces, and it came up with the familiar gray, black, non-particulate crud that was in the house when I couldn't live there.

The plastic seems to be working.  I'm back in the kitchen for the second time in three days.  I've been either out of the house or holed up in the bedroom with the air purifier on.
I can hardly wait for the countertop to arrive!

Meanwhile...
We took our front steps off to replace them.  That means we don't have a set of steps to get out of our house.  We never did get back steps or a deck for this house (though it was supposed to be in the works years ago - the crew never arrived to do it, and we never pursued it again).

Because it started raining on and off yesterday, we couldn't finish the job.  Ginger had to be lifted off the porch to get out...oh, so confusing to a young and very solid Yellow Lab.  She isn't used to being picked up, let alone carried off high places...we tried making a ramp for her so she could get back up on her own, but nope.   So this morning our goal is to get the steps finished very early so she can use them before breakfast!  We were able to stain them and get the stringers leveled last night, and stain the tops of the steps.  I'm going to stain the bottom sides this morning and we'll attach them still wet.

Did it!  I know, it's a mess out there still...old steps, rock pile, saw... but we're getting there!

I forgot to mention that we got in and out of the house via a ladder and crawling through a space in our railing.  Steps are still damp, so I guess Ginger gets to be carried again.  This stain is supposed to dry in 2 hours, but it seems like it's going to be more like 4 days. Good thing our railing isn't quite legal in most areas - there is just enough space to crawl through!

Oh, and then there's the driveway here.  Trying to get that all squared away before winter to ward off the mudseason that follows winter, and to get ready to sell this place.

And finally, the awareness of time left to ride is setting in.  It is almost time to park the bikes for the winter.  It has been a glorious summer for riding.  I've even been able to ride in for some of my Teacher Mentoring and Certification work this fall.  But each morning it takes longer and longer for the day to heat up enough, and it's earlier and earlier for setting sun to end the day.  
I want more days for this:

Ok, time to finish the steps!  The dog wants out!

A found poem from the above:

so 

time aware -

aware that the time

is drawing to a close 

each morning it takes

longer for the day to heat up

it's earlier for setting sun 

to end the day

I want more

time  

 by Donna JT Smith, 10/7/2017

15 Words and a Dozen More

These were written for Laura Purdie Salas' 15 Words or Less prompt yesterday.
I took this image posted here, but check out Laura's, too!

 ✂✂✂✂✂ 

How many pairs of scissors do you see?

✂✂✂✂✂

Wash Day

I strung my scissors
out to dry;
To breeze’s song they
clipped the sky.

By Donna JT Smith

✂✂✂✂✂

Feather Flurry

Feathers will fly -

When mom’s manic,
Hens panic,
Or scissors go awry.

By Donna JT Smith

Happy Poetry Friday, all!  Our hostess today is Violet Nesdoly!
Find more poetry by checking the links on her site here.

✂✂✂✂✂
 Tomorrow...updates on why I've been scarce and sparsely writing...
Don't read it if you are as busy as I am.  It won't help.

One more poem even though I've had 5 commenters - they will miss this one so I'll repost next Friday.  Don't the scissors seem to be cutting the leaves from the trees?

Scissors

Falling leaves
today;
Scissors shear
the way;
Happily they
spray
A colorfall
display.

by Donna JT Smith

This one's for Carol Varsalona's fall collection, I think.

15 Words or Less and More

As Laura, with her 15 Words or Less noticed this week, the maples are "catching on fire".  Flaming reds are starting to appear on parts of the trees.  Her picture shows a spectacular maple, with a spruce tree in the background - and it, to me, looked like the spruce was gazing in awe of the maple's colorful leaves, perhaps a bit jealously.

On our drive to the northern reaches of Maine yesterday, we saw lots of trees starting to change.  I caught one picture that showed the dark green fir trees on one side of the road, and the deciduous trees in their colorful garb on the other.  And I thought this poem could go with that picture also, and added one more.

 

In Her Shadow

Spruce stands in awe

Of Maple’s draw

And secretly

Desires to be

Her

Not fir.

by Donna JT Smith

I wonder if the spruce will feel different when it is winter,
and she is the one with a bit of color...

Lost Leaves

Spruce has her day

After Maple's array:

Her sheen

Of green

So nice

With ice.

by Donna JT Smith

Now spend some time with other poets by clicking on the links back again at Laura's Writing the World for Kids where Poetry Friday is being hosted this week.

A Traded Line

Today is Poetry Friday, hosted by our Pretty Witty Ditty Lady, Michelle at Today's Little Ditty.

This year my mother's been gone for 14 years, my dad for 16.  They both died in September, so it is a sobering time. Add to it that my father's funeral was on 9/11/01.  We watched the planes as we finished dressing to go to the funeral, all the while wondering if we were safe leaving the house...or safe staying... then deciding it didn't matter.  The world was closed down that day, but I had to keep going.

Then two years later, on September 14, Mom died.  Her funeral was on 9/18/03, the day Washington, DC, was shut down for Hurricane Isabel.  My siblings and I joked about how our parents' deaths were just too much for our country to handle...everything went to pieces when they died.

Every September since 2001 there have been such mixed emotions.  Our wedding anniversary (45 this year) is September 9th.  And of course, it's also the first two weeks of school starting up.  I think it's always good to get all the special days in in a couple weeks of each other if you can arrange it!  Everything is so mixed then, there's no clear, single emotion.  I'm sure that must be good for you in some crazy way.

That is all said as background to the poem today.  When lines were offered for trade, by Linda Mitchell a few weeks ago, I left a line from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm: "full of sparkles the livelong day", and I nabbed "I met Glory after a long day and one long night."... Actually, it picked me.  I didn't use it as an opening line - it's in the middle.  So using the poetic license I hold to do such things, I used it that way.  I can't be arrested. 

So here it is - most of it - it's missing a few stanzas that I have on hold, not sure if I want them.  I'm also not sure of the order of the last three stanzas, but I guess I can switch them some other time.  I was not going to post this, but felt the need to do something with it, so here it is, in honor of Mom:

Meeting Glory

We, her grown up children,
Together all around her,
Talked of times, and laughed a lot
To lovingly surround her.

Hours passed and still we sat
Engaged in reminiscing,
A glorious day till evening came
Then one by one dismissing;

She waved us to our roads back home
With her promise of tomorrow,
But there was no more time to spend
And no more time to borrow.

She waved herself on down the road,
Declaring "I met Glory!"
After a long day and one long night,
She'd started her new story.

No more our mother’s hand to hold,
No more a long, dark night;
Glory holds her hand instead,
And blessedly in Light.

She’d vowed not to be carried
Up the stairs again to church;
True to her word, that Sunday morn
She watched from Glory’s perch.


By Donna JT Smith
July 28, 2017 revised Aug. 15, 2017