Wow! Can you believe it is almost December 2017? Next Sunday begins Advent already. It is particularly hard for us to believe here in the deep southwest as the weather has been more like early fall. It is warm and sunny, with cooler nights. Makes it hard to know what to wear. This morning when I left for church at 7:15 AM it was not even 40 degrees, but this afternoon it will be at least 75.
My daughter Lara came down from Denver to spend Thanksgiving with me. We had a good time together, as always. Her visits are always much too short.
I will be starting a round of physical therapy this coming week. This time I’ve been given a very experienced therapist. If he cannot help me with the back pain, then no one can. He explained to me that because of my long history of disk deterioration, I will likely never be pain free. I knew that, really, as I have been through just about every therapy known….shots, surgery, etc. and still it continues to worsen. I deal with it by resting a lot, using ice or heat, and my TENS unit. I hate that I can only walk short distances or stand for short periods of time, but that is my lot.
I guess I’ll start my Christmas card list this afternoon. I used to have all my cards mailed to Canada right after Thanksgiving. This year I am dragging.
So……..here are 3 more poems that I have written during 2017:
This one was written last January, not recently !
FAIRY FROST
This morning was cold and when
I went to my car, ready
to scrape ice off the windshield…
surprise! no sheet of ice was there.
Instead, a frosty fairy had
painted lace designs of winter flowers,
intricate, ethereal loveliness for me
to marvel at. I wanted to leave it there,
it seemed unfeeling to scrape it away
but Sun was out and his pragmatic rays
would deny the fairy art in time
and I had to see to drive away.
METER
There is rhythm in the metronome of life,
a swing dance between birth and death,
learning and forgetting,
joy and loss,
comfort and pain.
As music flows in meter
it measures the beat of our lives—
often the steady four-four of day to day,
sometimes the smooth three-four of a waltz,
occasionally the cut time syncopation
of the unexpected,
and we dance to them all.
This next one is all about my bird phobia. I think it may have begun with my Dad’s chickens. Birds, alive or dead, give me the creeps.
PANIC
Oh no!
How did you get in
the house?
Please, please
see the open door.
You can’t be here.
Oh no!
Now you’re behind
the hutch.
My fear is rising,
tears,
gasping breaths,
panic!
I cannot leave
the room….
you might move
and I wouldn’t
know where you were.
I must stay
and stare.
I shake
and burble.
Hours pass.
I’ve dissolved
into a useless
life form staring,
unable to move.
At last, my
rescuer arrives.
A husband who
chirps cheerfully,
“It’s only a bird!”
ONLY a bird!
and my
inexplicable
state of phobia.