PAD 20 from an earlier line

Still praying for grandkids

I’m suffering from grandkid envy

Kids, get with the program

PAD 20 from earlier line

Cease pounding on yourself with words

Treat yourself like a friend

Your words like hammer

Do you want to build a house?

Or beat your friend black and blue.

PAD 20 from an earlier line, rubaiyat

When Things Slow Down

When things slow down and we’ve more time

I’ll write some more in prose and rhyme

And travel off to parts unknown

Explore some mountains that we’ll climb

We marvel at how time has flown

And sickness our fine plans have thrown

Now time is taken in his care

And where we’re headed seems unknown

Somehow it just does not seem fair

A little more than we can bear

We thought we’d have such time to spare

At least we now have time for prayer

PAD 20 Using a line from a poem written earlier

Building a Better World

To build a better world, kindness is the glue,

not the watery wimpy type used in gradeschool,

but the kind a friend of mine used on a teacup

and had to go to the ER to remove it from her finger.

The kindness that binds people together,

inciting them to reach out and give selflessly.

The kindness that knows no strangers.

The kindness that goes the extra mile.

The two-part-epoxy-type of kindness

that is strong, flexible, and doesn’t let go

in harsh elements or abrasive situations.

That’s what will help build a better world.

PAD 19 blank thread, Hir a Thoddaid

Rescue

The thread in her life became tangled

Her feelings were mish-mashed and mangled

Regardless of how her views angled

She began to feel hopelessly strangled

Then he came along and sang her his song

And he stirred up feelings newfangled

PAD 19 blank thread, haibun

Dangling Thread

I hung on to the dangling thread of sanity. Moving forward knowing God was there to catch me, but thinking of the great distance to fall if He let me. But somehow when my world seemed to unravel the thread held. He didn’t let me fall.

Trusting God

Relying on faith but

Sight feels better

PAD 19 blank thread, Gwawdodyn

Red Thread

She stared at the red thread in her jeans

It embarrassed a girl in her teens

Her mother dead, left only red thread

She would find some in blue by all means

PAD 18 temptation

Desires by Connie Peters

After "I Ask You" by Billy Collins

A Golden Shovel poem

Sometimes I wonder what

I would have if I could have anything. I picture it like a scene

from a movie. I would be thin and rich and riding along in my sports car. I would

be cruising by the ocean on a spring day. I

would have the radio turned up, not a care in the world. I would want

a companion or two, perhaps a different one every day from past friends to

my current relationships. I would be

happy and occupied in writing things I want to write and enveloped

in a life that’s fun and fulfilling. I’d go kayaking in
the ocean and have beach parties in the sand with guitars playing and more

delicious food than I could possibly eat. But better than

that would be living whatever life, knowing God designed me to do this.

PAD 18 temptation

Chocolate Calling

Chocolate calls

From the cupboard

Getting louder

And louder

Till I succumb

PAD 18 temptation

Thou Shall

It’s not so much doing the don’ts that tempt me,

but not doing the dos.

Sometimes I don’t feel like

Caring

Loving

Praying

Giving

Serving

Forgiving,

Persevering

Being Patient

           Kind

           Gentle

           Thankful    

Sometimes I’d just as soon hide away

and do nothing.

I have to rely on Jesus

like 12-steppers depend

on their “Higher Power.”

PAD 17 love

Haunts

I think of those boyfriends of the past,

how we spent so much time together.

Inseparable. Crazy about each other.

Seems odd how two people can be so close,

then so far apart.

I don’t know what their lives are like.

They are no longer a part of my life.

But they are still a part of me.

They each left a little piece of themselves

for me to carry around till the end of time.

PAD 17 love shadorma

I love You

You are IT for me

Way, truth, light

Hope, joy, peace

Sending You hugs and kisses

Thank You, loving God.

PAD 17 love

Not Peas and Carrots

We’ve loved each other for nearly forty years,

but we don’t go together like peas and carrots.

I like to travel, he likes to stay put.

I’m a writer, he doesn’t like to read.

I like to do things, he likes having done them.

I have dreams and plans, he goes with the flow.

We’ve gone through all our wedding vows;

good times or bad, sickness or health,

richer or poorer, better or worse or worser still.

We’re more like oil and vinegar, best when shaken.

PAD 16 Favorite

No-Bake Cookies

Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies—No bake,

I do not make them for fear of eating myself sick.

I’ll bake other cookies, muffins or cake.

Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies—No bake,

They’re so good they’re bad—No fake.

Eating them is one habit I couldn’t kick.

Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies—No bake.

I do not make them for fear of eating myself sick.

