For five years or so
I sought and found poetry
Alive all around
Once fertile places
Barren of inspiration
Poetic muse fled
World news tells stories
Unjust uses of power
Death and climate change
Writing unconquered
More essential than ever
Has stories to tell
My bailiwick calls
Ordinary life a poem
Alive within self
My life no longer balances
Clutter on my calendar
Stifles what I care about
Time to sort the mess
Addition equals frittering
Subtraction brings tranquility
Peace and beauty come with space
I can do the math
Give me the moon in a darkened sky
Sunbeam silhouettes on my wall
Raindrops’ gleam on windowpane
Leaves attune to season’s change
Clear darkness of the sky
Last night a quarter moon
Summer creatures sing a serenade
At dawn a fog rolls in
Only light the yellow beam
Shining from the hardware store
Blue water of the swimming pool
Now obscured for winter months
By tarpaulin just as blue
I welcome the change
Summer a hard and anxious time
Fear for health of son’s beloved wife
With now the worst behind
As a family they move on
Life reshaped but ever closer drawn
I return to simpler ways
Where poetry lives in daily life
And remains my nourishment
When first I began posting crone chronicles
Enriched by Word Press 101 prompts
I sat at my computer catching ready-made stories
Tumbling from a lifetime of rich memories
Lovely to go back and re-member the past
Seems as if now life around me is changing
Much new is good, much more terrifying
Past seems an irrelevant line drawn in the sand
The who I was then needs refurbishment
What I live and write now creates past for my future
Exploring the poetry of everyday life
More easily said than done these days
Time to reset and center myself
Face facts that changes warping the world
Seem to be settling in for a long haul
Poetry is not dead Heaven forbid
This lifeblood of humans flows deep in our veins
Hidden beneath horrors spewed out in the news
Goodness and glory in shapes still unseen
Kindness and God’s grace yet will prevail
My blog announces I’ll explore
The poetry of every day
Newly I have found alas
My everyday has changed
First I blamed my muse
Lazy creature distant
Unavailable to inspire
Or to awaken me
The tree outside my window
And the view
Clouds in dawning sky
Tell me no tales
Family life is bubbling
A stew of new developments
Demands attention
And my energy
Changes unpoetical I think
Call for language spoken best in prose
Stories full of life and real
Ah, my muse awaits me just off stage
My son Donovan chose these words as the title of a book containing the first two years of my Cronechronicler posts that he collected and had published in 2016. The poet David Whyte used them in his poem Journey in his book The House of Belonging. Whyte writes that “sometimes it takes a great sky to find that small, bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart”.
For two years more I have searched that sky and found inspiration in the poetry of everyday life. I have found freedom to trust my muse and the words that come to me as I look at the colors of the dawn clouds or enjoy watching a squirrel couple build its nest. I hope in time to collect my Haiku and create another book. For interested readers my original book can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Enscribing-Heavens-This-Side-cronechronicler/dp/1530407133.
Holidays over
Return of reality
Time for stock-taking
People-filled moments
Exciting rich nourishment
Stuffed me to bursting
Moorings abandoned
Flying carpet crash-landed
Lost touch with myself
Crave balm of silence
Time for quiet introspection
Awaiting my words
Holiday hustle
Dawn to dusk rich commotion
Signs of the season
Good food and shopping
Joy of friends and loved ones
Bright lights on the tree
Lovely potpourri
Overpowers my poet
She’s hibernating
Poet will awake
When dark depths of winter come
And stillness returns
Charmed by the brief form
Inspired by life’s happenings
Wrote many Haiku
Then I awoke to
Expanded definition –
A “human” Haiku
Perfect description
Poetry I’ve been writing
Instead is Senryu.
With appreciation to Colleen Chesebro who teaches me good things
