December 31.22: Coping, but barely

The table is set,

pristine and inviting,

the menu unknown

as of this writing.

I wish you, dear reader,

a stew of your choice:

a toothsome concoction

for palate and voice,

words for your writing,

health for your soul,

a generous helping

of vision and goal.

May loved ones and muses

fill all the seats,

your fingers and spirit

be ever sticky from sweets.

 

 

Thanks yet again to photographer S.W. Berg,

and kudos to The Baker’s Wife Bistro,

Hampton, VA, for the ambience.

I wish you a good year next, dear reader, with my thanks for your presence here, and I dig down to the very last remnants of depleted optimism to express some small hope for peace in our future. I do find our little corners of blogdom are places for peace. Plus a few laughs. Some nostalgia. A touch of snark. Communal sighs. The occasional coffee-spit on the keyboard. Thus is peace had, and I’m most grateful for it. Thank you for helping me bungle through 2022!

Maureen

 

January 4.22: Coping

Sometimes we’re the audience,

sometimes we’re on stage;

either way we play a part

intrinsic to the age.

From Gilgamesh to Boba Fett,

the story is the thing

to make the case for why

we’re worth remembering.

The writer needs the reader,

as ear attends to speech;

reciprocally human

symbiotic each to each.

In telling and in listening,

we revere the mighty word;

inked or sung or spoken,

it must be read or heard,

and so the eye and ear

and reverent word creator

combine to tell of us

in storied life’s theater.

 

It seems to me, dear reader, that in our little corner of blogdom we have a certain reverence for the word. I like that.

Sometimes as reader and sometimes as writer, I have here learned about imagining, about thinking and re-thinking, about observing, and, even better, I have laughed. In that regard, 2021 was a good word year. In other places, the word has not been treated so kindly.

I wish us all a good year of words. Because words make life rememberable.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to Wells Theater, Norfolk, VA.

December 31.19

My new year’s wish for you

is handsomely portrayed

upon this rosy wall

in sprightly accolade:

may dancing pigs attend you,

adventures fill your cup,

may loved ones sit beside you

wherever you sip and sup,

may your plates be heaped with kindness,

your spirit taste no hurt,

may laughter season your days,

may there always be dessert.

.

Wishing you a very happy new year, dear reader,

with muse and chocolate ever near.

Thank you for all encouragement and enlightenment in 2019!

And special new year’s thanks also

to photographer S.W. Berg for this splendid wall!

 

 

January 2.19

Botanical high-rise

so long my wait!

your Christmas bloom

is a little late

but maybe you knew

you had my plan bettered:

to open with new year

in your own time unfettered.

 

 

 

Connections: January 2.18

On New Year’s Eve I stood in awe at my back door. The last of 2017 blazed white and stark: sun on snow. Blinding and beautiful. Demanding. Not to be ignored.

“Do you have a lesson for me, 2017?” I asked.

I listened. Nothing. But in the listening, ironically, I saw. The air danced with tiny prisms, minute shards of ice twinkling. Was 2017 winking at me?

Maybe the lessons of 2017 don’t come until 2018.  Maybe never.

But still the imperious, taunting beauty. Isn’t it trying to say something?

I got a camera for Christmas. I was so excited! But the memory card got nothing. I tried it back in my old camera. Still nothing. “Why are there no pictures?” I asked my cameras, old and new. They, like the old year, answered nothing.

That’s a lot of Nothing with which to end a year. Or with which to begin a year.

But the beauty is constant. Radiant and sparkling. Cold and soulless. I cannot show you, dear reader, and I cannot seem to hear what it is saying. It has sealed the old year and encases the new, tight-lipped. I meander from door to window, wishing I could take a picture. Wishing I were 6 so I’d have the problem-solving skills I need for this digital world. But I’m not and I don’t.

So for now some good coffee, a comfy robe, a blog post. A thank-you to all who have left a friendly note here. A determined turning-to, armed with chocolate, so to smite the Nothings.

 

Connections

 

Connections: January 1.17

The Word of the Day, dear reader,

is “handsel,” a new one for me:

a token that comes with a wish

for happy fortuity.

It might be gold coin

or something like this

the point is the smallness

wishes big bliss.

So as you live this year

through castle and rubble

my wish is that this

will hold all your trouble.

Connections