PAD 16 favorite

Favorite Names

My nephew’s wife is having a baby.

Family members are putting possible names in the hat.

Figuring they were cool up-to-date millennials,

I perused popular names for ideas.

I suggested Olivia, Jasmine, Elena, Mia, Jewel, Ruby and Emily.

My sister reminded me that they might have a boy.

Why didn’t I think of that? Prophetic? We’ll see in August.

So I picked Jaxon, Nathan, Levi, Jeremy, Xavier and Zachary.

Then she told me they are going for traditional names like

Joe, David, John, Mary, Ann and Sarah.

Oh, well. Still praying for grandkids.

Maybe someday I’ll hold a baby Xavier or Jasmine.

PAD 15 metaphor

Tightrope Walker

I am a tightrope walker

Trying to stay on the narrow way

But a clumsy clown

You are my balance.

You are my center of gravity.

You are my safety net.

PAD 15 metaphor

She was cellophane.

Simple, transparent, keeping things fresh.

Strong in some ways, easily torn in others.

PAD 15 metaphor

I am a Fencepost

One man actually told another in my hearing,

“This is between you and me and the fencepost.”

I was the fencepost.

Strong, quiet, easily overlooked

Keeping out the predators

Keeping in what needs protection

PAD 14 report

Vacation Report

Who: Two sisters

What: Will be traveling

When: May

Where: Scotland and Ireland

Why: Retirements celebration

How: By taking a deep breath and going for it.

PAD 14 Report Fibonacci

Bags

Town

Southwest-

Wyoming

Four hundred plus folks

I step on the gas as we pass

Afraid, for some reason, it will capture and keep me.

PAD 14 report

My Sister to the Rescue

Yesterday, my sister awoke

to a busy day of travel plans,

helping her husband on a project

and making phone calls, when she heard a knock

on her door and opened it to her neighbor

saying an opossum was stuck in her fence.

She called the animal control warden

whom she assisted by moving a board

while he carefully caged the opossum,

a mama, as evidenced by her babies,

some in her pouch and one, on the ground,

which happily nursed when reunited with Mom.

Mom Opossum didn’t make a fuss,

apparently relieved to be rescued

from her uncomfortable predicament.

She was later released to a nearby woods.

Just when you think your to-do list is too full

an opossum gets stuck in your fence.

PAD 13 insect shadorma

Honeybees

As a kid

I would run barefoot

All summer

To my aunt’s

Through clover and step on bees

Then I’d be hopping

PAD 13 insects

Butterflies

It doesn’t seem right

that a butterfly is an insect.

It’s not creepy or crawly,

but more like a living flower.

How blessed you feel

when one lands on your shoulder,

unlike other bugs that send you

into a spastic dance or full retreat.

No, it just doesn’t seem right.

PAD 13 insect, epitaph

Fly Epitaph

Here lies a persistent fly that once buzzed about.

He couldn’t understand why I wanted him out.

PAD 12 lament, elegy

Lamentation

I think of my parents,

aunts and uncles,

grandparents,

other aged ones

who already passed on

without relating

their stories.

I lament my lack

of curiosity.

PAD 12 lament

Missing Uncle

I was twelve when you left,

one of my favorite uncles.

You were teaching me

to play guitar at the time.

I never have learned guitar.

I married a man who plays, though.

Sorry you didn’t get to meet him,

or my children or any of your

great nieces and nephews.

You fell in love with a married woman

and ran off with her.

I have my doubts that she was worth it.

PAD 12 lament

Too Congenial

In our thirty-eight years of marriage

I wondered what it would take

to get you to go to the doctor’s.

Now, I know. Two strokes later,

I’m so sorry I didn’t insist.

It may have involved

throwing a temper tantrum,

going on strike against you,

threatening to leave,

but now I wish I would have.

Taking your blood pressure,

hours of speech, occupational

physical therapies, doctor visits,

and monitoring medicines  

has become our daily life.

At times, I need to be more demanding.

PAD 11 warning

Gambling Eternity

If you persist in unbelief be sure

that you’re okay with creation in all

its complexities from neutrinos

to galaxies just happened. You need to be

confident that the three hundred prophecies

Jesus fulfilled were mere coincidence,

that His predictions of the future being

fulfilled in the morning news is just a fluke.

Be certain that Jesus was just kidding when

He said, “I am the way and the truth

and the life. No one comes to the Father

except through me” (John 14:6 NIV)

and that “For God so loved the world that he gave 

his one and only Son, that whoever believes 

in him shall not perish but have eternal life

(John 3:16 NIV) is pie in the sky. Because

you’re betting your eternity on it.