Kenia's challenge

Photobucket photo
by Lady Writer

NOTE IN A BOTTLE

Mom and Dad —

I’m sure you know how much I miss you both.

I think about you every time I think of rivers, streams, lakes or oceans. I think of you when 

I see a fishing rod, a reel, or a creel of bait.

I’m going to put this note in a bottle and throw

it into the outgoing tide, in the place where

your ashes were mixed together and scattered

to the seven seas.

  

Love always,

your Kay
  

Kenia's challenge today for the online writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads is to write a message to someone, then write it in chalk on the sidewalk or a wall, pin it to a tree, post it on a bulletin board, or e-mail it to someone.

I could have put it on our back sidewalk, but I couldn't find any chalk, and I'm sure I'd have been arrested putting it on someone else's wall, and our outside walls are stucco.

So, using my Mac's Pages program, I wrote it out in a nice casual script in dark purple on a pale yellow background, rather like cameo vellum notepaper, but I couldn't get it from there to my blog.

I crashed my iPhoto program three times trying to put it in there.

Finally, I e-mailed it from myself to myself, and copied it here (the font and background were wrong, but I got something else) and my late parents will know it is for them.

For Real Toads: Kenia's challenge: dialogue

Not a real toad

At the writers' group, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Kenia has asked us to write a poem as dialogue with someone else's poem. Now this not an easy challenge, but I'm going to try to respond to it because spoken dialogue is difficult for me today. My throat is so sore, I've almost lost my voice. Talking hurts. My niece phoned me, and was quite happy to do all the talking, and I'm sure a salesperson in a call center somewhere would be happy to talk at me, but that's about it for today, because my husband isn't here.
So, I will try to reply to Ella's question "do you listen?" which can be found by clicking HERE.

❣

when I’ve walked in the evening

I’ve never thought

to listen

for the sound of a falling star

but from now on,

I will.

*

when a dove glides

toward spring’s light

and a feather flutters

to my feet,

I thank her.

*

when a friend asks

do you listen?

I say

I do:

*

I

do,

now.

❣

Thanks, Ella,

and thanks, Kenia!

For Real Toads: Bossa Nova beat, Kenia's challenge

Kenia's challenge for the writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads is inspired by the poems of South America's Vinícius de Moraes whose Bossa Nova song Girl from Ipanema won a Grammy Award in 1965. I remember 1965, I remember the song, and I remember the Bossa Nova—almost primal with its insistent South American beat.

Kenia challenged us to go out, or look out; to observe a person; then write a poem about the person, or write a letter-poem to the person.

*

Song from Out the Window
*
man beyond the window goes walking,

dog beside him, and man is talking,

dog wags, but she doesn’t speak,

she just doesn’t speak—

man is all done up in a scarf now,

trying to keep the cold out somehow.

wind is blowing, whips up the snow,

but dog doesn’t know,

she’s happy to be with him while walking,

wagging her tail as he is talking,

a snow-happy team—

so happy a team.


*
I'm also submitting this post to Hootin' Anni's musical meme.
Anni, you might remember this one!
Thursday's Theme Song.