Poetry

Little Hands

Music, Poetry

A song in the air. I wrote the words down, for now.

—

Little hands to wipe the tears away,

When the world gets too heavy to bear alone

Cause you try to carry six months in a day.

And it wasn’t yours to hold anyway.

—

Little hands to clear the dust from your eyes,

When you’re  lookin’ in the mirror

Stead of gazing at the skies.

And you cry.

—

The strength of stone, and hope and spear,

In the tiniest of faces.

The peace that causes hell to fear

In the fragilist of places.

—

Oh, don’t you know?

That little hands can hold of hand of God.

Oh, don’t you know?

That what you carry can sometimes carry you.

A wave of worried lines across your brow

Or the yoke of the Gentle Master’s plow.

So wipe the weight from the corners of your eyes,

And the chambers of your heart.

And bring the light.

Set it on your shoulders.

In the weepings of the night.

—

Oh, don’t you know?

That little hands can hold the hand of God.

Little hands can hold the hand of God.

Summer Glow

Outdoors, Poetry

God made sunsets for the desert.

Yesterday and a picnic, I thanked Him for trees, for shade.

But we made our home on the open grass with a porch for sunsets.

And the shade comes in the evening anyway In a dazzling, sumptuous display.

Recipe for Garden Lemonade:

  1. Place a few frozen strawberries in a glass.
  2. Cover with water. (let sit for 15-20 minutes)
  3. Brew a Lavender Tea concentrate: Steep 1 tsp. lavender (food grade) in ¼ cup boiling water for 5 minutes.
  4. Squeeze ¼ Meyer Lemon into the glass. (enough to make the water cloudy with lemon juice) (if using a more tart variety of lemon, may need to sweeten the drink)
  5. Fill glass with water/more ice or strawberries.
  6. Add about ¼ tsp. lavender water, or to taste.

Sunset Fruit Punch:

Strawberry Kiwi Fruit Tea + Orange Juice, mix to desired taste.

On a Tuesday

Poetry

Like a prairie schooner,
A canvas-walled house
That ripples in the breeze
While weathered wood creaks,
And we sway on the deck,
Singing softly,
Our backs to a flatland sea.

It was here the children danced–
Brother and sister and cousins.
A waltz and a frolic
With one who is their aunt, almost and true.
Our ginger boy,
One tow-headed grin,
A dark-eyed adventurer,
And the girl with soft tawny hair and thoughtful eyes.
A blink ago, they were babies held in arms.
Now they have found their feet
For walking, climbing, dancing.
Twirling happy, dizzy circles with a barefoot bride-to-be.

In four days she’ll wear a white dress and dance again,
And the little ones’ uncle will bring her home
To this house he’s built and the house he’s building,
Under the prairie sky.

We work into the evening, making shelves,
Putting things in their place,
Tired and bleary-eyed.
The phone rings.
Somewhere across the miles and borders
And a warm sea, an old man has died.

Spent his days on the land,
On the farm, raising cows for milk.
Didn’t tell a soul when he fell off that horse.
But everything was not all right,
And they soon enough knew.
Two trips to the hospital.
Prayers for the surgery,
For his head.
Last thing I knew, he was doing better,
Back at home.

Hardly knew him.
Hardly remember meeting him those fifteen years ago.
A different language and a Gulf between.
And now he’s gone.

Four days and a white dress,
While my Abuelita mourns.


Musings from the Junk Drawer, part two

Poetry, Ponderings

Probably wrote this while studying world history and reading Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village.” Except this one wasn’t an assignment. 🙂

Here’s more thoughts from a schoolgirl, the “pink sticky note poem” typed.

Civilization

Each empire has its tyranny,
Each empire has its slaves.
To no avail each empire climbs–
No empire will be saved.

Mighty Rome!
Her roads and conquest
Fell at barbarian hands
And into darkness long
Was plunged, ’til kings
Should rule again.

A civilization thinks it’s new,
Yet mirrors all the past.
The things it knows
Will come and go,
Like dew upon the grass.
Though each to permanency strives,
Only the cycle lasts.

From Babylon and Egypt,
To Persia, Greece, and Rome–
All across the continents,
Empires have grown.

