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.