Poetry – Page 17 – Sunshine Lane

The Night Is Long

From dusk to dawn
the night is long
and hope seems
far away.

Then out of the dark
comes the mockingbird’s call,
and pink skies
herald the day.

As the sun also rises,
our strength comes along,
and we forget
the dark night
far away.

dewl12.11.14

Thursday Morning

I’m sleepy, but jittery.
Hurting, but not overcome.
Must be a Thursday.

Thursdays are when
Mr. Fibromyalgia comes
out to play.

He’s tired of
being good and
looking nice.

He has been nice,
patient, kind,
tolerant for
three days.

Even good visitors
start to stink
like bad fish
after three days,
right?

The sun is shining,
the air is cool
and bright.

I’m going to
swathe myself
in sunshine,
and ignore
Mr. Fibromyalgia.

I’m tired of him
already. He needs
to find a new
place to play.

©EWLane 9.18.14

Signs of Life

Two feet away from me,
on the other side of the mini blinds
and the glass of a big window,
the sun is shining in that
special slant that only occurs
in the fall months.

The light is so ripe,
I can see the heaviness of
the air and the normally
invisible particles that
float in it everyday.

Sparkles in the air,
the gentle non-threatening
hum of a lazy, fat wasp,
green grass just now
drying from early
morning dew.

Perfect reading weather.
Perfect picnic and
napping weather.
Instead, we’re all
in our little cubes,
staring blankly ahead
at computer monitors,
headphones attached to our
heads, typing, mousing,
while our eyes get dried out
from not enough blinking.

Signs of life can’t be
seen on a computer screen.

Signs of life are outside,
in the heavy sunshine,
seen in the fuzz on the wasp’s back,
the dandelion fluff that makes
us sneeze,
and in the rise of blood to the
surface of our cheeks as we
get pleasantly sun-kissed.

We lie in the grass, reading
a good book, hands linked together,
and dozing off too long on
this lazy, September morn.

This is life.
Real life.
Sweat, sunburns,
and dreams,
while the wasps
drift by.

EWLane 9/16/14

Sunflowers blooming…

Sunflowers blooming,
Rabbit eating green, green grass.
Cold gray skies bring snow.
EWL 9.12.14

Monday Morning Haiku

Train whistle blowing.
Sun is mistily glowing.
Leaf drifts down from tree.
EWL 9.8.14

This is the last of my official gratitude lists. I’m three days behind on sharing these, but that makes them no less true or important to me. I am extremely grateful for all of these things:

1. A feeling of fall in the air with the sun moving to its autumnal position and the air cooling considerably more at night. I love waking up on fall mornings. The light of a fall morning is truly spectacular..
2. Good writers and good writing. I’ve been reading a lot lately and am always so grateful when I find a good writer to read. I’ve been reading old Christian romance novels (Grace Livingston Hill), Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Malala Yousafza’s “I Am Malala,” a book on Quaker holy silence, and poetry of all kinds, but especially a book of Haiku I bought recently.
3. Haiku poetry. I love truly good haiku poetry. They are so simple, but communicate with such grace and beauty. I write haiku poetry, but in no way consider myself a master of the form.
4. Sunnyside Christian Church. I love going there to worship God on Sunday mornings. I enjoy worshipping God on all mornings, but there is something special about gathering with others to worship God together and remembering Jesus’ sacrifice through communion.
5. Good friends, both old and new. People become friends through shared experiences and love. Most of my best friends are ones with whom I have shared both joys and tragedies, laughter and tears.
6. The new chance I get every single morning to be a better person than I was the day before and to follow God’s path of love. God’s love is steadfast and never ceases. It is new every morning!
7. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. That is all I’ll say about that, but I couldn’t even begin this list without it every morning.
8. My wonderful, loving, thoughtful husband, Alan, who is so good to me. I love the fact that we can just look at each other sometimes and laugh together. I love the fact that, though we don’t live in each other’s pockets, we do enjoy just being around each other.
9. My wonderful, loving, gracious, merciful God my Father, Jesus my savior, and the Holy Spirit within me. I would truly be lost without them.

More Gratitude…

Oops! I forgot to list 3 positive gratitudes yesterday so today I’ll do 6!

I’m grateful for:

A little bit of food to stir in my pot. (1)

A little bit of love to warm my heart. (2)

And a little bit of wisdom to know
what’s good or not. (3)

A kind and gentle husband
to love me every day. (4)

A silly little dog who
thinks I hung the moon. (5)

And a loving God to take me home,
but Lord, I hope it’s not too soon! (6)

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday! Spread the joy!

Gratitude…

Rare quiet stillness.
Moon glides over the mountains.
Sun rises gently.
EWL 9/2/14

i’ve been challenged twice to participate in the daily gratitude meme on Facebook. Truth be told, I should be considering all the gifts in this world that I am grateful for every single day of my life. I receive so much more than I give. It’s almost embarrassing how many gifts I receive every day that I don’t even realize I’ve received. Anyway, here are today’s gratitudes;

1. I am grateful for the quiet stillness of early mornings that allows me time and space to draw near to God before the day gets crazy.

2. I am grateful for God in all of His massive glory, wisdom, grace and love. Without Him, I might have survived life’s many turmoils and challenges, but not with the peace and strength He gave me and continues to give me.

3. I am grateful for the bubbly smiles of babies everywhere. I saw 2 yesterday while out and about and their effervescent spontaneous joy made me laugh and smile all over. If only we could be as real and sweet as babies.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and beautiful week!

Red Finches

Red finches noshing,
Singing as they eat and preen,
Early morning feast.

Where have they traveled?
What have they seen?
What are they singing,
While feeding on seed?

It doesn’t matter,
They’re lovely to watch.
I’m happy they visited
my late summer dream.

Art Is the Big Yes

Eyes flutter open and poetic lines flitter across the barely wakened surface of my mind:

“Pray for mercy,

Pray for peace,

Pray for freedom’s
sweet release.

Pray for the day,
Pray for the night,

Never give up hope,

Or give up the fight.

Life may be shortened,
Life may be brief,
But most of us live longer,
Than our deepest of griefs.”

The lines of the poem above did come to me this morning just as I described. I was not awake enough to write them myself. So, where does art come from? Why do we have moments of inspiration that seem to have no origin, but are as real as the air we are breathing? Is art something restricted to only the gifted or talented? Yes, but we’re all gifted or talented in some way!

Marvin Bell said, “Much of our lives involves the word ‘no.’ In school we are mostly told, ‘Don’t do it this way. Do it that way.’ But art is the big yes. In art, you get a chance to make something where there was nothing.”

Marvin Bell was a poet, but I think this applies to many things. Painting, drawing, graphic arts, photography, writing, music, cooking, writing code for software, inventing, homemaking, architecture, design, fashion, crafting, and on and on the list goes. My point is, we all create art in some form or other. Whenever you get out of the box and make something from nothing, you are an artist. You are fully alive. Art is, indeed, the big yes. Make a lifetime of somethings where, before you came to be, there was nothing.