All thinking themselves walled in stone,
The folly herein lies:
No civilization standing now
Will heed the ancient cries–
“You will fall, just like the rest,
So wake from your blind pride.”
She doesn’t hear until duress,
And then, alas, she dies.

We see the dreadful pattern;
We cannot find its cure.
We do not heed the trap at first,
Enchanted by its lure.

And, oh, of the life pastoral,
Of the joy of simpler times!
We would have stayed in fairer climes
Had empire not appeal.

And so we feed the monster,
And gild it with our work.
But small it starts, delights us,
We’re giddy in our mirth
Until it turns and strikes us,
Slinks off to seek rebirth.

Each civilization has its glories,
But all the more its faults.
We look to the past stories,
But we cannot make it halt.

You see, my friend, because we err,
There is no paradise
Until through death we become heirs
To our eternal life.

All that on two sticky notes! I think I’d better keep them for proof. 😉

Musings from the Junk Drawer, part one

Poetry, Word-wrangling

Deep cleaning my room last week yielded a poem, longish, written in tiny print on two pink sticky notes stuck together. Thoughts from a younger me, fifteen or sixteen, maybe.

Knowing I had typed it out once upon I time, I went digging through my files, and found another old poem instead. So here’s some nostalgia for you…

Ode to a Blank Page

By Lia Rodriguez, schoolgirl (Oct. 7, 2012)

A blank page is a world to claim, an open door, a beckon to fill it.
It is a call to make the two-dimensional three-dimensional, to turn lines into life.

A blank page knows no rules. It is an ocean vast and untamed.
“Sail me!” it cries. “Make me into more than ceaseless motion.
Place your vessel upon me, and I shall carry it.”

A blank page, to me, is wood to a carpenter; a slab of marble to a sculptor.
“Make me beautiful,” it pleads. “I shall bear your work well.”

A blank page is a garden. “If you work me,” it promises, “I will yield an abundant harvest.”
Sweat and toil bring sustenance and life.

A blank page is naught on its own. Yet without it, my work is naught.
So in alliance, we give each other significance.

A blank page is a mountain to climb. The journey has its difficulties,
but the view from the summit makes every stumble well worth the pain.

A blank page is a world to claim, an open door, a beckon to fill it.
Behind every full page is an empty page. Beside that empty page, there is a writer.
And behind that writer there is a village, who said, “Sail the ocean, climb the mountain, claim the world.
We would like to see the view from your eyes.”

Thanks for being part of the village!

Porches

Love Like Steel, Poetry

Porches are made for little feet
And tiny fingers playing,
Painting watery lines from a red bucket,
Momentary art on the wood slats.

Porches are made for see-y’all laters
And moonlight talking,
First light watching,
And maybe, lazy napping cats.

Porches are made for time-tested love,
Decades of friendship and weathered wood,
Rocking chair hand-holding on, letting go
Goodbyes and welcome mats.

A Thought of You

Poetry

Thoughts of you are colored glad
Like cantaloupe dripping down my chin;
Warm like sunlight on honey.
 
Thoughts of you are colored brave
Like blue suede and a soldier’s uniform.
 
Thoughts of you are colored sweet
Like Paris bakeries and lilac on an evening breeze,
And music, soft.
 
Thoughts of you are colored true
Like the unrelenting green of a Ponderosa pine.
 
Thoughts of you are colored bright
Like a pearly shell button poised to catch a glowing gleam;
Wonderful, like an alpine lake or a ripe tomato, soft with morning dew.
If delight were a color, it would be a thought of you.

One about Words

Poetry, Uncategorized

Pondering “Hey”

You know, “hey” is an interesting word.

It can be attention-getting. “Hey, over here!”

Or friendly, “Hey, Luke.”

But, hey, it could also be casual.

It can be all manner of things, in every imaginable hue.

A three-year-old whine or Dad’s eyebrows up, “remember what we talked about…”

But here’s the contrast that got me thinking—

“Hey” can have the most cutting edge to it,

Or it can be the softest whisper, a hand on the shoulder,

“It’s all right.”

A simple word, it doesn’t mean much,

So it can mean a lot.

It’s all in the tone, the face, the heart.

Just a thought.

—

Written in Late July—

Words piling up like thoughts in a traffic jam.

Waiting on the light to change.

Be home soon.