Big Tent Poetry prompt--list poem

Failed 2010 Resolutions

To read my Bible every day
To say my quiet time prevailed
To keep the promises I make
My New Year resolutions failed

To spend more time with friends
And to keep up with what’s emailed
Approach life with a lighter view
My New Year resolutions failed

Make new adventures every day
To organize and keep detailed
Take personal retreats and rest
My New Year resolutions failed

To at last put in a back yard
To often have fresh air inhaled
Eat right and exercise each day
My New Year resolutions failed

Get out acrylics and brushes
My writing time be uncurtailed
Sing more and read a book a week
My New Year resolutions failed

Make comments on others’ poems
New gadgets to all be availed
To keep up with the paperwork
My New Year resolutions failed

My resolution this New Year
(To not be inwardly impaled)
To make no more resolutions
My New Year resolution failed

Big Tent Prompt: based on poem from Referential Magazine

This is based on What I've Forgotten by Cal Nordt


What He Remembered

It had been several years,
since Dad had remembered my name
and the names of my four sisters.
Dad and I were walking in his garden
where he once planted bushels of potatoes,
rows and rows of corn,
tomatoes, beans, onions, peppers
to feed his family.
Now it was a field of grass
and a few persistent flowers
Mom planted years ago.

He stopped suddenly,
gazing into the woods, saying
“They’re playing in there.
They’re going to scratch themselves!”
I waited for him while he called his children.
“Kathy, Judy, Linda, Connie, Karen!”
He said them in birth order.
Then somehow satisfied his girls were okay,
we walked back to the house.

When we stand in heaven,
will all those things
stored and forgotten
just pop to the surface
like our names did
that moment with Dad?

Or will it be more like
a fetus in the womb?--
one day floating around in amniotic fluid,
cozy and warm, and then
in the bustle of birth,
the discovery and learning of life,
those first nine months of being
become not even a memory.

Will heaven be the real thing,
while this life here
will seem like bumping around
waiting to be born?

Big Tent prompt "Enough"

Enough with Stuff

Enough is enough, this stuff, this stuff.
This Christmas I say, it’s enough with stuff.
We’ve loads of stuff, and it’s all enough, let us focus on our love.

We’ve got bling and fluff and it’s all enough.
What’s here today is gone in a puff.
Love endures much longer than stuff.
Focus on our love.

People purchase and give gifts because they feel that they must,
But true love doesn’t get old, sit around and collect dust.

Enough is enough, this stuff, this stuff.
Toys will break and wear out and shoes will scuff.
Stuff will never really be enough,
What we need is good old fashioned Love.