Monarch Migration

I hurried 

     from five blocks down the street

          equipped with a jar

               and father’s fishnet

so much orange

was more than I expected that August day

the white of milkweed in the field

     fluttered with brilliance of orange

          a cluster of milkweed and butterflies

two or three 

     clung to a single stem

while some rode others

     on their backs

          sun upon their wings 

and few would fly

     as they sucked a clover flower

I stood and picked

     as though they were poppies

          to fill my jar

and only when

     next to the coolness of glass

               did those wings start to pound

Advertisements

No More Liver and Onions

I swore this would not turn into a food blog. My second thoughts and the idea of serving a cookie for breakfast and baked in the reality that I have always sifted the thought of writing a cookbook since meeting my former and present husband, Greg, who taught me how to cook liver and onions. If that sounds like a run-on sentence it probably is, and so also is the desire to be a good cook and to write about it.

The liver and onions is not a metaphor, it was one of Greg’s prime dishes. The sweet aroma of sautéed onions waffling up in the BOQ, followed by the immergence of thin, fleshy organ meat, all cooking away in a cast iron skillet. That was the start of my desire to conquer the art of cooking and relationships. I studied it. I wanted to make it work. I even tried oxtail but to no avail. People sent recipe books for wedding presents so I did have help.

We stewed our lives together in a do-it-yourself house with two children, several dogs and a cat. My skills improved. The heat of the cast iron skillet still on the stove, melts the butter, and I am free to throw in the ingredients, some that cook fast and a few that refine themselves very slowly creating an irresistible taste.

wait for the moment
stepping out of the kitchen
to eat a cookie

Press

set type                                                    spread ink

upside down backwards                      thin layer on the plate

use space                                     ink rollers

know pica                               choice of paper

composing stick                                       pull heavy handle

lay of the nick                                   does all the work

what to say                                         printed word

___________________
dVerse prompt to write a contrapuntal poem – read three ways – column one read down – column two read down – read across each line

In My Dream

In my dream I am swimming again
Through the air
But this time
The air feels like water
It has substance 
I can get a hold on it
And move forward

Monday Muddle

Here’s what to do when you haven’t a clue 

and find yourself stuck in a muddle

It’s been raining all day but that’s okay

go outside and play in a puddle

If that doesn’t send confusion away

forget it find something to cuddle
___________________________________

dVerse prompt on “muddle” quadrille

Writer’s Block

Have writer’s block? Don’t know where to start? Write anything even if you have to write the same thing over and over again. Even if you have to write the same thing over and over again. Even if you have to write the same thing over and over again.

Poem made from the writer’s block writing:

Don’t block

Write

____________

NaPoWriMo prompt a day late but I had writer’s block

Django Fontina

I had been practicing my django fontina for almost a year. There was something about being somewhere or nowhere and dropping the postcard poem addressed to someone I never knew. It started in the summer after my third grade when I entered my name in a postcard pyramid scheme. It was more fun to get than to give. I got postcards of moose in Canada, Lake Okoboji, farmland in Indiana, and cats. My favorite were the cats; cats in baskets, cat in a shoe, cat being fed some milk. At some point the getting and giving stopped and I was left with a pile of postcards, a few scrawled out words from other soon to be fourth graders and all those images.

My adult postcarding has way more words. Most adults like words but are limited by the amount of space they are allowed on the back (or front) of a small piece of thick paper. I enjoy being limited in my words. My getting django fontina is limited because I don’t always know where I am half the time and the P.O. won’t forward.

return to sender

poems sent out to the world

to complete stranger

_____________________

Doing a double take on dVerse prompt on “poem” (How Does a Poem Mean? I think that is a book I studied by John Ciardi) and NaPoWriMo on switching up so in this case it is better to get than to give.